Intending these notations for the instruction of posterity, it would not
be altogether becoming of me to speak of the domestic effects which many
of the things that I have herein jotted down had in my own family. I
feel myself, however, constrained in spirit to lift aside a small bit of
the private curtain, just to show how Mrs Pawkie comported herself in the
progressive vicissitudes of our prosperity, in the act and doing of which
I do not wish to throw any slight on her feminine qualities; for, to
speak of her as she deserves at my hand, she has been a most excellent
wife, and a decent woman, and had aye a ruth and ready hand for the
needful. Still, to say the truth, she is not without a few little
weaknesses like her neighbours, and the ill-less vanity of being thought
far ben with the great is among others of her harmless frailities.
Soon after the inspection ball before spoken of, she said to me that it
would be a great benefit and advantage to our family if we could get
Bodletonbrae and his sister, and some of the other country gentry, to
dine with us. I was not very clear about how the benefit was to come to
book, for the outlay I thought as likely o'ergang the profit; at the same
time, not wishing to baulk Mrs Pawkie of a ploy on which I saw her mind
was bent, I gave my consent to her and my daughters to send out the
cards, and make the necessary preparations. But herein I should not take
credit to myself for more of the virtue of humility than was my due;
therefore I open the door of my secret heart so far ajee, as to let the
reader discern that I was content to hear our invitations were all
accepted.
Of the specialities and dainties of the banquet prepared, it is not
fitting that I should treat in any more particular manner, than to say
they were the best that could be had, and that our guests were all
mightily well pleased. Indeed, my wife was out of the body with
exultation when Mrs Auchans of that Ilk begged that she would let her
have a copy of the directions she had followed in making a flummery,
which the whole company declared was most excellent. This compliment was
the more pleasant, as Lady Auchans was well known for her skill in
savoury contrivances, and to have anything new to her of the sort was a
triumph beyond our most sanguine expectations. In a word, from that day
we found that we had taken, as it were, a step above the common in the
town. There were, no doubt, some who envied our good fortune; but, upon
the whole, the community at large were pleased to see the consideration
in which their chief magistrate was held. It reflected down, as it were,
upon themselves a glaik of the sunshine that shone upon us; and although
it may be a light thing, as it is seemingly a vain one, to me to say, I
am now pretty much of Mrs Pawkie's opinion, that our cultivation of an
intercourse with the country gentry was, in the end, a benefit to our
family, in so far as it obtained, both for my sons and daughters, a
degree of countenance that otherwise could hardly have been expected from
their connexions and fortune, even though I had been twice provost.