It was past mid-day when Cuthbert reached the busy road to Port Dundas. It was, as usual, noisy and loud, and crowded, with echoing carts on its causeway, and streams of mill-girls pouring along its pavement, returning to the factories after dinner. Little stout round forms--faces sometimes sallow, but by no means unhealthy--hair dressed with extreme regard to the fashion, and always excellently brushed, and in the finest order--made these passengers, in their coloured woollen petticoats and bright short gowns, a very comely part of the street population. Very true most of them planted broad, sturdy, bare feet upon the dusty pavement; but the free loud mirth, no less than the comfortable habiliments, showed them quite removed from the depressing effects of extreme poverty--as indeed they were. And opposite Harry Muir’s house, in the little half finished street, Maggie McGillivray still sat clipping, with her brisk scissors in her hand, sending her loud clear voice into the din like an arrow--and still another branch of the Glasgow feminine industry, came under the amused observation of Cuthbert, before he reached the little parlour. Miss Aggie Rodger, with her large shoulders bursting from under the little woollen shawl, and a great rent in the skirt of her faded large-patterned cotton gown, sat on the highest step of the stair, holding in her hand a very dingy piece of embroidered muslin, which she was jerking about with wonderful rapidity as she “opened” it. Miss Aggie, like the humbler clipper, was lightening her task with the solace of song; but, instead of the clear flowing canty “Learig,” Miss Aggie, with great demonstration, was uttering the excellences of the Rose of Allandale. Both the natural voices were tolerably good; but Cuthbert thought he preferred Maggie McGillivray’s. In the little “green,” to which the paved passage from the street directly led, Miss Rodger, the elder sister, was laying out the collars and caps of the family to bleach. Miss Rodger was, in her way, a very proud person, and had a severe careworn face, which, six or seven years ago, had been pretty. From the green, Cuthbert heard her addressing her sister: “Aggie, haud your tongue. Folk would think to see ye that you kent nae better than the like of that lassie McGillivray. They’ll hear ye on the street.” “Ye can shut to the door, then, if ye’re so proud,” responded Miss Aggie, drawing out the long quavers of her song with unabated zeal. Miss Jeanie, the prim intermediate sister, looked out from the kitchen window, and interrupted the dialogue in a vehement whisper:--“Aggie, will ye come out of that, and no let yoursel be seen, such a like sicht as ye are? do ye no see the gentleman?” Miss Aggie looked up--saw Cuthbert standing below--and, snatching up the torn skirt of her gown in her hand, fled precipitately, leaving behind her a considerable-sized dilapidated slipper, trodden down at the heel, which had escaped from her foot in her flight.