“Ki! ki! ki!” breathed Baubie discreetly.  She felt lonely, and the cat looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to the house doubtless, for he stared at her with an interested, questioning look.  Presently he moved.  She repeated her invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his feet, humped his back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round, facing the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail tucked in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the cold wind as little purchase as possible.  Baubie felt snubbed and lonely, and drawing back from the window she sat down on the edge of her bed to wait events.

Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the last few days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves than hers, and the unwonted bodily sensations caused by the bath and change of garments seemed to intensify her consciousness of novelty and restraint.  There was another not very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had not taken account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly enough.  It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the parting from her father.  Baubie herself would have been greatly puzzled had any person designated her feelings by these names.  There were many things in that philosophy of the gutter in which Baubie Wishart was steeped to the lips undreamt of by her.  What she knew she knew thoroughly, but there was much with which most children, even of her age and class in life, are, it is to be hoped, familiar, of which Baubie Wishart was utterly ignorant.  Her circumstances were different from theirs—­fortunately for them; and amongst the poor, as with their betters, various conditions breed various dispositions.  Baubie was an outer barbarian and savage in comparison with some children, although they perhaps went barefooted also; but, like a savage too, she would have grown fat where they would have starved.  And this she knew well.

Kate’s yellow head, appearing at the door to summon her to dinner, put an end to her gloomy reverie.  And with this, her first meal, began Baubie’s acquaintance with the household of which she was to form an integral portion from that hour.

They gave her no housework to do.  Mrs. Duncan, whom a very cursory examination satisfied as to the benighted ignorance of this latest addition to her flock, determined that Baubie should learn to read, write and sew as expeditiously as might be.  In order that she might benefit by example, she was made to sit by the lassie Grant, the child whose clothes had been lent to her, and her education began forthwith.

It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still:  “white seam” was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in which she had beforehand believed herself an adept, was found fault with.  The lassie Grant, as was pointed out to her, could knit more evenly and possessed a superior method of “turning the heel.”