Kate in her favourite position.
"She knows it, too," he used to say, "for when a woman has big feet she always keeps them tucked in below her gown. A woman with an eight-size glove and feet to correspond is usually a paragon of modesty, and strong on women's rights."
"Kate's glove is number six, and I think it's a size too big," broke in the Colonel—we were all lying in the sun on a bank below the beeches at the time, and the Colonel was understood to be preparing a sermon for some meeting—"but it's a strong little hand, and a steady; she used to be able to strike a shilling in the air at revolver practice."
"Ghost, lassie. Oh, in the Lodge, a Carnegie ghost—not one I've ever heard of; so you may sleep in peace, and I 'm below if you feel lonely the first night."
"You are most insulting; one would think I were a milksop. I was hoping for a ghost—a white lady by choice. Did no Carnegie murder his wife, for instance, through jealousy or quarrelling?"
"The Carnegies have never quarrelled," said the General, with much simplicity; "you see the men have generally been away fighting, and the women had never time to weary of them."
"No woman ever wearies of a man unless he be a fool and gives in to her—then she grows sick of him. Life might be wholesome, but it would have no smack; it would be like meat without mustard. If a man cannot rule, he ought not to marry, for his wife will play the fool in some fashion or other like a runaway horse, and he has half the blame. Why did he take the box-seat?" and Kate nodded to the fire. "What are you laughing at?"
"Perhaps I ought to be shocked, but the thought of any one trying to rule you, Kit, tickles me immensely. I have had the reins since you were a bairn, and you have been a handful. You were a 'smatchit' at six years old, and a 'trimmie' at twelve, and you are qualifying for the highest rank in your class."
"What may that be, pray? it seems to me that the Scottish tongue is a perfect treasure-house for impertinent people. How Scots must congratulate themselves that they need never be at a loss when they are angry or even simply frank."