As they lingered the door opened.
“Eh! Miss Dawson and Miss May. Is it you on sic a day? Wha would ha’e expected to see you—and on your ain feet too. Wet enough they must be.”
“We’ll go to the kitchen, Nannie, and no’ wet the carpet,” said May; and they staid there chatting with the maid for a minute or two. The expected greeting met them at the parlour door.
“Eh! bairns! Here on such a day!”
“Papa had to come to the town,” said Jean.
“And so we thought we might as well come with him,” said May.
“Weel, ye’re welcome anyway, and ye’re neither sugar nor salt to be harmed by a drop of rain. But come in by to the fire.”
But their tussle with the wind had made the fire unnecessary.
“It’s a good thing that your curls are no’ of a kind that the rain does ill with, May, my dear. But you might as well go up the stair and put them in order now.”
“Oh! I needna care. We have only a minute to stay, and it’s hardly worth my while.”