“And what stipend are they promising ye?” she said, presently, after she had thought the matter over.
“Nothing!” I answered, calmly.
“Nocht ava’—no a bawbee—and a’ that siller spent on your colleging.”
Then my mother’s mind took a new tack.
“And what will puir Hob be gaun to do, puir fellow? He has had nae ither thocht than you since ever he was a laddie.”
“Faith,” said I, smiling back at her, “I am thinking that now at last he has some other thought in his mind.”
My mother fell back a step.
“No a lassie!” she cried, “a laddie like him.”
“Hob is no week-old bairn chicken, mother,” said I; “he will be five-and-thirty if he is a day.”
“But our Hob—to be thinking o’ a lassie!”