It was Mrs. Young's friend at last, and the good woman bestirred herself to complete her table arrangements, while Bessie conveyed the mighty Leghorn bonnet and wonderful Paisley shawl, which Rob Miller's eldest daughter already looked forward to as a great inheritance, into the inner room. Mrs. Young's friend was a tall, bony, erect woman, with a thin brown face, and projecting teeth, and sandy hair carefully smoothed beneath a muslin cap, modestly, tied with a scrap of blue ribbon. She was a very homely, unhandsome-looking person, yet had an unassuming simplicity about her, not common in the upper servant class. Jean Miller had known evil in her day. The long upper lip pressing above these irregular ill-shaped teeth of her's had quivered with deep griefs many times in the painful and weary past years, which had left no record of themselves or of her course in them, save that most deeply pathetic one engraven in her own solitary high heart--a high heart it was, humble and of slight regard as was the frame it dwelt in--much stricken, sorely tried, and with an arrow quivering in it still. Jean's hands were rigidly crossed in her lap; she was never quite at ease in idleness. Mrs. Young good-humoredly drew her chair to the table, called Bessie, placed the teapot on the tray, and began her duties. There was a simple blessing asked upon the "offered mercies," according to the reverent usage of peasant families in Scotland, and then the dainties were discussed. "And how is Andrew winning on wi' his learning, Jean?" said Mrs. Young. There was a slight quivering of the thin upper lip--very slight--no eye less keen than Jacky's could have perceived it. "They tell me very weel," said Jean, meekly; "he's been getting some grand books in a prize, and they're unco weel pleased wi' him at the college." "He's a clever lad," said Mrs. Young. "Ay, I'll no say but he's a lad of pairts," said Jean, "if he but makes a right use o' them." "Ay," said Mrs. Young, sympathetically, "they're no ower guid company for that, thae young doctor-lads. Eh, keep me! Jean woman, if this callant was taking to ill courses like his faither, ye wad never haud up your head again."