The other was fair, with a massive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold, and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashes, took the luminous effect peculiar to that rare beauty.
Their short petticoats revealed a neat ankle, and a leg with a noble swell; for Nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who, with their airy-like sylphs and their smoke-like verses, fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties.
_They are,_ my lads.--_Continuez!_
These women had a grand corporeal trait; they had never known a corset! so they were straight as javelins; they could lift their hands above their heads!--actually! Their supple persons moved as Nature intended; every gesture was ease, grace and freedom.
What with their own radiance, and the snowy cleanliness and brightness of their costume, they came like meteors into the apartment.
Lord Ipsden, rising gently from his seat, with the same quiet politeness with which he would have received two princes of the blood, said, "How do you do?" and smiled a welcome.
"Fine! hoow's yoursel?" answered the dark lass, whose name was Jean Carnie, and whose voice was not so sweet as her face.
"What'n lord are ye?" continued she; "are you a juke? I wad like fine to hae a crack wi' a juke."
Saunders, who knew himself the cause of this question, replied, _sotto voce,_ "His lordship is a viscount."
"I didna ken't," was Jean's remark. "But it has a bonny soond."
"What mair would ye hae?" said the fair beauty, whose name was Christie Johnstone. Then, appealing to his lordship as the likeliest to know, she added, "Nobeelity is jist a soond itsel, I'm tauld."
The viscount, finding himself expected to say something on a topic he had not attended much to, answered dryly: "We must ask the republicans, they are the people that give their minds to such subjects."
"And yon man," asked Jean Carnie, "is he a lord, too?"
"I am his lordship's servant," replied Saunders, gravely, not without a secret misgiving whether fate had been just.
"Na!" replied she, not to be imposed upon, "ye are statelier and prooder than this ane."
"I will explain," said his master. "Saunders knows his value; a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount."
"My lord, my lord!" remonstrated Saunders, with a shocked and most disclamatory tone. "Rather!" was his inward reflection.
"Jean," said Christie, "ye hae muckle to laern. Are ye for herrin' the day, vile count?"
"No! are you for this sort of thing?"
At this, Saunders, with a world of _empressement,_ offered the Carnie some cake that was on the table.
She took a piece, instantly spat it out into her hand, and with more energy than delicacy flung it into the fire.
"Augh!" cried she, "just a sugar and saut butter thegither; buy nae mair at yon shoep, vile count."
"Try this, out of Nature's shop," laughed their entertainer; and he offered them, himself, some peaches and things.
"Hech! a medi--cine!" said Christie.
"Nature, my lad," said Miss Carnie, making her ivory teeth meet in their first nectarine, "I didna ken whaur ye stoep, but ye beat the other confectioners, that div ye."
The fair lass, who had watched the viscount all this time as demurely as a cat cream, now approached him.
This young woman was the thinker; her voice was also rich, full, and melodious, and her manner very engaging; it was half advancing, half retiring, not easy to resist or to describe.
"Noo," said she, with a very slight blush stealing across her face, "ye maun let me catecheeze ye, wull ye?"
The last two words were said in a way that would have induced a bear to reveal his winter residence.
He smiled assent. Saunders retired to the door, and, excluding every shade of curiosity from his face, took an attitude, half majesty, half obsequiousness.
Christie stood by Lord Ipsden, with one hand on her hip (the knuckles downward), but graceful as Antinous, and began.
"Hoo muckle is the queen greater than y' are?"
His lordship was obliged to reflect.
"Let me see--as is the moon to a wax taper, so is her majesty the queen to you and me, and the rest."
"An' whaur does the Juke* come in?"
* Buceleuch.
"On this particular occasion, the Duke** makes one of us, my pretty maid."
**Wellington "I see! Are na yeawfu' prood o' being a lorrd?"
"What an idea!"
"His lordship did not go to bed a spinning-jenny, and rise up a lord, like some of them," put in Saunders.
"Saunders," said the peer, doubtfully, "eloquence rather bores people."
"Then I mustn't speak again, my lord," said Saunders, respectfully.
"Noo," said the fair inquisitor, "ye shall tell me how ye came to be lorrds, your faemily?"
"Saunders!"
"Na! ye manna flee to Sandy for a thing, ye are no a bairn, are ye?"
Here was a dilemma, the Saunders prop knocked rudely away, and obliged to think for ourselves.
But Saunders would come to his distressed master's assistance. He furtively conveyed to him a plump book--this was Saunders's manual of faith; the author was Mr. Burke, not Edmund.
Lord Ipsden ran hastily over the page, closed the book, and said, "Here is the story.
"Five hundred years ago--"
"Listen, Jean," said Christie; "we're gaun to get a boeny story. 'Five hundre' years ago,'" added she, with interest and awe.
"Was a great battle," resumed the narrator, in cheerful tones, as one larking with history, "between a king of England and his rebels. He was in the thick of the fight--"
"That's the king, Jean, he was in the thick o't."
"My ancestor killed a fellow who was sneaking behind him, but the next moment a man-at-arms prepared a thrust at his majesty, who had his hands full with three assailants."
"Eh! that's no fair," said Christie, "as sure as deeth."
"My ancestor dashed forward, and, as the king's sword passed through one of them, he clove another to the waist with a blow."
"Weel done! weel done!"
Lord Ipsden looked at the speaker, her eyes were glittering, and her cheek flushing.
