'Here's your health, Ronald; and right glad am I to see you looking so weel—ye were aye a bonnie laddie, and ye've kept the promise o't—ay, indeed, the whole o' you Strangs were a handsome family—except your brother Andrew, maybe——'
'Do ye ever see Andrew?' Ronald said; for a modest man does not like to have his looks discussed, even in the most flattering way.
Then loudly laughed Kate Menzies.
'Me? Me gang and see the Reverend Andrew Strang? No fears! He's no one o' my kind. He'd drive me out o' the house wi' bell, book, and candle. I hae my ain friends, thank ye—and I'm going to number you amongst them so long as ye stop in this town. Auntie, pass the bottle to Ronald!'
And so the banquet proceeded—a roast fowl and bacon, an apple-tart, cheese and biscuits and what not following in due succession; and all the time she was learning more and more of the life that Ronald had led since he had left the Lothians, and freely she gave him of her confidences in return. On one point she was curiously inquisitive, and that was as to whether he had not been in some entanglement with one or other of the Highland lasses up there in Sutherlandshire; and there was a considerable amount of joking on that subject, which Ronald bore good-naturedly enough; finding it on the whole the easier way to let her surmises have free course.
'But ye're a dark one!' she said at length. 'And ye would hae me believe that a strapping fellow like you hasna had the lasses rinnin' after him? I'm no sae daft.'
'I'll tell ye what it is, Katie,' he retorted, 'the lasses in the Highlands have their work to look after; they dinna live a' in clover, like the Glasgow dames.'
'Dinna tell me—dinna tell me,' she said.
And now, as supper was over and the table cleared, she went to a small mahogany cabinet and opened it.
'I keep some cigars here for my particular friends,' said Mrs. Menzies, 'but I'm sure I dinna ken which is the best. Come and pick for yourself, Ronald lad; if you're no certain the best plan is to take the biggest.'