“You surely did not come in these daft-like garments all the way from Edinburgh?” asked her Auntie Bell, when the wig had been removed and Bud’s youth was otherwise resumed.

“Not at all!” said Bud, sparkling with the success of her deception. “I came almost enough of a finished young lady to do you credit, but when I found there was nobody in the house except Kate, I felt I couldn’t get a better chance to introduce you to The Macintosh if I waited for a year. I told you we’d been playing charades last winter at the school, and I got Jim to send me some make-up, the wig, and this real ’cute old lady’s dress. They were all in my box to give you some fun sometime, and Kate helped me hook things, though she was mighty scared to think how angry you might be, Aunt Bell; and when I was ready for you she said she’d be sure to laugh fit to burst, and then you’d see it was only me dressed up, and Footles he barked, so he looked like giving the show away, so I sent them both out into the garden and sat in a stage-fright that almost shook my ear-rings off. I tell you I felt mighty poorly sitting there wondering what on earth I was to say; but by-and-by I got to be so much The Macintosh I felt almost sure enough her to have the rheumatism, and knew I could fix up gags to keep the part going. I didn’t expect Uncle Dan would be the first to come in, or I wouldn’t have felt so brave about it, he’s so sharp and suspicious—that’s with being a lawyer, I s’pose, they’re a’ tarred wi’ the ae stick, Miss Macintosh says; and when he talked all that solemn Latin stuff and looked like running up a bill for law advice that would ruin me, I laughed inside enough to ache. Now amn’t I just the very wickedest girl, Uncle Dan?”

“A little less Scotch and a more plausible story would have made the character perfect,” said her uncle. “Where did you get them both? Miss Macintosh was surely not the only model?”

“Well, she’s not so Scotch as I made out, except when she’s very sentimental, but I felt she’d have to be as Scotch as the mountain and the flood to fit these clothes; and she’s never talked about marrying anybody herself, but she’s making a match just now for a cousin of hers, and tells us all about it. I was partly her, but not enough to be unkind or mean, and partly her cousin, and a little bit of the Waverley Novels,—in fact, I was pure mosaic, like our dog. There wasn’t enough real quaint about Miss Macintosh for ordinary to make a front scene monologue go, but she’s fuller of hints than—than a dictionary, and once I started I felt I could play half a dozen Macintoshes all different, so’s you’d actually think she was a surging crowd. You see there’s the Jacobite Macintosh, and the ‘aboaminable’ English Macintosh, and the flirting Macintosh who raps Herr Laurent with her fan, and the fortune-telling Macintosh who reads palms and tea-cup leaves, and the dancing and deportment Macintosh who knows all the first families in Scotland.”

Bud solemnly counted off the various Macintoshes on her finger-tips.

“We’ll have every one of them when you come home next winter,” said Miss Ailie. “I’d prefer it to the opera.”

“I can’t deny but it’s diverting,” said Miss Bell; “still, it’s dreadfully like play-acting, and hardly the thing for a sober dwelling. Lassie, lassie, away this instant and change yourself!”

If prizes and Italian songs had really been the proof that Bud had taken on the polish, she would have disappointed Uncle Dan, but this art of hers was enough to make full amends, it gave so much diversion. Character roused and held her interest; she had a lightning eye for oddities of speech and gesture. Most of a man’s philosophy is in a favourite phrase, his individuality is betrayed in the way he carries his hat along the aisle on Sunday. Bud, each time that she came home from Edinburgh, collected phrases as others do postage-stamps, and knew how every hat in town was carried. Folk void of idiosyncrasy, having the natural self restrained by watchfulness and fear, were the only ones whose company she wearied of; all others she studied with delight, storing of each some simulacrum in her memory. Had she reproduced them in a way to make them look ridiculous she would have roused the Dyces’ disapproval, but lacking any sense of superiority she made no impersonation look ignoble; the portraits in her gallery, like Raeburn’s, borrowed a becoming curl or two and toned down crimson noses.

But her favourite character was The Macintosh in one of the countless phases that at last were all her own invention, and far removed from the original. Each time she came home, the dancing-mistress they had never really seen became a more familiar personage to the Dyces. “I declare,” cried Bell, “I’m beginning to think of you always as a droll old body.” “And how’s the rheumatism?” Dan would ask; it was “The Macintosh said this” or “The Macintosh said that” with Ailie; and even Kate would quote the dancing-mistress with such earnestness, that the town became familiar with the name and character without suspecting they were often merely parts assumed by young Miss Lennox.

Bud carried the joke one night to daring lengths by going as Miss Macintosh with Ailie to a dance, in a gown and pelerine of Grandma Buntain’s that had made tremendous conquests eighty years before.

Our dances at the inn are not like city routs: Petronella, La TempÊte, and the reel have still an honoured place in them; we think the joy of life is not meant wholly for the young and silly, and so the elderly attend them. We sip claret-cup and tea in the alcove or “adjacent,” and gossip together if our dancing days are done, or sit below the flags and heather, humming “Merrily danced the quaker’s wife,” with an approving eye on our bonny daughters. Custom gives the Provost and his lady a place of honour in the alcove behind the music: here is a petty court where the civic spirit pays its devoirs, where the lockets are large and strong, and hair-chains much abound, and mouths before the mellowing midnight hour are apt to be a little mim.

Towards the alcove, Ailie—Dan discreetly moving elsewhere—boldly led The Macintosh, whose ballooning silk brocade put even the haughtiest of the other dames in shadow. She swam across the floor as if her hoops and not her buckled shoon sustained her, as if she moved on air.

“Dod! here’s a character!” said Dr Brash, pulling down his waistcoat. “Where have the Dyces gotten her?”

“The Ark is landed,” said the Provost’s lady. “What a peculiar creature!”

Ailie gravely gave the necessary introductions, and soon the notable Miss Macintosh of Kaims was the lion of the assembly. She flirted most outrageously with the older beaux, sharing roguish smiles and taps of the fan between them, and, compelling unaccustomed gallantries, set their wives all laughing. They drank wine with her in the old style; she met them glass for glass in water.

“And I’ll gie ye a toast now,” she said, when her turn came—“Scotland’s Rights,” raising her glass of water with a dramatic gesture.

“Dod! the auld body’s got an arm on her,” whispered Dr Brash to Colin Cleland, seeing revealed the pink plump flesh between the short sleeves and the top of the mittens.They drank the sentiment—the excuse for the glass was good enough, though in these prosaic days a bit mysterious.

“What are they?” asked the Provost.

“What are what?” said The Macintosh.

“Scotland’s Rights.”

“I’ll leave it to my frien’ Mr Dyce to tell ye,” she said quickly, for the lawyer had now joined the group. “It’ll aiblins cost ye 6s. 8d., but for that I daresay he can gie ye them in the Laiten. But—but I hope we’re a’ friens here?” she exclaimed with a hurried glance round her company. “I hope we have nane o’ thae aboaminable English amang us. I canna thole them! It has been a sair dooncome for Scotland since ever she drew in wi’ them.” For a space she dwelt on themes of rather antique patriotism that made her audience smile, for in truth in this burgh town we see no difference between Scotch and English: in our calculations there are only the lucky folk, born, bred, and dwelling within the sound of Will Oliver’s bell, and the poor souls who have to live elsewhere, all equally unfortunate, whether they be English, Irish, or Scots.

“But here I’m keepin’ you gentlemen frae your dancin’,” she said, interrupting herself, and consternation fell on her company, for sets were being formed for a quadrille, and her innuendo was unmistakable. She looked from one to the other of them as if enjoying their discomfiture.

“I—I—I haven’t danced, myself, for years,” said the Provost, which was true; and Colin Cleland, sighing deeply in his prominent profile and hiding his feet, protested quadrilles were beyond him. The younger men quickly remembered other engagements and disappeared. “Will you do me the honour?” said Dr Brash—good man! a gentle hero’s heart was under that wrinkled waistcoat.

“Oh!” said The Macintosh, rising to his arm, “you’ll be sure and no’ to swing me aff my feet, for I’m but a frail and giddy creature.”“It would be but paying you back,” said the Doctor, bowing. “Miss Macintosh has been swinging us a’ aff our feet since she entered the room.”

She laughed behind her clouded glasses, tapped him lightly with her fan, and swam into the opening movement of the figure. The word’s abused, yet I can but say she danced divinely, with such grace, lightness of foot, and rhythm of the body that folk stared at her in admiration and incredulity: her carriage, seen from behind, came perilously near betraying her, and possibly her partner might have soon discovered who he had, even if she had not made him a confession.

“Upon my word!” said he, in a pause between the figures,—“Upon my word! you dance magnificently, Miss Macintosh. I must apologise for such a stiff old partner as you’ve gotten.”

“I micht weel dance,” said she. “You ken I’m a dancin’-mistress?” Then she whispered hurriedly in her natural voice to him. “I feel real bold, Dr Brash, to be dancing with you here when I haven’t come out yet, and I feel real mean to be deceiving you, who would dance with an old frump just because you’re sorry for her, and I can’t do it one minute longer. Don’t you know me, really?”

“Good Lord!” said he in an undertone, aghast. “Miss Lennox!”

“Only for you,” she whispered. “Please don’t tell anybody else.”

“You beat all,” he told her. “I suppose I’m making myself ridiculous dancing away here with—h’m!—auld langsyne, but faith I have the advantage now of the others, and you mustn’t let on when the thing comes out that I did not know you from the outset. I have a crow to pick with Miss Ailie about this—the rogue! But, young woman, it’s an actress you are!”

“Not yet, but it’s an actress I mean to be,” she said, pousetting with him.

“H’m!” said he, “there seems the natural gift for it, but once on a time I made up my mind it was to be poetry.”

“I’ve got over poetry,” she said. “I found I was only one of that kind of poets who always cut it up in fourteen-line lengths and begin with ‘As when.’ No, it’s to be the stage, Dr Brash; I guess God’s fixed it.”

“Whiles He is—h’m—injudicious,” said the Doctor. “But what about Aunt Bell?”

“There’s no buts about it, though I admit I’m worried to think of Auntie Bell. She considers acting is almost as bad as lying, and talks about the theatre as Satan’s abode. If it wasn’t that she was from home to-night, I daren’t have been here. I wish—I wish I didn’t love her so—almost—for I feel I’ve got to vex her pretty bad.”

“Indeed you have!” said Dr Brash. “And you’ve spoiled my dancing, for I’ve a great respect for that devoted little woman.”

Back in the alcove The Macintosh found more to surround her than ever, though it was the penalty of her apparent age that they were readier to joke than dance with her. Captain Consequence, wanting a wife with money, if and when his mother should be taken from him, never lost a chance to see how a pompous manner and his medals would affect strange ladies. He was so marked in his attention, and created such amusement to the company, that, pitying him, and fearful of her own deception, she proposed to tell fortunes. The ladies brought her their emptied teacups; the men solemnly laid their palms before her; she divined, for all, their past and future in a practised way that astonished her uncle and aunt, who, afraid of some awkward sally, had kept aloof at first from her levee, but now were the most interested of her audience.

Over the leaves in Miss Minto’s cup she frowned through her clouded glasses. “There’s lots o’ money,” said she, “and a braw house, and a muckle garden wi’ bees and trees in’t, and a wheen boys speilin’ the wa’s—you may be aye assured o’ bien circumstances, Miss Minto.”

Miss Minto, warmly conscious of the lawyer at her back, could have wished for a fortune less prosaic.

“Look again; is there no’ a man to keep the laddies awa’?” suggested the Provost, pawky body!

“I declare there is!” cried The Macintosh, taking the hint. “See; there! he’s under this tree, a’ huddled up in an awfu’ passion.”

“I can’t make out his head,” said the Provost’s lady.

“Some men hae nane,” retorted the spaewife; “but what’s to hinder ye imaginin’ it like me?”

“Oh! if it’s imagination,” said the Provost’s lady, “I can hear him swearin’. And now, what’s my cup?”

“I see here,” said The Macintosh, “a kind o’ island far at sea, and a ship sailin’ frae’t this way, wi’ flags to the mast-heid, and a man on board.”

“I hope he’s well, then,” said the Provost’s lady, “for that’s our James, and he’s coming from Barbadoes: we had a letter just last week. Indeed you’re a perfect wizard!” She had forgotten that her darling James’s coming was the talk of the town for ten days back.

Colin Cleland, rubicund, good-natured, with his shyness gone, next proffered his palm to read. His hand lay like a plaice, inelegant and large, in hers, whose fresh young beauty might have roused suspicion in observers less carried away in the general illusion.

“Ah! sir,” said she with a sigh, “ye hae had your trials!”

“Mony a ane, ma’am,” said the jovial Colin. “I was ance a lawyer, for my sins.”

“That’s no’ the kind o’ trial I mean,” said The Macintosh. “Here’s a wheen o’ auld tribulations.”

“Perhaps you’re richt, ma’am,” he admitted. “I hae a sorry lot o’ them marked doon in auld diaries, but gude-be-thanked I canna mind them unless I look them up. They werena near sae mony as the rattlin’ ploys I’ve had.”

“Is there no’ a wife for Mr Cleland?” said the Provost—pawky, pawky man!

“There was ance, I see, a girl, and she was the richt girl too,” said The Macintosh.

“Yes, but I was the wrang man,” said Colin Cleland, drawing his hand away, and nobody laughed, for all but The Macintosh knew that story and made it some excuse for foolish habits.

“I’m a bit of a warlock myself,” said Dr Brash, beholding the spaewife’s vexation at a faux-pas she only guessed herself guilty of. “I’ll read your loof, Miss Macintosh, if ye let me.”

They all insisted she should submit herself to the Doctor’s unusual art, and taking her hand in his he drew the mitten off and pretended to scan the lines.

“Travel—h’m—a serious illness—h’m—your life, in youth, was quite adventurous, Miss Macintosh.”

“Oh! I’m no’ that auld yet,” she corrected him. “There’s mony a chance at fifty. Never mind my past, Dr Brash, what about my future?”

He glanced up a moment and saw her aunt and uncle listening in amusement, unaware as yet that he knew the secret, then scanned her palm again.

“The future—h’m! let me see. A long line of life; heart line healthy—h’m—the best of your life’s before you, though I cannot say it may be the happiest part of it. Perhaps my—h’m—my skill a little fails here. You have a strong will, Miss—Miss Macintosh, and I doubt in this world you’ll aye have your own way. And—h’m—an odd destiny surely ’s before you—I see the line of Fame, won—h’m—in a multitude of characters; by the Lord Hairry, ma’am, you’re to be—you’re to be an actress!”

The company laughed at such a prophecy for one so antiquated, and the Doctor’s absurdity put an end to the spaeing of fortunes, but he had effected his purpose. He had found the words that expressed the hope, half-entertained, so far, of Ailie, and the fear of her brother Dan. They learned before they left that he had not spoken without his cue, yet it was a little saddened they went home at midnight with their ward in masquerade.