of another caller, ‘I’d went awa’ up the stair to see if Miss Jean wis in, an’ whit d’ye think?  When I lukit roond the wumman wis at ma heels.’  The other day workmen were in the house doing something, and when Mrs. M’Cosh opened the door to me she said, ’Ye see the mess we’re in.  D’ye think ye should come in?’ leaving it to my better nature to decide.

“She is always serene, always smiling.  The great love of her life is Peter, the fox-terrier, one of the wickedest and nicest of dogs.  He is always in trouble, and she is sorely put to it sometimes to find excuses for him.  ‘He’s a great wee case, is Peter,’ she generally finishes up.  ‘He means no ill’ (this after it has been proved that he has chased sheep, killed hens, and bitten message-boys); ’he’s juist a wee thing playful.’

“Peter attends every function in Priorsford—­funerals, marriages, circuses.  He meets all the trains and escorts strangers to the objects of interest in the neighbourhood.  He sees people off, and wags his tail in farewell as the train moves out of the station.

“He and Mhor are fast friends, and it is an inspiring sight to see them of a morning, standing together in the middle of the road with the whole wide world before them, wondering which would be the best way to take for adventures.  Mhor has had much liberty lately as he has been infectious after whooping-cough, but now he has gone back to the little school he attends with some twenty other children.  I’m afraid he is a very unwilling scholar.

“You will be glad to hear that Bella Bathgate (I’m taking a liberty with her name I don’t dare take in speaking to her) is thawing to me slightly.  It seems that part of the reason for her distaste to me was that she thought I would probably demand a savoury for dinner!  If I did ask such a thing—­which Heaven forbid!—­she would probably send me in a huge pudding dish of macaroni and cheese.  Her cooking is not the best of Bella.

“She and Mawson have become fast friends.  Mawson has asked Bella to call her Winifred, and she calls Miss Bathgate ‘Beller.’

“Miss Bathgate spends any leisure moments she has in doing long strips of crochet, which eventually become a bedspread, and considers it a waste of time to read anything but the Bible, the Scotsman and the Missionary Magazine (she is very keen on Foreign Missions), but she doesn’t object to listening to Mawson’s garbled accounts of the books she reads.  I sometimes overhear their conversations as they sit together by the kitchen fire in the long evenings.

“‘And,’ says Mawson, describing some lurid work of fiction, ’Evangeline was left shut up in the picture-gallery of the ‘ouse.’

“‘D’ye mean to tell me hooses hev picture-galleries?’ says Bella.

“’Course they ’ave—­all big ‘ouses.’

“‘Juist like the Campbell Institution—­sic a bother it must be to dust!’

“‘Well,’ Mawson goes on, ’Evangeline finds ‘er h’eyes attracted—­’