* * * * *
When Pamela departed with her brother to partake of a dinner cooked by Miss Bathgate (a somewhat doubtful pleasure), Mhor went off to bed, and Jock curled himself up on the sofa with Peter, for his Friday night's extra hour with a story-book, while Jean resumed her darning of stockings.
Her thoughts were full of the sister and brother who had just left. "Queer they are!" she thought to herself. "If Davie came back to me after a year in India, I wouldn't have liked to meet him in somebody else's house. But they seemed quite happy to look at books, and talk about just anything and play with Jock and Mhor and tease Peter. Now I expect they'll be talking about their own affairs, but I would have rushed at the pleasure of hearing all about everything—I couldn't have waited. Pamela has such a leisured air about everything she does. It's nice and sort of aloof and quiet—but I could never attain to it. I'm little and bustling and Martha-like."
Here Jean sighed, and put her fingers through a large hole in the toe of a stocking.
"I'm only fit to keep house and darn and worry the boys about washing their ears…. Anyway, I'm glad I had on my Chinese coat."
CHAPTER XV
"Her gown should be of goodliness
Well ribboned with renown,
Purfilled with pleasure in ilk place,
Furred with fine fashion.
Her hat should be of fair having,
And her tippet of truth,
Her patclet of good pansing,
Her neck ribbon of ruth.
Her sleeves should be of esperance
To keep her from despair:
Her gloves of the good governance
To guide her fingers fair.
Her shoes should be of sickerness
In syne she should not slide:
Her hose of honesty I guess
I should for her provide."