Page:Jeanie Deans and the lily of St. Leonard's.pdf/5

 5 While Butler was attending the university the Laird of Dumbiedikes, who had no leasure either in active sports or in society, l-ed to en! his daily saunter by calling at the cottage of Woodend. On sue' occasions, Dumnbiedlikes, being a man of slow ideas and confused utter ance, used to sit for half an hour, with an old lace hat of his fathers on his head and an empty tobacco-pipe in his mouth, with his eyes follow- ing Jeanie, or the lassie" as he called her, from one corner of the house to the other, as she went through her daily domestic labours. It is not to be supposed, that, as a father and a man of sense, the constant direction of the laird's eye towards Jeanie was altogether un- noticed by David Deans This circumstance, however, made a much deeper impression upon another member of his family, a second help- mate to wit, whom he had chosen to take to his bosom ten years after the death of his first wife. This good lady, after having been some years married, presented Donce Davie with an. other daughter who was named Euphemia, by corruption, Effie. t was then she began to grow impatient at the slow pace at which the laird's wooing proceeded. he therefore tried every female art within the compass of her skill to bring the Laird to a point, but had the mor- tification to perceive that her efforts only scared the trout she meant to catch. Reuben in the meantime having finished his studies at the university, had obtained his li- cense as a pre cher ; but this not leading o any immediate pre'erment, he found it necessary to return to the cottage at Beer-heba. After hav- ing greeted his aged grandmother, his first visit