"You say so, lassie! What were they now?"
"I dinna ken," Gavinia had to admit, dejectedly. "She took them out o' the ottoman, and it has aye been kept looked."
McQueen looked very knowingly at her. "Will he, think you?" he asked mysteriously.
The maid seemed to understand, for she replied, promptly, "I hope he will."
"But he hasna spiered her as yet, you think?"
"No," she said, "no, but he calls her Ailie, and wi' the gentry it's but one loup frae that to spiering."
"Maybe," answered the doctor, "but it's a loup they often bogle at. I'se uphaud he's close on fifty, Gavinia?"
"There's no denying he is by his best," she said regretfully, and then added, with spirit, "but Miss Ailie's no heavy, and in thae grite arms o' his he could daidle her as if she were an infant."
This bewildered McQueen, and he asked, "What are you blethering about, Gavinia?" to which she replied, regally, "Wha carries me, wears me!" The doctor concluded that it must be Den language.
"And I hope he's good enough for her," continued Miss Ailie's warm-hearted maid, "for she deserves a good ane."