"You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair; "why do yourself such injustice—why not pay more attention to your appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?"
"I did not expect you, dear Randal; you always come so suddenly, and catch us en dish-a-bill."
"Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan.—"Dishabille!—you ought never to be so caught!"
"No one else does so catch us—nobody else ever comes! Heigho," and the young lady sighed very heartily.
"Patience, patience; my day is coming, and then yours, my sister," replied Randal with genuine pity, as he gazed upon what a little care could have trained into so fair a flower, and what now looked so like a weed.
Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement—having rushed through the parlor—leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning brass of the never-mended Brummagem work-table—tore across the hall—whirled out of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left, and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hearty and uncomfortable kiss. "And you are hungry, too, and nothing in the house but cold mutton! Jenny, Jenny, I say Jenny! Juliet, have you seen Jenny? Where's Jenny? Out with the old man, I'll be bound."
"I am not hungry, mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea." Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but she was greatly in awe of him.
Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come down," said Mr. Leslie, with some anxiety.
"Oh, sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me."
The pigs stared up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger.