She shook her head and put her hand in his.

“Who’s got me most, do you think?”

He answered as he thought.

There was a great spurting wood fire on the hearth in the book-room.  As she looked round Marcella saw that most of the furniture left in the farm had been brought in.  Jean came in, carrying a dish of scones.  Andrew ran straight to her, just as Marcella used to.  She explained that she had come back because the mistress was lonely without her, and she could not get used to any ways but those of the farm.

The doctor stayed to the meal.  There was no bread on the table.  Louis seemed surprised to see the oatcakes and the cheese and the herrings.  To Marcella they were a feast of heaven.  They put young Andrew in old Andrew’s chair beneath the dusty pennant.  He sat with his fat brown legs swinging, exceedingly conscious of their manly appearance which he compared with his father’s and the doctor’s, delighted to see that the doctor’s old tweed knickerbockers were very much the same shape as his.

“There’s bramble jelly for the boy,” said Aunt Janet, who scarcely took her eyes from him for a moment.  “Mrs. Mactavish sends me some every year—­one pot.  There’s been four pots since you went away.  And I’ve never been minded to open one.  Maybe it’s mouldered now.”

They talked quietly; out on Lashnagar the winds began to howl; in the passages they shrieked and whined, and whistled and groaned in the chimney sending out little puffs of smoke.  Up above their heads something scuttled swiftly.  The little boy forgot his dignity and drew nearer to his mother.

“That’s the rats, Andrew,” said Aunt Janet, watching him.  His mother explained that rats were a pest, to be hunted out like rabbits in Australia.

He drew away from her then and stood with his back to the fire, his hands behind.

“Andwew kill wats,” he announced.  “Wiv a big stick.”

The doctor and Louis smoked and talked together of days forty years ago in Edinburgh, of days seven years ago at St. Crispin’s.  Marcella and Aunt Janet spoke softly, sitting by the fire.

“I wouldn’t be sitting so near the fire, Marcella.  You’ll have all the colour taken out of your skirt.  Not that it matters particularly,” said Aunt Janet.

“It’s lovely by the fire,” murmured Marcella.

Aunt Janet reached over suddenly and spread an old plaid shawl over the girl’s knees.  She suddenly felt that Louis and Andrew and the last four years were unreal and dreamlike.  They had happened to her, but now she was back home again, being told what to do.

Andrew began to rub his eyes.

“Yell be getting away to your bed now, Andrew,” said Aunt Janet.

Jean stood up, waiting for him.  He hugged his father and mother, shook hands with the doctor and looked searchingly at Aunt Janet before he kissed her.  She put her hand behind the curtain, rustled a piece of paper and gave him an acid drop.