"How could I be, away from home?" she said gently. "I'll be well again here."
Tammas came up then, with his wife and the six big children Marcella knew, and two littler ones she had never seen. Jock's Bessie came out and put a small bundle on the floor of the machine.
"Juist a cookie for the bit laddie," she explained.
They all stared at Louis and then spoke to him: he got the idea that they were sizing him up, calling him to account for how he had dealt with Marcella, who belonged to them. They claimed young Andrew whom they coolly called "Andrew Lashcairn." As they drove on through the village they took on something of the nature of a triumphal progress, for everyone came out, and talked. And everyone seemed to be Marcella's owners.
Aunt Janet was on the step when they reached the farm: her eagle face was thinner, quite fleshless; in her black silk frock, shivered at the seams, and the great cairngorm brooch, she looked quite terrifying.
"So you're back, Marcella? I knew you would be coming back," she said.
Louis wondered if this were the stock greeting at Lashnagar.
"I wonder what you've got for going across the world?" she said. "You're not well."
"I've got my two men," laughed Marcella, as she kissed the old lady.
"Humphm!" said Aunt Janet. "He'd have found you out if you'd stayed here all the time."