CHAPTER XVI.
Our Polly is a sad slut, nor heeds what we have taught her;
I wonder any man alive will ever rear a daughter;
For when she's drest with care and cost, all tempting fine and
gay,
As men should serve a cucumber, she flings herself away.
After the death of Mr Bertram, Mannering had set out upon a short tour, proposing to return to the neighbourhood of Ellangowan before the sale of that property should take place. He went, accordingly, to Edinburgh and elsewhere, and it was in his return towards the southwestern district of Scotland, in which our scene lies, that, at a post-town about a hundred miles from Kippletringan, to which he had requested his friend, Mr Mervyn, to address his letters, he received one from that gentleman, which contained
