her rival's husband, who was at the
moment recreating himself in his garden, was comfortably set off with a
splendid new striped Kilmarnock nightcap. Now, when Mrs. Callender saw
this, and recollected the very shabby, faded article of the same
denomination--"mair like a dish-cloot," as she muttered to herself,
"than onything else"--which her Thomas wore, she determined on instantly
providing him with a new one; resolved, as she also remarked to herself,
not to let the Anderson's beat her, even in the matter of a nightcap.
But Mrs. Callender not only resolved on rivalling her neighbour, in the
matter of having a new nightcap for her husband, but in surpassing her
in the quality of the said nightcap. She determined that her "man's"
should be a red one; "a far mair genteeler thing," as she said to
herself, "than John Anderson's vulgar striped Kilmarnock." Having
settled this matter to her own satisfaction, and having dexterously
prepared her husband for the vision of a new nightcap--which she did by
urging sundry reasons, totally different from those under whose
influence she really acted, as she knew that he would never give into
such an absurdity as a rivalship with his neighbour in the matter of a
nightcap--this matter settled then, we say, the following day saw Mrs.
Callender sailing into Glasgow, to purchase a red nightcap for her
husband--a mission which, we need not say, she very easily accomplished.
Her choice was one of the brightest hue she could find--a flaming
article, that absolutely dazzled Thomas with the intensity of its glare,
when it was triumphantly unrolled before him.

"Jenny," said the latter, in perfect simplicity of heart, and utter
ignorance of the true cause of his wife's care of his comfort in the
present instance--"Jenny, but that _is_ a bonny thing," he said, looking
admiringly at the gaudy commodity, into which he had now thrust his hand
and part of his arm, in order to give it all possible extension, and
thus holding it up before him as he spoke.

"Really it _is_ a bonny thing," he repeated, "and, I warrant, a
comfortable."

"Isna't?" replied his wife, triumphantly. And she would have added, "How
far prettier and mair genteeler a thing than John Anderson's!" But, as
this would have betrayed secrets, she refrained, and merely added, "Now,
my man, Tammas, ye'll just wear't when ye gang about the doors and the
yard. It'll mak ye look decent and respectable--what ye wasna in that
creeshy cloo