“I do not mean to offend,” said I.
“I have no skill of city manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me for a country lad—it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than you found it out.”
“Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to each other on the causeway,” she replied. “But if you are landward bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.”
“Balwhither?” she cries. “Come ye from Balwhither! The name of it makes all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and not known some of our friends or family?”