"Pickin' rowan berries, was he," she echoed wrathfully, turning as she so often did when angry to the broader Scotch of her youth; "they're the deil's ain beads for young folk--aye! I mind it was so in the beginning!" Her restless claw-like fingers busied themselves over the coverlid, and her restless eyes followed Marjory, who was attending to the sprained foot, which to say sooth was not a very serious matter. "And Mr. Paul hefted the wean, and wouldna' come in bye to say a word to the auld wife. That was real kind, or maybe it wasn't; but there! he never brocht luck to my hoose, an' he wouldn't raise a finger to do't. It's the way o' the warld, the way o' the warld." "That is not fair, Peggy," retorted the girl, roused as she always was by injustice. "The laird was speaking of you only the other day. He is much annoyed at your having been allowed to go on the roll, and said----" The old pauper's hands stopped their uncanny fingerings, and every line of the old face hardened. "If I choose to be on the pairish, I'll be on the pairish. It's better than Mr. Paul's charity, an' ye may just tell him sae frae old Peggy Duncan. I may be wrang, I may be richt, an' Him above only kens hoo it is, but I was no born on his land, and I'm no his poor." "All the kinder of him to offer help," persisted Marjory. "And you have no right, just because you are in an evil temper, to speak as if he had done you some wrong." "Wha says he did?--not I! D'ye think I soud be lyin' here wi' him oot ben if he had. Na! Na! Half deid as they are, my auld fingers wad be at his bonnie fause face." The very vigour of her own voice seemed to choke her, and she fell into a fit of coughing, then lay back exhausted into a more Christian frame of mind. "God guid us, Miss Marjory," she gasped, "but I'm jest an awfu' limmer whiles. If I was to be nippit awa' this nicht I ken fine whaur I'd wauken." "And quite right, too," replied her visitor, severely, recognising the half-apologetic tenor of the last remark, and, seizing the opportunity for a bit of her mind before old Peggy, with some sidelong sally, should escape deftly from the difficulty, after her wont. "Aye, aye! The tongue is an unruly member, and yet I bridle it whiles for fear o' findin' myself in the same mansion wi' the pairish officer. Eh! yon's an awfu' man, Miss Marjory, for sweerin', and I just couldna' thole him. So, if ye like, ye may give old Peggy Duncan's thanks to the laird, when you see him, for bringing the laddie hame. Maybe it was kind o' him." "It was kind of him, very kind," said the girl, stoutly, feeling dimly pleased to hear herself say so, and know that there could be no mistake about that. And yet she felt vexed when she found him waiting for her on the road when she came out into the darkening dusk. "I thought it was the proper thing to do," he replied, to her little stiff expression of regret that he should have troubled himself so far.