them, won't ye? I give
them my word I would." Mrs Kelly departed with her soup, and Lull sat
down to face the fact that the people had taken the children seriously.
"Dear forgive me, I'm the right ould fool. The village'll be like a
circus the day," she murmured. A tall figure in vivid colours passed
the window. "God help us, there's Anne," she gasped. The next moment
Anne M'Farlane stood in the doorway. She wore a brown bombazine dress,
a red burnouse, and a bonnet of bright blue areophane. Lull greeted
her as though there were nothing unusual about her appearance. But
Anne, in no mood to notice this, stood still in the doorway. Lull
turned towards the fire.

"Come on in an' warm yerself, Anne," she said cheerfully, trying to
ignore Anne's dramatic attitude. A burst of weeping was the reply from
the figure in the doorway.

"Luk at me--luk!" wailed Anne. "Did ye iver see the like in all yer
days?--all the childer in the streets a-callin' after me. An' when I
met the priest on the road, sez he: 'Is it aff to a weddin' ye are in
Lent, Anne?' sez he." Lull could find nothing to say. She tried to
make Anne come in and have some tea, but Anne's woe was beyond the
comfort of tea.

"Gimme the soup, an' I'll away home to my bed," she wept. "God help
me, I'd be better in my grave." She dried her eyes on the burnouse,
and took her soup, adding, as she turned to go: "Don't be lettin' on to
the weans, Lull. Their meanin' was a' the best, but it's an image upon
airth they've made a' me--me that always lived a moral life, an' hoped
to die a moral death." She went away crying.

"It's the sore penance I'll get for this day's work," Lull muttered.

Teressa was the next person to arrive, and to Lull's relief she wore
her own well-known green plaid shawl. On seeing this Lull took heart
again. Mrs Kelly and Anne M'Farlane were both such good-natured
bodies, perhaps they would be the only ones to wear the Dorcas
Society's gifts. But Teressa was charged with news. She was hardly
inside the door before she began. "Man, Lull, woman, but there's the
quare fun in the village the day. Ye'd split yer two sides at the
people. I niver laughed as many. Thon's the curiosities a' the
ould-fashionedest, to be sure. Silks an' satins trailin' round the
dours like tip-top quality rared in the parlour." She took a seat by
the fire. "God be thanked, the childer niver come near me; mebby
they'd 'a' made a kiltie a' me, like