But all this kindness had been turned to gall by the unfortunate delay. Milly took this as a simple necessity of nature--rustled a little in her chair, and ate her chicken; but Marjory resented the ungracious reception. “I am sorry we have come to trouble you, aunt,” she said. “I would rather not have anything, thank you; I’m not hungry. The wind is cold, and it has given me a headache. If I might go and sit quiet in the drawing-room, while you finish your dinner, I should get well again.” “The thing for a headache is to eat a meal,” said Miss Jean, alarmed. “Bring me the chicken, Betty, till I cut Miss Marjory a bit of the breast. You cannot carve; that’s why you want to go away. In my day, carving was part of a lady’s education--and cooking too, for that matter. My own mother, as good a woman as ever stepped, took lessons from Mrs. Glass in Edinburgh. I had not that advantage myself, but I know how to divide a chicken. And, Betty, bring in the apple-tart. We’ll all go up to the drawing-room by-and-bye, and before ye go ye shall have a cup of tea.” Thus the storm fell a little, but still continued to growl at intervals; however, when the dinner was over, and May took her place in the square gable, her headache--if she had one--had disappeared. Miss Jean’s drawing-room was a curious room, stretching the whole width of the house, and wider at the back than at the other end. The narrower part was the gable. It had an end window looking out upon the street, and one on the east side, from which you could see the line of reddish rocks rounding off towards the point on which stood Pitcomlie; the white mansion-house of the present day shining in the sunshine; the old house, with its high, peaked roof and half-ruined tourelles standing up on the top of the cliff hard by, and the sea breaking in a white line underneath upon the rocks. Though she professed no sentiment, that window which commanded Pitcomlie was dear to Miss Jean’s heart. On the south side of the room was another window, looking straight out upon the sea, from which you could see far off the dim lion couchant of Arthur’s Seat, and sometimes a ghostly vision of the Calton Hill, with its pillars, and all kinds of cloudy pageants and phantasmagoria of the elements. It was a grand view, Miss Jean allowed; but she preferred the gable window looking down upon the High Street of Comlie; and here, too, Marjory betook herself instinctively. The Firth, with its splendours, was at her command any day, but so was not this little centre of humanity. That curiosity about her neighbours and their doings, which was sharp and bitter in Miss Jean, had a warmer development in Marjory, who was young, and thought well of humanity in general; but probably it was the same sentiment. She placed herself on the old-fashioned window-seat, and looked out while she answered all the old lady’s questions.