“The mutton’s good, mother,” said James; “you’ve aye good mutton at Loch Arroch; not like the stuff that’s vended to us at I canna tell how much the pound. That’s a great advantage you have in the country. Your own mutton, or next thing to it; your own fowls and eggs, and all that. You should go on keeping poultry; you were a very good henwife in the old days, when we were all young; and there’s nothing that sells better than new-laid eggs and spring chickens. Though you give up the farm, I would advise you to keep them on still.” “And I would not wonder but you might have grass enough for a cow,” said Campbell. “A cow’s a great thing in a house. There’s aye the milk whatever happens, and a pickle butter is never lost. It sells at as much as eighteen pence a pound on the other side of the loch, when those Glasgow people are down for the saut water. Asking your pardon, Agnes, I was not meaning the like of you; there are plenty Glasgow people that are very decent folk, but it cannot be denied that they make everything very dear.” “And what is that but an advantage to everybody as long as we can pay, aye, the double if we like?” cried Mrs. MacKell, forgetting her previous plea of comparative poverty. “We like everything of the best, I don’t deny it; and who has a better right, seeing our men work hard for every penny they make?” “For that matter so do the colliers and that kind of cattle, that consume all they earn in eating and drinking,” said Campbell. “I like a good dinner myself; but the way you Glasgow folk give yourselves up to it, beats me. That’s little to the purpose, however, in the present case. James’s advice is very good advice, and so you’ll find is mine. I would not object to being at the expense of buying in that bonnie brown cow, the one you fancied, Jean--women are aye fanciful in these matters--if there will be anybody about the house that could supper and milk a cow?” He looked doubtfully at Jeanie as he spoke, and they all looked at her, some suspiciously, some contemptuously. They all seemed to Jeanie to reproach her that she was not a strong, robust “lass” ready to help her grandmother. “I can milk Brounie; she’s so gentle,” said Jeanie, half under her breath, looking wistfully at her critics. James Murray uttered a suppressed “humph!” “A bonnie young woman for a farm-house!” he said, “that can milk a cow when it’s gentle. I hope you’ll save the lad’s siller as much as possible, mother; no running into your old ways, taking folk into your bosom, or entertaining strangers on the smallest provocation, as you used to do.” “I hope my grandmother will do precisely as she likes--in the way that pleases her best,” said Edgar with emphasis.