"Ou, I'm brawly where I am, sir," replied she of St. Mungo's. "There's nae use for ceremony wi' friends. Ye'll be Janet's husband, I fancy? Keep aff the back o' yer uncle's chair, ye ill-mannered brat."
"There is a woman in the parlour wishes to see yon, Mrs. Geddes," said the servant.
"What like is she?" cried the Glasgow friend. "Is she a weel-faured woman, wi' a bairn at her foot?"
"Yes," was the reply.
"Just bring her in here, then," continued the speaker. "It's our sister Betty. I asked her to meet me here the day, and she was to get a cast o' a cart as far as Linton. She was to hae brocht Saunders wi' her, but there's some great folk dead about Lithgow, and he's been sae thrang wi' their mournings that I fancy he couldna win."
"Are these your sisters, Mrs. Geddes?" said the lady of Bogend, who probably enjoyed secretly the perplexity around her.
"I can answer for mysel," replied the visiter; "and whether this be Betty or no, I'll soon tell ye;" and she rose to waddle to the door to satisfy the inquiry of the lady of Bogend. "The truth is, madam," she said, by way of favoured intelligence, as she passed the chair of the latter, "we're a' sisters; but, if we had been on the richt side o' the blanket—ye ken what I mean, if our faither and mither had been married—the siller left us by our uncle the cotton-spinner wad hae been twice as muckle. Is that you, Betty?" she bawled at the door. "Come in, woman."
"Save us!—save us!—the honour o' the Geddeses is gane for ever," groaned Gilbert.
"It's just me, Peggy," responded another voice from the passage; and the heavy tread of a weary traveller, mixed with the cries of a child, announced an approach. The two entered. The woman was dressed like the wife of a man of her husband's profession, who had got a recent legacy.
"Saunders is coming, after a," cried Betty, as she entered. "He got done with the mournings on Wednesday. He's in the public-house, alang the road there, taking a dram wi' a friend, and will be here immediately. John, I fancy, couldna win. Ye're weel set doon, Janet," she continued, as she stood and stared at the room, turning round and round. "My troth, lass, ye hae fa'n on yer feet at last. It was just as weel the sergeant de'ed. Sit ye there, Geordie, and see if ye can learn manners enough to haud yer tongue."