“Did he say that?  Ay, but, Elspeth, I would rather hear what you said.”

“I said it was to dear, good Aaron Latta I was going back, and to no one else.”

“God bless you for that, Elspeth.”

“And Tommy,” she went on, “must have his old garret room again, to write as well as sleep in, and the little room you partitioned off the kitchen will do nicely for me.”

“There’s no a window in it,” replied Aaron; “but it will do fine for you, Elspeth.”  He was almost chuckling, for he had a surprise in waiting for her.  “This way,” he said excitedly, when she would have gone into the kitchen, and he flung open the door of what had been his warping-room.  The warping-mill was gone—­everything that had been there was gone.  What met the delighted eyes of Elspeth and Tommy was a cozy parlour, which became a bedroom when you opened that other door.  “You are a leddy now, Elspeth,” Aaron said, husky with pride, “and you have a leddy’s room.  Do you see the piano?”

He had given up the warping, having at last “twa three hunder’” in the bank, and all the work he did now was at a loom which he had put into the kitchen to keep him out of languor.  “I have sorted up the garret, too, for you,” he said to Tommy, “but this is Elspeth’s room.”

“As if Tommy would take it from me!” said Elspeth, running into the kitchen to hug this dear Aaron.

“You may laugh,” Aaron replied vindictively, “but he is taking it frae you already”; and later, when Tommy was out of the way, he explained his meaning.  “I did it all for you, Elspeth; ‘Elspeth’s room,’ I called it.  When I bought the mahogany arm-chair, ’That’s Elspeth’s chair,’ I said to mysel’; and when I bought the bed, ‘It’s hers,’ I said.  Ay; but I was soon disannulled o’ that thait, for, in spite of me, they were all got for him.  Not a rissom in that room is yours or mine, Elspeth; every muhlen belongs to him.”

“But who says so, Aaron?  I am sure he won’t.”

“I dinna ken them.  They are leddies that come here in their carriages to see the house where Thomas Sandys was born.”

“But, Aaron, he was born in London!” “They think he was born in this house,” Aaron replied doggedly, “and it’s no for me to cheapen him.”

“Oh, Aaron, you pretend——­”

“I was never very fond o’ him,” Aaron admitted, “but I winna cheapen Jean Myles’s bairn, and when they chap at my door and say they would like to see the room Thomas Sandys was born in, I let them see the best room I have.  So that’s how he has laid hands on your parlor, Elspeth.  Afore I can get rid o’ them they gie a squeak and cry, ’Was that Thomas Sandys’s bed?’ and I says it was.  That’s him taking the very bed frae you, Elspeth.”

“You might at least have shown them his bed in the garret,” she said.

“It’s a shilpit bit thing,” he answered, “and I winna cheapen him.  They’re curious, too, to see his favourite seat.”