In the midst of all this security, and on the very first day after their arrival, it was disconcerting to be told that a lady, whose name they had never heard before, had called to see Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon.  They had not even appeared at church, as they told one another with dubious glances.  They had no reason whatever to expect visitors.  Dr Drummond was in the cemetery burying a member; Mrs Forsyth was also abroad.  “Now who in the world,” asked Mrs Kilbannon of Miss Cameron, “is Miss Murchison?”

“They come to our church,” said Sarah, in the door.  “They’ve got the foundry.  It’s the oldest one.  She teaches.”

Sarah in the door was even more disconcerting than an unexpected visitor.  Sarah invariably took them off their guard, in the door or anywhere.  She freely invited their criticism, but they would not have known how to mend her.  They looked at her now helplessly, and Mrs Kilbannon said, “Very well.  We will be down directly.”

“It may be just some friendly body,” she said, as they descended the stairs together, “or it may be common curiosity.  In that case we’ll disappoint it.”

Whatever they expected, therefore, it was not Advena.  It was not a tall young woman with expressive eyes, a manner which was at once abrupt and easy, and rather a lounging way of occupying the corner of a sofa.  “When she sat down,” as Mrs Kilbannon said afterward, “she seemed to untie and fling herself as you might a parcel.”  Neither Mrs Kilbannon nor Christie Cameron could possibly be untied or flung, so perhaps they gave this capacity in Advena more importance than it had.  But it was only a part of what was to them a new human demonstration, something to inspect very carefully and accept very cautiously—­the product, like themselves, yet so suspiciously different, of these free airs and these astonishingly large ideas.  In some ways, as she sat there in her graceful dress and careless attitude, asking them direct smiling questions about their voyage, she imposed herself as of the class whom both these ladies of Bross would acknowledge unquestioningly to be “above” them; in others she seemed to be of no class at all; so far she came short of small standards of speech and behaviour.  The ladies from Bross, more and more confused, grew more and more reticent, when suddenly, out of a simple remark of Miss Cameron’s about missing in the train the hot-water cans they gave you “to your feet” in Scotland, reticence descended upon Miss Murchison also.  She sat in an odd silence, looking at Miss Cameron, absorbed apparently in the need of looking at her, finding nothing to say, her flow of pleasant inquiry dried up, and all her soul at work, instead, to perceive the woman.  Mrs Kilbannon was beginning to think better of her—­it was so much more natural to be a little backward with strangers—­when the moment passed.  Their visitor drew herself out of it with almost a perceptible effort, and seemed to glance consideringly