Grizel might have retorted, “Think what you will miss!” but perhaps the reply she did make had a sharper sting in it.  “I shall never come again,” she said loftily, “and my reason for not coming is that—­that my mamma thinks your house is not respectable!” She flung this over her shoulder as she stalked away, and it may be that the tears came when there were none to see them, but hers was a resolute mind, and though she continued to be friendly with Tommy and Elspeth out of doors she never again crossed their threshold.

“The house is in a terrible state for want o’ you,” Tommy would say, trying to wheedle her.  “We hinna sanded the floor for months, and the box-iron has fallen ahint the dresser, and my gray sark is rove up the back, and oh, you should just see the holes in Aaron’s stockings!”

Then Grizel rocked her arms in agony, but no, she would not go in.

CHAPTER XX

THE SHADOW OF SIR WALTER

Tommy was in Miss Ailie’s senior class now, though by no means at the top of it, and her mind was often disturbed about his future.  On this subject Aaron had never spoken to anyone, and the problem gave Tommy himself so little trouble that all Elspeth knew was that he was to be great and that she was to keep his house.  So the school-mistress braved an interview with Aaron for the sake of her favorite.

“You know he is a remarkable boy,” she said.

“At his lessons, ma’am?” asked Aaron, quietly.

Not exactly at his lessons, she had to admit.

“In what way, then, ma’am?”

Really Miss Ailie could not say.  There was something wonderful about Tommy, you felt it, but you could not quite give it a name.  The warper must have noticed it himself.

“I’ve heard him saying something o’ the kind to Elspeth,” was Aaron’s reply.

“But sometimes he is like a boy inspired,” said the school-mistress.  “You must have seen that?”

“When he was thinking o’ himsel’,” answered Aaron.

“He has such noble sentiments.”

“He has.”

“And I think, I really think,” said Miss Ailie, eagerly, for this was what she had come to say, “that he has got great gifts for the ministry.”

“I’m near sure o’t,” said Aaron, grimly.

“Ah, I see you don’t like him.”

“I dinna,” the warper acknowledged quietly, “but I’ve been trying to do my duty by him for all that.  It’s no every laddie that gets three years’ schooling straight on end.”

This was true, but Miss Ailie used it to press her point.  “You have done so well by him,” she said, “that I think you should keep him at school for another year or two, and so give him a chance of carrying a bursary.  If he carries one it will support him at college; if he does not—­well, then I suppose he must be apprenticed to some trade.”

“No,” Aaron said, decisively; “if he gets the chance of a college education and flings it awa’, I’ll waste no more siller on his keep.  I’ll send him straight to the herding.”