Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this
pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was ashamed for a great while
to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I left our chambers pretty
bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw, and I had
light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.
By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the
door with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which
to read myself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as
good as to my bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose
innocence was her peril. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the
lies to which I was constrained, had already given me a sense of
how my conduct must appear to others; and now, after the strong
admiration I had just experienced and the immoderacy with which I
had continued my vain purchases, I began to think of it myself as
very hazarded. I bethought me, if I had a sister indeed, whether I
would so expose her; then, judging the case too problematical, I
varied my question into this, whether I would so trust Catriona in
the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to which made my
face to burn.
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