Halket the beautiful Duchess of Grammont would have been as nothing compared to simple Mary Brown.  All which is very amiable and very necessary; for if it had been so ordained that people should feel the exquisite sensations of love in proportion as they were beautiful, or rich, or endowed with talent (according to a standard), our world would have been even more queer than that kingdom described by Gulliver, where the ugliest individual is made king or queen.

Things continued in this very comfortable state at the old inn in St. Mary’s Wynd for about a year, and it had come to enter into the contemplation of Will that upon getting an increase of his wages he would marry Mary, and send her to live with her mother, a poor, hard-working washerwoman, in Big Lochend Close; whereunto Mary was so much inclined, that she looked forward to the day as the one that promised to be the happiest that she had yet seen, or would ever see.  But, as an ancient saying runs, the good hour is in no man’s choice; and about this time it so happened that Mr. Peter Ramsay, having had a commission from an old city man, a Mr. Dreghorn, located as a planter in Virginia, to send him out a number of Scottish horses, suggested to William that he would do well to act as supercargo and groom.  Mr. Dreghorn had offered to pay a good sum to the man who should bring them out safe, besides paying his passage over and home.  And Mr. Ramsay would be ready to receive Will into his old place again on his return.  As for Mary, with regard to whom the master knew his man’s intentions, she would remain where she was, safe from all temptation, and true to the choice of her heart.  This offer pleased William, because he saw that he could make some money out of the adventure, whereby he would be the better able to marry, and make a home for the object of his affections; but he was by no means sure that Mary would consent; for women, by some natural divining of the heart, look upon delays in affairs of love as ominous and dangerous.  And so it turned out that one Sabbath evening, when they were seated beneath a tree in the King’s Park, and William had cautiously introduced the subject to her, she was like other women.

“The bird that gets into the bush,” she said, as the tears fell upon her cheeks, “sometimes forgets to come back to the cage again.  I would rather hae the lean lintie in the hand, than the fat finch on the wand.”

“But you forget, Mary, love,” was the answer of Will, “that you can feed the lean bird, but you can’t feed me.  It is I who must support you.  It is to enable me to do that which induces me to go.  I will come with guineas in my pocket where there are now only pennies and placks; and you know, Mary, the Scotch saying, ‘A heavy purse makes a light heart.’”

“And an unsteady one,” rejoined Mary.  “And you may bring something else wi’ you besides the guineas; maybe a wife.”

“One of Mr. Dreghorn’s black beauties,” said Will, laughing.  “No, no, Mary, I am too fond of the flaxen ringlets, the rosy cheeks, and the blue eyes; and you know, Mary, you have all these, so you have me in your power.  But to calm your fears, and stop your tears, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”