Aggie was in the kitchen when he entered. She was making the porridge.
“What’s come o’ Grizzie?” asked Cosmo.
“Ye dinna like my parritch sae weel as hers!” returned Agnes.
“Jist as weel, Aggie,” answered Cosmo.
“Dinna ye tell Grizzie that.”
“What for no?”
“She wad be angert first, an’ syne her hert wad be like to brak.”
“There’s nae occasion to say ’t,” conceded Cosmo. “But what’s come o’ her the nicht?” he went on. “It’s some dark, an’ I doobt she’ll——”
“The ro’d atween this an’ the Muir’s no easy to lowse,” said Aggie.
But the same instant her face flushed hotter than ever fire or cooking made it; what she had said was in itself true, but what she had not said, yet meant him to understand, was not true, for Grizzie had gone nowhere near Muir o’ Warlock. Aggie had never told a lie in her life, and almost before the words were out of her mouth, she felt as if the solid earth were sinking from under her feet. She left the spurtle sticking in the porridge, and dropped into the laird’s chair.