When she saw Elspeth she stopped irresolutely, and the two stood looking in fear at each other.  “You are not my brat, are you?” the Painted Lady asked.

“N-no,” the child gasped.

“Then why don’t you call me nasty names?”

“I dinna never call you names,” Elspeth replied, but the woman still looked puzzled.

“Perhaps you are naughty also?” she said doubtfully, and then, as if making up her mind that it must be so, she came closer and said, with a voice full of pity:  “I am so sorry.”

Elspeth did not understand half of it, but the pitying voice, which was of the rarest sweetness, drove away much of her fear, and she said:  “Do you no mind me?  I was wi’ Tommy when he gave you the gold packet on Muckley night.”

Then the Painted Lady remembered.  “He took such a fancy to me,” she said, with a pleased simper, and then she looked serious again.

“Do you love him?” she asked, and Elspeth nodded.

“But is he all the world to you?”

“Yes,” Elspeth said.

The Painted Lady took her by the arm and said impressively, “Don’t let him know.”

“But he does know,” said Elspeth.

“I am so sorry,” the Painted Lady said again.  “When they know too well, then they have no pity.”

“But I want Tommy to know,” Elspeth insisted.

“That is the woeful thing,” the Painted Lady said, rocking her arms in a way that reminded the child of Grizel.  “We want them to know, we cannot help liking them to know!”

Suddenly she became confidential.  “Do you think I showed my love too openly?” she asked eagerly.  “I tried to hide it, you know.  I covered my face with my hands, but he pulled them away, and then, of course, he knew.”

She went on, “I kissed his horse’s nose, and he said I did that because it was his horse.  How could he know?  When I asked him how he knew, he kissed me, and I pretended to be angry and ran away.  But I was not angry, and I said to myself, ‘I am glad, I am glad, I am glad!’

“I wanted so to be good, but—­It is so difficult to refuse when you love him very much, don’t you think?”

The pathos of that was lost on the girl, and the Painted Lady continued sadly:  “It would be so nice, would it not, if they liked us to be good?  I think it would be sweet.”  She bent forward and whispered emphatically, “But they don’t, you know—­it bores them.

“Never bore them—­and they are so easily bored!  It bores them if you say you want to be married.  I think it would be sweet to be married, but you should never ask for a wedding.  They give you everything else, but if you say you want a wedding, they stamp their feet and go away.  Why are you crying, girl?  You should not cry; they don’t like it.  Put on your prettiest gown and laugh and pretend you are happy, and then they will tell you naughty stories and give you these.”  She felt her ears and looked at her fingers, on which there may once have been jewels, but there were none now.