e,
gets up frae the table an' lifts the jug or the plates an' gaes awa ben
to the east room for what's wanted. Ay, it's a wy o' doin' 'at's juist
like the gentry, but I'll tell ye, Jess, Pete juist fair hated the
soond o' that bell, an' there's them 'at says it was the death o' 'im.
To think o' Marget ha'en sic an establishment! . . .

"Na, I hinna seen the mournin', I've heard o't. Na, if Marget doesna
tell me naething, am no the kind to speir naething, an' though I'll be
at the kirk the morn, I winna turn my heid to look at the mournin'.
But it's fac as death I ken frae Janet McQuhatty 'at the bonnet's a'
crape, and three yairds o' crape on the dress, the which Marget calls a
costume. . . . Ay, I wouldna wonder but what it was hale watter the
morn, for it looks michty like rain, an' if it is it'll serve Marget
richt, an' mebbe bring doon her pride a wee. No 'at I want to see her
humbled, for, in coorse, she's grand by the like o' me. Ou, but . . ."

CHAPTER VIII

A CLOAK WITH BEADS

On weekdays the women who passed the window were meagrely dressed;
mothers in draggled winsey gowns, carrying infants that were armfuls of
grandeur. The Sabbath clothed every one in her best, and then the
women went by with their hands spread out. When I was with Hendry
cloaks with beads were the fashion, and Jess sighed as she looked at
them. They were known in Thrums as the Eleven and a Bits (threepenny
bits), that being their price at Kyowowy's in the square. Kyowowy
means finicky, and applied to the draper by general consent. No doubt
it was very characteristic to call the cloaks by their market value.
In the glen my scholars still talk of their school-books as the
tupenny, the fowerpenny, the sax-penny. They finish their education
with the ten-penny.

Jess's opportunity for handling the garments that others of her sex
could finger in shops was when she had guests to tea. Persons who
merely dropped in and remained to tea got their meal, as a rule, in the
kitchen. They had nothing on that Jess could not easily take in as she
talked to them. But when they came by special invitation, the meal was
served in the room, the guests' things being left on the kitchen bed.
Jess not being able to go ben the house, had to be left with the
things. When the time to go arrived, these were found on the bed, just
as they had been placed there, but Jess could now tell Leeby whether
they were imitation, why Bell Elshioner's feat