as very kind of you and Mrs Bruce. How does the
child get on?"

"Middlin', mem, middlin'. She's jist some ill for takin' up wi' loons."

Here he glanced at Alec, with an expression of successful spite. He
certainly had the best of it now.

Alec was on the point of exclaiming "That's a lie," but he had prudence
enough to restrain himself, perceiving that the contradiction would
have a better chance with his mother if he delayed its utterance till
after the departure of Bruce. So, meantime, the subject was not
pursued. A little desultory conversation followed, and the visitor
departed, with a laugh from between his teeth as he took leave of Alec,
which I can only describe as embodying an _I told you so_ sort of
satisfaction.

Almost as soon as he was out of the house the parlour-door opened, and
Mary brought in Annie. Mrs Forbes's eyes were instantly fixed on her
with mild astonishment, and something of a mother's tenderness awoke in
her heart towards the little maid-child. What would she not have given
for such a daughter! During Bruce's call, Mary had been busy with the
child. She had combed and brushed her thick brown hair, and, taken with
its exceeding beauty, had ventured on a stroke of originality no one
would have expected of her: she had left it hanging loose on her
shoulders. Any one would think such an impropriety impossible to a
Scotchwoman. But then she had been handling the hair, and contact with
anything alters so much one's theories about it. If Mary had found it
so, instead of making it so, she would have said it was "no dacent."
But the hair gave her its own theory before she had done with it, and
this was the result. She had also washed her face and hands and neck,
made the best she could of her poor, dingy dress, and put one of her
own Sunday collars upon her.

Annie had submitted to it all without question; and thus adorned, Mary
introduced her again to the dining-room. Before Mrs Forbes had time to
discover that she was shocked, she was captivated by the pale, patient
face, and the longing blue eyes, that looked at her as if the child
felt that she ought to have been her mother, but somehow they had
missed each other. They gazed out of the shadows of the mass of dark
brown wavy hair that fell to her waist, and there was no more any need
for Alec to contradict Bruce's calumny. But Mrs Forbes was speedily
recalled to a sense of propriety by observing that Alec too was staring
at Annie with a mingl