lair's footsteps, only it
was over-quick like, as she remarked later, "like a bairn running up
the stairs," but she fairly shook with surprise when the door opened,
and a rosy, dimpled, smiling creature stood before her.

"Give me the baby, Jean, quick--no, never mind his sash, he looks
beautiful. My husband has come, and he wants to see him. Yes, my boy!
Father has come"--nearly smothering him with kisses, which baby Hugh
returned by mischievous grabs at her hair.

"Ech, sirs," began Jean, turning very red; but before she could give
vent to her surprise, a big, grand-looking man suddenly entered the
old-fashioned room, and took mother and child in his arms before her
very eyes.

Jean vanished precipitately, and Mrs. Duncan found her an hour
afterward, basting the fowls with a skewer, while the iron ladle lay
at her feet, and with a stony, impassive expression on her face which
always meant strong disapproval with Jean.

"Well, Jean," remarked her mistress cheerily, while her white curls
bobbed with excitement, "have you heard the news, my woman? That
pretty creature has got her husband, and he is as fine a man as one
could ever set eyes on, and that is all a mistake about his not
wanting her--a parcel of childish rubbish.

"Hoots, lass," as Jean remained glum and silent, and only picked up
the iron spoon with a toss of her head, "you do not look overpleased,
and yet we are bidden to rejoice with them that do rejoice. Why, he is
a baronet, Jean, and as rich as Croesus, and she is Lady Redmond,
bless her dear heart! Why, I went into the nursery just now, and it
was just a lovely sight, as I told Fergus. The bairn had been pulling
at her hair, and down it came, a tumbling golden-brown mass over her
shoulders like the pictures of a woman-angel, and she just laughed in
her sonsie way, and tried to gather it up, only Sir Hugh stopped her.
'Let it be, Fay, you look beautiful so,' he says, worshiping her with
his eyes. Oh, it was good to hear him; and then he looks up and sees
me, and such a smile comes to his face. Oh, we understood each other."
But to all this Jean apparently turned a deaf ear, only when her
mistress had finished, but not a moment before, she answered, crossly,
how was the tea-supper to be ready for the gentry if folks hindered
her with their clavers, at which hint Mrs. Duncan, judging which way
the wind blew, prudently withdrew.

But the moment the door closed on her mistress, Jean sat down, and
thr