44 The Little Minister

Ay, sic a differ doesna suit wi? common folk, but
of course earls can please themsels. Rintoul’s so
fond o’ the leddyship ’at is to be, that when she
was at the school in Edinbury he wrote to her ilka
day. Kaytherine Crummie telled me that, and
she says aince you’re used to it, writing letters is
as easy as skinning moles. I dinna ken what
they can write sic a heap about, but I daur say
he gies her his views on the Chartist agitation and
the potato disease, and she’ll write back about the
romantic sichts o’ Edinbury and the sermons 0’
the grand preachers she hears. Sal, though, thae
grand folk has no religion to speak o’, for they’re
a’ English kirk. You’re no’ speiring what her
leddyship said to me?”

“What did she say?”

“Weel, you see, there was a dancing ball on,
and Kaytherine Crummie took me to a window
whaur I could stand on a flower-pot and watch
the critturs whirling round in the ball like teeto-
tums. What’s mair, she pointed out the leddy-
ship that’s to be to me, and I just glowered at
her, for thinks I, ‘Take your fill, Sanders, and
whaur there’s lords and leddyships, dinna waste
a minute on colonels and honourable misses and
sic like dirt.’ Ay, but what wi’ my een blinking
at the blaze o’ candles, I lost sicht o’ her till all
at aince somebody says at my lug, ‘ Well, my
man, and who is the prettiest lady in the room?’
Mr. Dishart, it was her leddyship. She looked
like a star.”

“ And what did you do?”

“The first thing I did was to fall aff the flower-
pot; but syne I came to, and says I, wi’ a polite