But, like most self-respecting Scots folk, they had a sacred place apart--a parlour, where they received company and entertained the minister. This parlour had been handsomely plenished when Jean had come to the glen a newly-wedded wife. She was proud of it then--she was proud of it still. There was a green and red carpet, good mahogany chairs, and a shiny sofa in horsehair, a variety of framed photographs, two dyed sheepskin rugs, held down unnecessarily in the corners by large foreign shells, some oleographs of Rome and Naples, and a large picture of Queen Victoria; it was here, in a locked bureau, that Mrs. Gowdy kept her business documents, her bank book, and her will. Sitting there in her every-day gown and blue apron, with her bare arms and toil-worn hands, she looked more like a servant who was poking through her mistress's papers than the proprietor of the apartment. These were her moments of delicious relaxation. Her daughter's diversion took the form of a stroll as far as the next farm gate in the faint hope of meeting someone, or else she climbed up to the old churchyard, which commanded a magnificent prospect, and sat on a tombstone, building castles in the air, and railing at her fate. Her thoughts frequently turned to her father's brother Jamie, who, fifty years before, had gone to the East Indies, and got on from one thing to another, had owned hundreds of black men, and, it was even reported, elephants, and had died as rich as a duke, leaving thousands and thousands to his widow, but not one blessed bawbee to his own folk. Certainly, it was true that her father and Uncle Jamie had had high words and a bitter quarrel before he sailed, folks said, over a five-shilling piece, but they might be wrong. Anyhow, her mother allowed they had no good will to one another; but that was an old story, and she and her brothers were his near kin. He had married a foreign woman, had no family, and had made his home in the Indies, and never once came back to Scotland. His widow had, so they heard, adopted a baby, and brought her up like a princess; and there was she, his own flesh and blood, living on porridge, and working and washing like any common woman. What a scandal! When Maggie thought of this other girl, set out in silks and jewels, and getting a grand education, and "chances," the blood fairly boiled in her veins. She was far more embittered and furious against this intruder than against her Uncle Jamie, or even his foreign wife. Here was she, Maggie Gowdy, imprisoned and held fast within these glens by poverty and a strong-willed mother, and she, though well enough looking and educated and young, would never have a chance to be anything but a drudge. She dared not throw off her mother's thrall; she had once talked of service, but it was to deaf ears, and here she was, nigh three-and-twenty and, as Jock had cruelly reminded her, "getting past her market." Oh, she felt mad-like--to think of the wasted years!