"
Her frowns, however, acted as a complete sedative, and the Laird relapsed
from that day into his former taciturn habits, visiting the cowfeeder's
cottage three or four times every week, when the weather permitted, with
apparently no other purpose than to stare at Jeanie Deans, while Douce
Davie poured forth his eloquence upon the controversies and testimonies
of the day.
CHAPTER NINTH.
Her air, her manners, all who saw admired,
Courteous, though coy, and gentle, though retired;
The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed;
And ease of heart her every look conveyed.
Crabbe.
The visits of the Laird thus again sunk into matters of ordinary course,
from which nothing was to be expected or apprehended. If a lover could
have gained a fair one as a snake is said to fascinate a bird, by
pertinaciously gazing on her with great stupid greenish eyes, which began
now to be occasionally aided by spectacles, unquestionably Dumbiedikes
would have been the person to perform the feat. But the art of
fascination seems among the _artes perditae,_ and I cannot learn that
this most pertinacious of starers produced any effect by his attentions
beyond an occasional yawn.
In the meanwhile, the object of his gaze was gradually attaining the
verge of youth, and approaching to what is called in females the middle
age, which is impolitely held to begin a few years earlier with their
more fragile sex than with men.
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