“Oh—­how horrible!” she cried and dimly realized that the change in her appearance had something to do with the doctor’s prediction of physical disability.  She loathed and resented it immediately.  Suddenly conscious of her bare legs she ran home, horrified at the tightness of her frock that showed the roundness of her figure.  As she passed the Mactavish cottage the mother sat in the doorway, suckling the newest baby.  Instead of staying to talk as usual Marcella flew by, her cheeks crimson.  As soon as she reached home she ran up to her mother’s room to find a frock that was not so tight; tearing an old linen sheet into strips she wound it round her body like a mummy wrap, so tightly that she could scarcely breathe, and then, putting on a blouse of her mother’s that was still too tight to please her, she surveyed herself in the mirror with supreme dissatisfaction.

“I look horrible!  It’s beastly for people’s bodies to show like that,” she cried, and, sitting down on the floor, put on the shoes and stockings she had had for her father’s funeral, that hurt her feet.  She ran down to the beach to discuss it with Wullie.  Half-way there she discovered that she could not possibly mention it to anyone.  This puzzled her.  She could not understand things one could not mention.

“We’re very grand the day, Marcella,” he said, watching her curiously.  “Where are ye gaun?”

“I’ve come to see you,” she said, sitting down in a shadowy corner.

“Have ye had breakfast?  I saw ye, hours ago, swimming oot by the nets.  There’s seed cake in yon box that Jock’s wife’s sent doon, and buttermilk in the can.”

Even indignation with her figure could not conquer her appetite, and she divided the cake between them, eating her share before she spoke.

“Seed cake’s the nicest thing in the world,” she said at last.  “I love the wee blacks in it, don’t you, Wullie?  Wullie, when I’m dying I’ll come here and Bessie shall make seed cake.  Then I shall never die.  I love the smell of it, too—­it makes me think of the Queen of Sheba bringing spices and gold to King Solomon.”

“Ye seem to be having a fine queer lot of thoughts the day, Marcella,” said Wullie, eating slowly and looking at her.

She flushed and looked away from him.

“I have, Wullie, horrible thoughts.  About getting old.”

“So old, lassie—­ye’re nearly a woman now,” he said gently.

“Wullie, I won’t be a woman!  I hate it!  The doctor’s been telling me disgusting things about being a woman.  And so has Jean.  Why should they be weak and get ill?  Oh, I won’t!  I’ll do as I like.”

“Ye’re too young tae understand yet,” began Wullie.

“I’m not.  I’m not too young to understand that I won’t be weak—­tied down.  The doctor said women were all weaker than men, and I thought perhaps most women might be.  But not me.  And then—­Wullie, I want to be like a lion or a tiger, and kill things that get in the way, and—­oh, I’ll hate being a human being with a body that gets in the way.”