“Do you think he is engaged to Roberta Rath?”
“I canna say. I don’t think he kens himsel’.”
“Did you see her?”
“He pointed her out to me. She was getting into a carriage, and——”
“Weel?”
“O, she was a little body; I saw naething o’ her but a blue silk dress, and a white lace bonnet. It would be ordinary, nae doubt. She waved a white-gloved hand to Neil, and the lad’s face was like an illumination. She seemed vera sma’ and thin—just a handfu’ o’ her. Naething like yoursel’ and our ain full-statured, weel-finished women.”
“I feel as if I had lost Neil.”
“You may do sae, for a man can be lost by a woman, quite as completely as by the North Sea.”
Then Ruleson entered the cottage. He was wet through, but his face was red with health, and radiant with excitement. He had been in the new schoolhouse, and seen three large boxes unpacked. “Margot! Christine!” he cried joyfully, “you’ll be to come down the hill—the baith o’ you—and see the wonderfu’ things that hae come for ordering and plenishing o’ our school. There’s a round ball as big as that table, set in a frame—and it turns round, and round, and shows a’ the countries and seas i’ the wide warld. The Maister said it was called a globe. There’s maps o’ Scotland, and England and a’ other nations to hang on the walls, and they are painted bonnily; and there’s nae end o’ copy books and slates, and bundles o’ pencils, and big bottles o’ ink, and, Margot, I ne’er saw sae many school books i’ a’ my 188 born days. Naething has been forgotten. The maister said sae, and the Domine said sae.”