Miss Jean quietly smiled to herself, and prepared for tempest. It roused her up sometimes, and gave her a pleasant exhilaration, to get an opportunity of setting “that girl of Thomas’s” right. “Quick, quick, Miss Marjory,” said Betty, at the door. The door was in the gable, and opened into a square hall, which was underneath the drawing-room. “Quick, like good bairns, and dinna keep your aunty waiting. The broth’s ready to come up, and Jessie making a terrible fyke in the kitchen--and Miss Jean’s no pleased.” She threw open the door of a little bedroom at the end of the passage as she spoke--it was thought convenient in that region to have sleeping rooms on the ground-floor--and began instantly to take off Milly’s outer jacket, which was worn over her long riding-skirt. May smoothed her own hair with a trepidation which was quite unusual to her. It was bright brown hair, not so blond as Milly’s, but still full of soft colour, though not red, nor even golden. Her eyes were brown too, large and serious, but capable of lighting up with searching golden gleams. She was softly coloured in every way, with an evanescent bloom that came and went, and the most changeable of faces. Sometimes strangers thought her almost plain, when her upper lip fixed on her lower with the resolute look she sometimes had, and her eyes looked straight before her full of silent thought. But most people who knew Marjory held it impossible that she could ever be plain. She smoothed her hair as best she could, in her hurry, for those were the days when young ladies were expected to have smooth and shining hair--and put her tall hat and her riding gloves on the table, and pulled out her handkerchief from her bodice. “Am I tidy, Betty; shall I do?” asked, with tremulous accents, the young woman who half an hour before had felt herself princess of Comlie. All these pleasant pretensions failed before the tribunal of Miss Jean. “Oh, ay, Miss Marjory, you’ll do,” cried anxious Betty; and attended as ever closely by her little sister, Marjory ran upstairs. Miss Jean sat in the end window, her favourite seat of inspection--and all her “borders,” which were of blonde, not so closely put together as those of Mrs. Murray, were quivering round her old face. “So you’ve come at last, Miss May,” she said. “It’s a great honour to my humble house, and folk that are gratified with the visits of their betters must be content to wait.” “Oh, Aunt Jean, I am very sorry! We ought to have come here at once, instead of going to the Manse--”