“Haud your peace, guidman,” said Mrs Stewart. “Whiles I _am_ drawn away wi’ your reasonings against my ain judgment, as happens to folk owre easy in their temper, whether they will or no—I’ll no deny that; but nae man can say I ever set my face to onything that would have broken the heart of a bairn of mine. Take your dram, and gang away with your worldly thoughts to your worldly business, John Stewart; if it wasna for you, I’m sure ne’er a thought of pelf would enter _my_ head.” “Eh, guidwife!” It was all that the miller’s astonishment could utter. He was put down. With humility he took the dram, and softly setting his glass on the table, went out like a lamb, to the mill. “Leddy Kilbrachmont! and Janet, the glaikit gilpie, taking up with a common man!” said Mrs Stewart, unconsciously pushing aside the pretty wheel, the offering of the “wright” in Arncreoch. “Weel, but what maun I do? If Isabell gangs hame to her ain house, and Janet—Janet’s a guid worker—far mair use about a house like ours than such a genty thing as Bell—Janet married, too—what’s to come o’ me? I’ll hae to bring hame Katie frae the Castle.” “Muckle guid ye’ll get of Katie, mother,” said Janet, who, just then coming in from the garden, with an armful of cold, curly, brilliant greens, had heard her mother’s soliloquy. “If ye yokit her to the wheel like a powny, she wadna spin the yarn for Isabell’s providing in half-a-dozen years; and no a mortal turn besides could Katie do in a house, if ye gied her a’ the land between this and Kellie Law.” “And wha asked _your_ counsel?” said the absolute sovereign of Kellie Mill. “If I’m no sair trysted wi’ my family, there never was a woman: first, your faither—and muckle he kens about the rule o’ a household; and syne you, ye taupie—as if Isabell’s providing was yet to spin! To spin, said she? and it lying safe in the oak press up the stair, since ever Bell was a wee smout of a bairn. And yours too, though ye dinna deserve it;—ay, and little Katie’s as weel, as the bonnie grass on the burnside could have tellt ye twal year ago, when it was white wi’ yarn a’ the simmer through, spun on a purpose-like wheel—a thing fit for a woman’s wark—no a toy for a bit bairn. Gae way wi’ you and your vanities. I would just like to see, wi’ a’ your upsetting, ony ane o’ ye bring up a family as creditable as your mother!” Janet stole in to the table at the further window, and, without a word, began to prepare her greens, which were immediately to be added to the other contents of the great pot, which, suspended by the crook, bubbled and boiled over the fire; for the moods of the house-mother were pretty well known in her dominions, and no one dared to lift up the voice of rebellion.