ot
incomprehensible reason, called this meal his brose. Frequently,
however, while I was there to share the expense, broth was put on the
table, with beef to follow in clean plates, much to Hendry's distress,
for the comfortable and usual practice was to eat the beef from the
broth-plates. Jess, however, having three whole white plates and two
cracked ones, insisted on the meals being taken genteelly, and her
husband, with a look at me, gave way.

"Half a pound o' boiling beef, an' a penny bone," was Leeby's almost
invariable order when she dealt with the flesher, and Jess had always
neighbours poorer than herself who got a plateful of the broth. She
never had anything without remembering some old body who would be the
better of a little of it.

Among those who must have missed Jess sadly after she was gone was
Johnny Proctor, a half-witted man who, because he could not work,
remained straight at a time of life when most weavers, male and female,
had lost some inches of their stature. For as far back as my memory
goes, Johnny had got his brose three times a week from Jess, his custom
being to walk in without ceremony, and, drawing a stool to the table,
tell Leeby that he was now ready. One day, however, when I was in the
garden putting some rings on a fishing-wand, Johnny pushed by me, with
no sign of recognition on his face. I addressed him, and, after
pausing undecidedly, he ignored me. When he came to the door, instead
of flinging it open and walking in, he knocked primly, which surprised
me so much that I followed him.

"Is this whaur Mistress McQumpha lives?" he asked, when Leeby, with a
face ready to receive the minister himself, came at length to the door.

I knew that the gentility of the knock had taken both her and her
mother aback.

"Hoots, Johnny," said Leeby, "what haver's this? Come awa in."

Johnny seemed annoyed.

"Is this whaur Mistress McQumpha lives?" he repeated.

"Say 'at it is," cried Jess, who was quicker in the uptake than her
daughter.

"Of course this is whaur Mistress McQumpha lives," Leeby then said, "as
weel ye ken, for ye had yer dinner here no twa hours syne."

"Then," said Johnny, "Mistress Tully's compliments to her, and would
she kindly lend the christenin' robe, an' also the tea-tray, if the
same be na needed?"

Having delivered his message as instructed, Johnny consented to sit
down until the famous christening robe and the tray were ready, but he
would not talk