“Sell, Bell? Sell to you! sell you what’s more yours than mine! If I did not know you well, I would be both vexed and angry at you, but it’s like yourself, Bell. Please never ask me about any such things; take them. I’ll help you all I can to get everything ready and purpose-like. As to the black currants, you must allow me to give you the sugar, and be sure and fill every empty jelly-pot in the house.”
“Ye’re ower kind, mem, far ower kind.”
“Bell,” said Mrs. Barrie, “don’t say that again, for that is what I can never be. But there’s Mr. Barrie disengaged now, and I must bring him in,”—which she did, and Bell and they got it over, not without some signs of emotion that each tried to hide, but none were ashamed to feel, for the bond of twenty years’ faithful service was to them a cord not easily broken, and to Bell a retrospect of intense satisfaction; for a vision of her life-history passed before her, which may be summed up in the following lines:—
“An orphan was she, and they had been gude till her;
Sure that was the thing brocht the tear to her e’e.”
CHAPTER XII.
ANOTHER MARRIAGE AND HOME-COMING.
“Noo they’re crouse and canty baith,
Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.”
Burns.