“My dear Esther,—­I send you these few scrapes to let you see I have not forgot you, though my way is now grand by yours.  A spleet new black silk, Esther, being the second in a twelvemonth, as I’m a living woman.  The other is no none tashed yet, but my gudeman fair insisted on buying a new one, for says he ’Rich folk like as can afford to be mislaird, and nothing’s ower braw for my bonny Jean.’  Tell Aaron Latta that.  When I’m sailing in my silks, Esther, I sometimes picture you turning your wincey again, for I’se uphaud that’s all the new frock you’ve ha’en the year.  I dinna want to give you a scunner of your man, Esther, more by token they said if your mither had not took him in hand you would never have kent the color of his nightcap, but when you are wraxing ower your kail-pot in a plot of heat, just picture me ringing the bell for my servant, and saying, with a wave of my hand, ‘Servant, lay the dinner.’  And ony bonny afternoon when your man is cleaning out stables and you’re at the tub in a short gown, picture my man taking me and the children out a ride in a carriage, and I sair doubt your bairns was never in nothing more genteel than a coal cart.  For bairns is yours, Esther, and children is mine, and that’s a burn without a brig till’t.

“Deary me, Esther, what with one thing and another, namely buying a sofa, thirty shillings as I’m a sinner, I have forgot to tell you about my second, and it’s a girl this time, my man saying he would like a change.  We have christened her Elspeth after my grandmamma, and if my auld granny’s aye living, you can tell her that’s her.  My man is terrible windy of his two beautiful children, but he says he would have been the happiest gentleman in London though he had just had me, and really his fondness for me, it cows, Esther, sitting aside me on the bed, two pounds without the blankets, about the time Elspeth was born, and feeding me with the fat of the land, namely, tapiocas and sherry wine.  Tell Aaron Latta that.

“I pity you from the bottom of my heart, Esther, for having to bide in Thrums, but you have never seen no better, your man having neither the siller nor the desire to take yon jaunts, and I’m thinking that is just as well, for if you saw how the like of me lives it might disgust you with your own bit house.  I often laugh, Esther, to think that I was once like you, and looked upon Thrums as a bonny place.  How is the old hole?  My son makes grand sport of the onfortunate bairns as has to bide in Thrums, and I see him doing it the now to his favorite companion, which is a young gentleman of ladylike manners, as bides in our terrace.  So no more at present, for my man is sitting ganting for my society, and I daresay yours is crying to you to darn his old socks.  Mind and tell Aaron Latta.”

This letter was posted next day by Tommy, with the assistance of Shovel, who seems to have been the young gentleman of ladylike manners referred to in the text.