“Your girl is a good, brave lass, and you’ve no cause to be ashamed of her,” Dod declared.
“I could never be that, I well know,” Mrs. Kennedy returned quietly.
Sometimes walking with Jock and Sandy, sometimes riding with Margret cuddled one side and Jessie the other, the baby on her lap, Agnes made the journey back to the M’Cleans’ gate, where Mrs. M’Clean, Jeanie, and David stood waiting for the party.
“You’ll better be dropping some of your load here,” Mrs. M’Clean suggested.
“Oh, no, no.” Agnes positively refused to consider this.
“But where will you stow them all in your bit of a cabin?”
“We’ll hang them up on pegs rather than leave one behind,” Agnes declared. “We’ll manage somehow.”
But Mrs. M’Clean shook her head as they started off. “We’ve a deal of room, now Archie’s gone,” she said, “and where they’ll stow those five children, not to mention Margaret Kennedy hersel’, I don’t know.” But she did not know Polly and her resources.
CHAPTER XII
MOTHER