“Ay; about the New Year.”
“I am thinking of giving you a silk gown for your wedding.”
“O Andrew! if you would! A silk gown would set me up above every thing! I’ll never forget such a favour as that.”
“I’ll do it.”
“And Sophy will see to the making of it. Sophy has a wonderful taste about trimming, and the like of that. Sophy will stand up with me, and you will be Jamie’s best man; won’t you, Andrew?”
“Ay, Sophy will see to the making of it. Few can make a gown look as she can. She is a clever bit thing”—then after a pause he added sadly, “there was one thing I did not tell you this morning; but it is a circumstance I feel very badly about.”
“What is it? You know well that I shall feel with you.”
“It is the way folks keep hinting this and that to me; but more, that I am mistrusting Mistress Kilgour. I saw a young fellow standing at the shop door talking to her the other morning very confidential-like—a young fellow that could not have any lawful business with her.”
“What kind of a person was he?”
“A large, dark man, dressed like a picture in a tailor’s window. His servant-man, in a livery of brown and yellow, was holding the horses in a fine dog-cart. I asked Jimmy Faulds what his name was and he laughed and said it was Braelands of Braelands, and he should think I knew it and then he looked at me that queer, that I felt as if his eyes had told me of some calamity. ‘What is he doing at Mistress Kilgour’s?’ I asked as soon as I could get myself together, and Jimmy answered, ‘I suppose he is ordering Madame Braelands’ millinery,’ and then he snickered and laughed again, and I had hard lines to keep my hands from striking him.’