But who should the
writer be, to have her billet thus enclosed with Prestongrange's?
And of all wonders, why was it thought needful to give me this
pleasing but most inconsequent intelligence upon the Bass? For the
writer, I could hit upon none possible except Miss Grant. Her
family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes and even
named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in the
habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff,
I supposed, at my rusticity. No doubt, besides, but she lived in
the same house as this letter came from. So there remained but one
step to be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should
have permitted her at all in an affair so secret, or let her daft-
like billet go in the same cover with his own. But even here I had
a glimmering. For, first of all, there was something rather
alarming about the young lady, and papa might be more under her
domination than I knew. And, second, there was the man's continual
policy to be remembered, how his conduct had been continually
mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in the midst of so
much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship.
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