need to be gleg i' the uptak to understan' a word they say. Tak' my word
for't, Maister Colin, it's no a'thegither luve for his lordship's grey
hairs that gars yon gilpy lassock seek to become my Leddy Keith."

"Nay, Tibbie, if you find fault with such a sweet, winning young
creature, I shall think it is all because you will not endure a mistress
at Gowanbrae over you."

"His lordship'll please himsel' wi' a leddy to be mistress o' Gowanbrae,
but auld Tibbie'll never cross the doorstane mair."

"Indeed you will, Tibbie; here are my brother's orders that you should
go down, as soon as you can conveniently make ready, and see about the
new plenishing."

"They may see to the plenishing that's to guide it after han, an'
that'll no be me. My lord'll behove to tak' his orders aff his young
leddy ance he's married on her, may be a whilie afore, but that's no to
bind ither folk, an' it's no to be thought that at my years I'm to be
puttin' up wi' a' ther new fangled English fykes an' nonsense maggots.
Na, na, Maister Colin, his lordship'll fend weel aneugh wantin' Tibbie;
an' what for suld I leave yerself, an' you settin' up wi' a house o'
yer ain? Deed an' my mind's made up, I'll e'en bide wi' ye, an' nae mair
about it."

"Stay, stay," cried Colin, a glow coming into his cheeks, "don't reckon
without your host, Tibbie. Do you think Gowanbrae the second is never to
have any mistress but yourself?"

"Haud awa' wi' ye, laddie, I ken fine what ye'ra ettlin' at, but yon's a
braw leddy, no like thae English folk, but a woman o' understandin', an'
mair by token I'm thinkin' she'll be gleg aneugh to ken a body that'll
serve her weel, an' see to the guidin' o' thae feckless queens o'
servant lasses, for bad's the best o' them ye'll fin' hereawa'. Nae
fear but her an' me'll put it up weel thegither, an' a' gude be wi' ye
baith."

After this Colin resigned himself and his household to Tibbie's somewhat
despotic government, at least for the present. To Ermine's suggestion
that her appellation hardly suited the dignity of her station, he
replied that Isabel was too romantic for southern ears, and that her
surname being the same as his own, he was hardly prepared to have the
title of Mrs. Keith pre-occupied. So after Mrs. Curtis's example, the
world for the most part knew the colonel's housekeeper as Mrs. Tibbs.

She might be a tyrant, but liberties were taken with her territory; for
almost the first use that the colonel made of h