ng the horse anxiously,
and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble)
made a curt and grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the
mistress; she's got a trouble in her breest--some kind o' an income
we're thinking."

By this time I saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack filled
with straw, her husband's plaid round her, and his big-coat with its
large white metal buttons, over her feet.

I never saw a more unforgettable face--pale, serious, _lonely_,[*]
delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call fine. She looked
sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her
silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes--eyes such as one
sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of
the overcoming of it: her eyebrows black and delicate, and her mouth
firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are.

[* It is not easy giving this look by one word; it was expressive of her
being so much of her life alone.]

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more
subdued to settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister John,
the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you,
doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing; and prepared
to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had Solomon, in all
his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate he
could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, more like a
gentleman, than did James the Howgate carrier, when he lifted down Ailie
his wife. The contrast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen,
worldly face to hers--pale, subdued, and beautiful--was something
wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything
that might turn up,--were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, or even
me. Ailie and he seemed great friends.

"As I was sayin' she's got a kind o' trouble in her breest, doctor; wull
ye tak' a look at it?" We walked into the consulting-room, all four; Rab
grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential if cause could be
shown, willing also to be the reverse, on the same terms. Ailie sat
down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief round her neck, and
without a word, showed me her right breast. I looked at and examined it
carefully,--she and James watching me, and Rab eying all three. What
could I say? there it was, that had once been so soft, so shapely, so