laddie for showin' me the road to
your house! It's a terrible difference to Heathknowes, laddie. Now, I
wadna wonder if ye hae to pay for your very firewood!"

I assured her that we had neither peat nor woodcutting privileges on the
Meadows, and to change the subject asked her if she would not go up and
see Irma.

"A' in guid time," she said. "I hae a word or two to ask ye first,
laddie. No that muckle is to be expected o' a man that wad write to puir
Janet Lyon instead o' to _me_, Duncan MacAlpine!"

As I did not volunteer anything, she exclaimed, stamping her foot,
"Dinna stand there glowering at me. Man alive, Duncan lad, ye can hae no
idea how like an eediot ye can look when ye put your mind to it!"

I had been reared in the knowledge that it was a vain thing to argue
with my grandmother, so I listened patiently to all she had to say, and
I answered, to the best of my ability, all the questions she asked. Most
she seemed to have no need to ask at all, for she knew the answers
before they were out of my mouth, and paid no attention to my words
when I did get in a word.

"Humph, you are stupider than most men, and that's saying no trifle!"
was her comment when all was finished.

I asked Mary Lyon if there was nothing I could do to assist her--help
with her unpacking, or any trifle like that.

"Aye, there is," she answered, with her old verve, "get out o' the
house, man, and leave me to my work while you do yours."

I took my hat, the cane which the Advocate had given me, and with them
my way to the office of the _Universal Review._ I had a busy day, which
perhaps was as well, for all the time my mind was wandering disconsolate
about the little white house above the Meadows.

I returned to find all well, my supper laid in the kitchen and the
contents of grandmother's trunks apparently filling the rest of the
house. Irma gave me a little, perfunctory kiss; said, "Oh, if you could
only----!" and so vanished to where my grandmother was unfolding still
more things and other treasures to the rustle of fine tissue paper, and
the gasps and little hand-clappings of Irma.

Those who know my grandmother do not need to be told that she took
possession of our house and all that was therein, of Irma so completely
that practically I was only allowed to bid my wife "Good-morning" under
the strictest supervision, and of Mistress Pathrick--who, after one sole
taste of my grandmother's tongue, had retired defeated with the mu