"'It's a fine nicht for gettin' hame,' she says, at the hinder end.
"This was, as ye may say, something like a hint, but I was determined to hae it oot wi' her that nicht. An' so I had, though no' in the way I had intended exactly.
"'It is a fine nicht,' says I; 'but I ken by the pains in the sma' o' my back that it's gaun to be a storm.'
"Wi' that, as if a bee had stang'd her, Tibby cam' to the ither side o' the table frae whaur I was sittin'—as it micht be there—an' she set her hands on the edge o't wi' the loofs doon (I think I see her noo; she looked awsome bonny), an' says she—
"'Tammas Thackanraip, ye are a decent man, but ye are wasting your time comin' here coortin' me,' she says. 'Gin ye think that Tibby o' the Hilltap is gaun to marry a man wi' his een in his pooch an' a weather-glass in the sma' o' his back, ye're maist notoriously mista'en,' says she."
There was silence in the kitchen after that, so that we could hear the clock ticking time about with my wife's needles.
"So I cam' awa'," at last said Tammock, sadly.
"An' what hae ye dune aboot it?" asked my wife, sympathetically.
"Dune aboot it?" said Tammas; "I juist speered Bell Mulwhulter when I cam' hame."
"An' what said she?" asked the mistress.