bad time of it, for she was a weak woman, with no body in her at
all, an' a poor will to suffer things. She never was the better of you!"
She smiled at him sadly. "Never! An' she took no interest in nothin'
after that ... she could hardly bear to look at you ... an' you her own
wee son. She didn't live long after you come, an' mebbe it was as well,
for God never made her to contend with anything. I was quaren fond of
her. Ye had to like her, she was that helpless. She couldn't thole any
one next or near her but myself ... and so I got fond of her, for a body
has to like people that depends on them. Will your wife be a fair lady
or a dark lady, Master Henry?"

He realised that she wished him to describe Mary to her.

"She's dark," he said. "Not at all like her brother!"

"Ay, he was the big, fair man that was a credit to a woman to have!"

"I have her photograph upstairs," Henry went on, "I'll go and get it.
You'd like to see it, wouldn't you?"

"Deed an' I would," she answered.

He got the photograph and gave it to her, and she took it in her hands
and looked at it very steadily.

"She's a comely-lookin' girl," she said, handing it to him again. "She
has sweet eyes an' a proud way of holdin' her head. She shud be a good
wife to you. I'll be glad to see her here, for dear knows, it's lonesome
sittin' in the house with no one to look after. I miss your da sore,
Master Henry, an' it's seldom you're here now!"

"I'll be here much more in future, Hannah!"

"Well, thank God for that! I like well to see the quality in their
houses, an' them not to be runnin' here an' runnin' there, an' not
thinkin' of their own place an' their own people. An' I pray to God
you'll have fine childher, an' I'll be well-spared to see them growin'
up to be a credit to you!"

The old woman's patient service and love seemed very noble to him, and
he went to her and took her hand. "You're the only mother I've ever
known, Hannah!" he said. "You've always been very good to me!"

"An' why wouldn't I be good to you?" she exclaimed, raising her fine
blue eyes to his. "Aren't you the only child I ever had to rear? Dear
bless you, son, what else would I be but good to you?"

And suddenly she put her arms about him and kissed him passionately, and
as she kissed him, she cried:

"God only knows what I'm girnin' for!" she exclaimed, releasing him and
drying her eyes.

3

He wandered about the house, touching a chair or fingering a curtain or