eye as there was not to be seen in another gentleman’s house in the country.  And yet, poor lassie, she says there’s nothing but the dressmaking for her.  And Miss Elsie, too, writing day and night, and cannot get a bode for her bit poems and verses, till now she is like to greet her een out over every letter she gets from London about them.  I can see Miss Jean has been egging up Mr. Hogarth, as they call him—­I’m no wishing him any ill, but I wish the auld laird had made a fairer disposition of his possessions—­well, Miss Jean has been stirring up this Mr. Francis to take them out for the sake of Elsie, for she is just fading away.”

“I like her the best of the two, and she is certainly far the prettiest.  The eldest one is a little too clever for me, and too much disposed to preach, even in a ball-room.”

“Well, I dare say she saw you had had rather little preaching in the bush, and I am sure you were none the worse of all said to you.  But it makes us the more vexed at losing the real value of my bit property, for if I had had the twenty-five hundred pounds you speak about we could have begun business in Melbourne together.  She can keep books, and Miss Elsie has a clever hand at the millinery;—­we could have got on famously.  I must let you see the bairns’ writingbooks, and the letters she learns them to write, and their counting-books, too.”

Mr. Brandon looked and admired quite to Peggy’s satisfaction; and then he spoke to the old man in a kindly way, calling him Mr. Lowrie, and saying he had often heard Peggy speak of him at Barragong.  How much pleasure little courtesies like this give to poverty and old age!  The old man’s face brightened when he heard that he was known at such a distance by such a gentleman as this, and he answered Mr. Brandon’s inquiries as to his health and his hearing with eager garrulity.

“Well,” said Peggy, “I am no poorer than I was if I had not known about the bit shop being worth so much; but when I think on Miss Jean and her sister, and the lift it might have been to them, I think more of it than I would otherwise do.  And now, Mr. Brandon, I’ll trouble you to move from the fireside; I must put out the kail.  But you were aye fond of being in a body’s way.”

“I have it,” said Mr. Brandon; “it will do.”

“What will do?”

“You remember the Phillipses?”

“What should ail me to remember them?  But I have such a poor head, I forget to ask the thing I care most about.  How’s Mr. Phillips, and how’s Emily?”

“All well, and the other four, too.”

“And Mrs. Phillips?”

“As well as ever, and handsomer than ever, I think.”

“Oh! her looks were never her worst fault.  But what did you mean by saying it would do?”

“The Phillipses came home in the vessel with me, and are settled in London for good.  I think the eldest Miss Melville would be exactly the sort of person they want to superintend the household, for Mrs. Phillips has as little turn for management as ever, and there is a considerable establishment.  And, also, she might make Miss Emily and Miss Harriett attend to their lessons, for, though they have masters or some such things, they are too much the mistresses of the house to be controlled by anybody.”