This was all very well; but the trouble was that Mr.
Balfour in his letter of recommendation had condescended on a great
deal of particulars, and never a word of any sister in the case. I
could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; and viewing me over
the rims of a great pair of spectacles--he was a poor, frail body,
and reminded me of an infirm rabbit--he began to question me close.
Here I fell in a panic. Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I),
suppose he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I
shall have a fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by
disgracing both the lassie and myself. Thereupon I began hastily
to expound to him my sister's character. She was of a bashful
disposition, it appeared, and be extremely fearful of meeting
strangers that I had left her at that moment sitting in a public
place alone. And then, being launched upon the stream of
falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in the same
circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service; adding
some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-health
and retirement during childhood.
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