After an interval of silence, Mrs Stewart proceeded to her own room, and in a short time reappeared, hooded and plaided, testifying with those echoing steps of hers, to all concerned, that she had again put on her high-heeled gala shoes. Isabell was now in the kitchen, quietly going about her share of the household labour, and doing it with a subdued graceful gladness which touched the mother’s heart. “I’m gaun up to Kellie, Bell, my woman,” said Mrs Stewart. “I wouldna say but we may need Katie at hame; onyway, I’ll gang up to the Castle, and see what they say about it. It’s time she had a while at hame to learn something purpose-like, or it’s my fear she’ll be fit for naething but to hang on about Lady Anne; and nae bairn o’ mine shall do that wi’ my will. Ye’ll set Merran to the muckle wheel, Isabell, as soon as she’s in frae the field; and get that cuttie Janet to do some creditable work. If I catch her out o’ the house when I come hame, it’ll be the waur for hersel.” “So ye’re aye biding on at the Castle, Bauby,” said Mrs Stewart, as, her long walk over, she rested in the housekeeper’s room, and greeted, with a mixture of familiarity and condescension, the powerful Bauby, who had so long been the faithful friend and attendant of little Katie Stewart. “Ye’re biding on? I thought you were sure to gang with Lady Betty; and vexed I was to think of ye gaun away, that my bairn liket sae weel.” “I’ll never lee, Mrs Stewart,” said Bauby, confidentially. “If it hadna just been Katie Stewart’s sel, and a thought of Lady Anne, puir thing, left her lee lane in the house, I would as soon have gaen out to the May to live, as bidden still in Kellie Castle. But someway they have grippit my heart atween them—I couldna leave the bairns.” “Aweel, Bauby, it was kind in ye,” said the miller’s wife; “but I’m in no manner sure that I winna take Katie away.” “Take Katie away—eh, Mrs Stewart!” And Bauby lifted up her great hands in appeal. “Ye see her sister Isabell is to be married soon,” said the important mother, rising and smoothing down her skirts. “And now I’m rested, Bauby, I’ll thank ye to take me to Lady Anne’s room.”