Next morning Mrs. Callender heard John Storm singing to himself before he left his bedroom, and she was standing at the bottom of the stairs when he came down three steps at a time.
“Bless me, laddie,” she said, “to see your face shining a body would say that somebody had left ye a legacy or bought ye a benefice instead of taking your church frae ye!”
“Why, yes, and better than both, and that's just what I was going to tell you.”
“You must be in a hurry to do it, too, coming downstairs like a cataract.”
“You came down like a cataract yourself once on a time, auntie; I'll lay my life on that.”
“Aye, did I, and not sae lang since neither. And fools and prudes cried 'Oh!' and called me a tomboy. But, hoots; I was nought but a body born a wee before her time. All the lasses are tomboys now, bless them, the bright heart-some things!”
“Auntie,” said John softly, seating himself at the breakfast table, “what d'ye think?”
She eyed him knowingly. “Nay, I'm ower thrang working to be bothered thinking. Out with it, laddie.”
He looked wise. “Don't you remember saying—that work like mine wanted a woman's hand in it?”
Her old eyes blinked. “Maybe I did, but what of it?”