It is not necessary to inform the patient reader, who has proceeded so far with me, that up to the period of my visit to Scotland, I had but few opportunities of learning the etiquettes that make life genteel. He need not, therefore, be surprised to hear, that I felt myself often in an ill-fitted coat among the society to whom I had the honour of being introduced at Chucky Stanes by Miss Beeny Needles. In sooth to say, I was not fashioned, nor educated, nor connected for associating with fine folk; but my son being graceful, spirited, and gallant in his bearing, I considered it my duty to submit to many fasheries on his account, especially as, in the course of nature, he would come to a creditable inheritance.

But although I had not the advantages of dancing-school breeding, I had yet an eye in my head both for remark and comparison; by which I was enabled to discern, that banqueting was not the element of the gentry of that royal borough. The first assurance I had of this, was on the occasion of supping with Miss Beeny on the trouts, dressed as trouts of the Tweed should be.

She had every thing most genteel; fine white paper roses round the two tall candles, a stiffly starched tablecloth, glittering like satin, and rustling like silk;—and she proved better than her promise; for, in addition to the trouts, she had received in the course of the afternoon a brace of grouse, which emboldened her to invite two strangers to be of the party. This was a touch of the superior indeed! Four gentlemen all at once at supper, was a handling, the like of which Miss Beeny had not been engaged in since the death of her father, past Provost Needles.