“Ay, it’s a deal. But I’ll gie it to you. And you can knit your ain stocking, and go and come as it likes you; and I’ll mind my ain hame, and I’ll pay you the siller every Saturday night.”
“I dinna like the talk o’ siller sae near the Sawbath day. We’ll hae the settlement on Saturday at noon.”
“Vera weel. We willna differ about an hour or twa.”
“I didna sleep gude last night. A box bed isna quite the thing for an auld woman like me.”
Maggie hesitated. Her own little room was very dear to her. It gave her a measure of privacy, and all her small treasures had their place in it. The concealed, or box bed, in the house place wall, had been David’s sleeping place. It was warm and thoroughly comfortable; it was the usual, and favorite bed of all people of Janet Caird’s class. Maggie wondered at her objection; especially as her own room was exposed to the north wind, and much colder than the house place. She based her opposition on this ground—
“You can hae my room if it please you better, Aunt Janet; but it is a gey cold one in the winter; and there isna ony way to make it warmer.”
“Tuts, lassie! What for wad I want your bit room, when there is my brither’s room empty noo?”
She rose as she spoke, and opened the door of the apartment which Allan had so long occupied. “It’s a nice room, this is; a gude fire-place and an open bed, and you can pack awa a’ those books and pictur’s—they dinna look like vera improving ones—and I’ll put my kist i’ that corner, and just mak’ mysel’ quite comfortable.”
“But you canna hae this room, Aunt Janet. Neither I, nor you, hae the right to put oor foot inside it. It is rented, and the rent paid doon; and the books and pictures canna be meddled wi’; there mustna be a finger laid on them.”
“My certie! The man is gane far awa’; o’er the Atlantic Ocean itsel’—I’ll bear the blame o’ it. He took quite a liking to me, that was easy seen, and I’m vera sure, he willna mind me using what he canna use himsel’.”