was turned on her, and her man at
the great wars. Ech, ech, a weary time, and her crying to him in the
nicht, and throwin' oot her white arms in the stillness and crying: 'My
brave fierce lad, my brave wild lover, come back and let me dee wi'
your arms aboot me.' Ay, and her wild lad, her kindly lad, lying stark
on yon bluidy field and the corbies maybe at his bonny blue een. I
love Dan, for I took him frae his mither's caul' breast; but ech, why
will he be shaming his name, and shaming his ain sel'--but I shouldna
be haverin', my dearie . . . and here's your soup now."

Jean--she of the stable raid--with a haughty look at the gipsy, who had
stood in a corner by the fire all this time, came with the bowl of
soup, but Belle slid forward noiselessly.

"Is it soup, Jean?" says she, and the wench stopped. "Skim the fat off
it, then, for I saw a hussy like you gi'e her mistress soup like
that--and she died." My aunt sat up in her bed, her face very stern
when Betty talked of Dan shaming himself and his name.

"I will know this," she cried. "I am not ill any more--who is the
woman?"

Jean would have spoken at this, but the gipsy whispered: "Begone, or
I'll turn your hair white as the driven snaw," and the wench fled with
her soup, and spilled most of it in the stone-flagged corridor leading
to the kitchen, where she sat and trembled and grat her fill, every now
and again catching her yellow locks to make sure no change had started
yet.

So here we have Betty whispering--

"Don't vex yoursel', my Leddy; it's juist the lassie's clavers, for
Jean cam' in frae the stable, where she had nae right to be, except to
be seein' her lad--they ha'e lads on the brain the lassies noo--and
greetin' that young Dan had shamed her before the men, and a' because
o' a tinker body like Belle here, although the great folk will treat
her so kindly; no' that I mean her any harm," she added (erring on the
safe side, for Belle's eyes had begun to glow finely); "and then in
came Kate and Leezie wi' a tale o' a wean, tied in a tartan shawl,
lying in a biss in the wee byre. Then and there they faithered and
mithered the bairn, the useless hussies. . . ." The mother's haughty
eyes turned to the gipsy.

"I never found you lying, Belle. Is this story true?--a bonny family
is this to be among," she cried, her hand pressing the child closer,
and maybe she pressed him too tightly, for the boy doubled his baby
fist, his wee voice whimpered, an