"Mhor is really surprisingly naughty. Yesterday I heard angry shouts from the road, and then I met Mhor sauntering in, on his face the seraphic expression he wears when some nefarious scheme has prospered, and in his hand the brass breakfast kettle. He had been pouring water on the passers-by from the top of the wall. 'Only,' he explained to me, 'on the men who wore hard black hats, who could swear.' "I told him the police would probably visit us in the course of the afternoon, and pointed out to him how ungentleman-like was his behaviour, and he said he was sorry; but I'm afraid he will soon think of some other wickedness. "He thinks he can do anything he hasn't been told not to do, but how could I foresee that he would want to pour water on men with hard black hats, capable of swearing? "I had almost forgotten to tell you, an old man came yesterday and wanted to see over the house. You can imagine what a scare I got--I made sure he wanted to buy it; but it turned out that he had lived at The Rigs as a boy, and had come back for old sake's sake. He looked ill and rather shabby, and I don't believe life had been very good to him. I did want to try and make up a little, but he was difficult. He was staying at the Temperance, and it seemed so forlorn that he should have no one of his own to come home to. He didn't look as if anybody had ever made a fuss of him. I asked him to stay with us for a week, but he wouldn't. I think he thought I was rather mad to ask him, and Pamela laughed at me about it.... She laughs at me a good deal and calls me a 'sentimentalist.' ... "There is the luncheon bell. "We are longing for your letter to-morrow to hear how you are settling down. Mrs. M'Cosh has baked some shortbread for you, which I shall post this afternoon. "Love from each of us, and Peter.--Your "JEAN." CHAPTER VII "Is this a world to hide virtues in?" _Twelfth Night._ "You should never wear a short string of beads when you are wearing big earrings," Pamela said. "But why?" asked Jean. "Well, see for yourself. I am wearing big round earrings--right. I put on the beads that match--quite wrong. It's a question of line." "I see," said Jean thoughtfully. "But how do you learn those things?" "You don't learn them. You either know them, or you don't. A sort of instinct for dress, I suppose." Jean was sitting in Pamela's bedroom. Pamela's bedroom it was now, certainly not Bella Bathgate's. The swinging looking-glass had been replaced by one which, according to Pamela, was at least truthful. "The other one," she complained, "made me look pale green and drowned." A cloth of fine linen and lace covered the toilet-table which was spread with brushes and boxes in tortoiseshell and gold, quaint-shaped bottles for scent, and roses in a tall glass. A jewel-box stood open and Pamela was pulling out earrings and necklaces, rings and brooches for Jean's amusement.