Thus forced to support themselves, the sisters decided to keep school genteelly, and, hearing that there was an opening in Thrums, they settled there, and Miss Kitty brushed her hair out now, and with a twist and a twirl ran it up her fingers into a net, whence by noon some of it had escaped through the little windows and was curls again.  She and Miss Ailie were happy in Thrums, for time took the pain out of the affair of Mr. McLean, until it became not merely a romantic memory, but, with the letters he wrote to Miss Kitty and her answers, the great quiet pleasure of their lives.  They were friendly letters only, but Miss Kitty wrote hers out in pencil first and read them to Miss Ailie, who had been taking notes for them.

In the last weeks of Miss Kitty’s life Miss Ailie conceived a passionate unspoken hatred of Mr. McLean, and her intention was to write and tell him that he had killed her darling.  But owing to the illness into which she was flung by Miss Kitty’s death, that unjust letter was never written.

But why did Mr. McLean continue to write to Miss Kitty?

Well, have pity or be merciless as you choose.  For several years Mr. McLean’s letters had been the one thing the sisters looked forward to, and now, when Miss Ailie was without Miss Kitty, must she lose them also?  She never doubted, though she may have been wrong, that, if Ivie knew of Miss Kitty’s death, one letter would come in answer, and that the last.  She could not tell him.  In the meantime he wrote twice asking the reason of this long silence, and at last Miss Ailie, whose handwriting was very like her sister’s, wrote him a letter which was posted at Tilliedrum and signed “Katherine Cray.”  The thing seems monstrous, but this gentle lady did it, and it was never so difficult to do again.  Latterly, it had been easy.

This last letter of Mr. McLean’s announced to Miss Kitty that he was about to start for home “for good,” and he spoke in it of coming to Thrums to see the sisters, as soon as he reached Redlintie.  Poor Miss Ailie!  After sleepless nights she trudged to the Tilliedrum post-office with a full confession of her crime, which would be her welcome home to him when he arrived at his brother’s house.  Many of the words were written on damp blobs.  After that she could do nothing but wait for the storm, and waiting she became so meek, that Gavinia, who loved her because she was “that simple,” said sorrowfully: 

“How is’t you never rage at me now, ma’am?  I’m sure it keepit you lightsome, and I likit to hear the bum o’t.”

“And instead o’ the raging I was prigging for,” the soft-hearted maid told her friends, “she gave me a flannel petticoat!” Indeed, Miss Ailie had taken to giving away her possessions at this time, like a woman who thought she was on her death-bed.  There was something for each of her pupils, including—­but the important thing is that there was a gift for Tommy, which had the effect of planting the Hanoverian Woman (to whom he must have given many uneasy moments) more securely on the British Throne.