ribs, hawking
it up coarsely--we forget to be delicate in moments of supremer agony.
And then she flung her apron over her head and rocked herself to and fro
in the chair where she had nursed his children, wailing, "It's a pity o'
me, it's a pity o' me! My God, ay, it's a geyan pity o' me!"

The boy was in bed, but Janet had watched the scene with a white, scared
face and tearful cries. She crept to her mother's side.

The sympathy of children with those who weep is innocently selfish. The
sight of tears makes them uncomfortable, and they want them to cease, in
the interests of their own happiness. If the outward signs of grief
would only vanish, all would be well. They are not old enough to
appreciate the inward agony.

So Janet tugged at the obscuring apron, and whimpered, "Don't greet,
mother, don't greet. Woman, I dinna like to see ye greetin'."

But Mrs. Gourlay still rocked herself and wailed, "It's a pity o' me,
it's a pity o' me! My God, ay, it's a geyan pity o' me!"

CHAPTER XIII.

"Is he in himsell?" asked Gibson the builder, coming into the Emporium.

Mrs. Wilson was alone in the shop. Since trade grew so brisk she had an
assistant to help her, but he was out for his breakfast at present, and
as it happened she was all alone.

"No," she said, "he's no in. We're terribly driven this twelvemonth
back, since trade grew so thrang, and he's aye hunting business in some
corner. He's out the now after a carrying affair. Was it ainything
perticular?"

She looked at Gibson with a speculation in her eyes that almost verged
on hostility. Wives of the lower classes who are active helpers in a
husband's affairs often direct that look upon strangers who approach him
in the way of business. For they are enemies whatever way you take them;
come to be done by the husband or to do him--in either case, therefore,
the object of a sharp curiosity. You may call on an educated man, either
to fleece him or be fleeced, and his wife, though she knows all about
it, will talk to you charmingly of trifles while you wait for him in her
parlour. But a wife of the lower orders, active in her husband's
affairs, has not been trained to dissemble so prettily; though her face
be a mask, what she is wondering comes out in her eye. There was
suspicion in the big round stare that Mrs. Wilson directed at the
builder. What was _he_ spiering for "himsell" for? What could he be up
to? Some end of his own, no doubt. Anxious curiosity