The slanting rays of the afternoon sun were throwing the old farmhouse, with its goodly barns and well-built stacks, into mellow lights and warm brown shadows, when Mr Hogg's pony drew up at the garden-gate. Before they had time to get down, Auntie Bell came out to greet them,—such a queer little woman, bent half double, and peering up at her visitors through her gold spectacles with keen expressive eyes. There was force of character in every line of her face and figure, even in the dowdy cap, the grey wincey gown, and snow-white apron.
"Why, it's Rachel Simpson," she said. "Come awa' ben. Dick'll tak' the powny."
"This is my cousin, Miss Maclean," said Rachel.
"Mona Maclean," corrected the owner of the name.
Auntie Bell gripped her hand and studied her face with as little regard to her feelings as if she had been a horse or a cow, the furrow on her own brow deepening the while.
"Eh, but she's like her faither," she said. "The mooth an' the chin——"
"Yes," said Rachel shortly. The subject of Mona's father was not a congenial one.
"What w'y are ye no' mairrit yet?" continued Auntie Bell severely, still maintaining her grasp of Mona's hand.
"'Advanced women don't marry, sir, she said,'" were the first words that passed through Mona's mind, but she paraphrased them. "We don't marry now," she said. "It's gone out of fashion."
The muscles of Auntie Bell's face relaxed.
"Hoot awa'," she said. "Wait ye till a braw young man comes alang——"
"You will dance at my wedding then, won't you?"
"That will I!" and Auntie Bell executed a momentary pas seul on the spot.
She stopped abruptly and drew down her brows with all her former gravity.
"I hope ye're cliver," she said.
"Thank you. As folks go nowadays, I think I am pretty fair."
"Ye had need be, wi' a faither like yon."
"Ah," said Mona with sudden gravity, "I was not thinking of him. I am not clever as he was."
"Na, na, I was thinkin' that. He was"—this with great emphasis—"as fine a mon as iver I saw."
"But did you know him? I did not know that he was ever in this part of the country."
"Ay was he! He cam' ae day, it may be five-an'-twinty year syne—afore there was ony word o' you, maybe. He was keen to see the hoose whaur his faither was born, and we'd a crack aboot the auld folks, him and me. Rachel Simpson was at Dundee than. My word! ye'd hae thocht I'd been the finest leddy at the Towers. But come awa' ben, an' I'll mask the tea."
"Ye'll find the place in an awfu' disorder," she went on to Rachel as they entered the spotless parlour. "I'm that hadden doon o' the hairvest, I've no' got my back strauchten'd up sin' it commenced;" and she bustled in and out of the kitchen getting the tea.
"You don't let the girls do enough," said Rachel.
"The lassies! Hoot awa'. I canna bide their slatternly w'ys i' the hoose. I'm best pleased when they're oot-bye."
"You havena been to see me for many a long day."
"Me! I've no' been onywhere; I've no' seen onybody. I've no' been to the kirk sin' I canna tell ye whan. What w'y would I? The folk wad a' be lauchin' at daft auld Auntie Bell wi' her bent back. The meenister was here seein' me. He cam' that day o' the awfu' rain, his umberella wrang side oot, an' his face blue wi' the cauld—ye ken what a thin, feckless body he is. 'Come awa', ye puir cratur,' says I, 'come awa' ben tae the fire.' An' he draws himsel' up, an' says he, 'Why say, poor creature?'—like that, ye ken—'why say, poor creature?'" And Auntie Bell clapped her hand on her knee, and laughed at the recollection.
At this moment Mr Hogg and Auntie Bell's husband—a person of no great account—passed the window on their way into the house.
"Come awa' tae yer tea, Mr Hogg. Hoot, Dauvid, awa' an' pit on anither coat. Ye're no' fit tae speak tae the leddies."
David meekly withdrew.
"We were in seeing the Browns," said Rachel complacently. "They were wanting us to stay to tea."
"Ay! I've no' seen them this mony a day."
"How is he getting on, do you know, in the way of business?" asked Mr Hogg.
Auntie Bell brought the palm of her hand emphatically down on the table.
"A' thing i' that shop is guid," she said. "I'm perfectly convinced o' that; but ye can get things a deal cheaper i' the toon nor ye can wi' Maister Brown, an' folks think o' naething but that. I aye deal wi' him mysel'. He haena just a gift for the shop-keepin', but he's been mair wise-like lately, less taen up wi' his butterflies an' things."
Before her visitors had finished tea, Auntie Bell was hard at work, in spite of a mild remonstrance from Rachel, packing a fat duck and some new-laid eggs for them to take home with them. Something of the kind was the invariable termination of Rachel's visits, but she would not have thought it "manners" to accept the basket without a good deal of pressing.
Mr Hogg was beginning to get impatient before the "ladies" rose to go.
"I'll see ye intae the cairt," said Auntie Bell to Mona, when the first farewells had been said, "Rachel'll come whan she gits on her bannet."
As soon as they were in the garden, the old woman laid her hand impressively on Mona's arm.
"Are ye onything weel pit up wi' Rachel?" she whispered.
"Oh yes, indeed."
Auntie Bell shook her head. "It's no' the place for the like o' you," she said, and then further conversation was prevented by Miss Simpson's appearance.
"Well, you'll be in to see us soon," she said.
"Eh, I daursay you'll be here again first."
"I will, certainly," said Mona. "I mean to walk out and see you some day."
"Hoot awa', lassie. It's ower far. Ye canna walk frae Borrowness. Tak' the train——"
"Can't I?" laughed Mona, as Mr Hogg drove off.
"Why, why, why," she thought as they trotted down to Kilwinnie, "did not the Fates give me Auntie Bell for my hostess instead of Rachel Simpson?”