Was the Lady come out to spurn Peggy in the sight of the powdered flunkeys and flouting waiting-maids, and still-maids for whom Peggy, cotter lass as she was, had been wont, in her greater independence and simpler sufficiency for her few needs, to entertain a mild, somewhat inconsequent scorn? At the same time, in her perturbation, she indulged in extravagant hyperbole, for there was only one miserable flunkey--guiltless of powder, who was also coachman and gardener, and one ancient waiting-maid, who united the offices of abigail and housekeeper, at Drumsheugh. As Peggy’s tottering feet touched the ground a firm foot stepped up to her, a steady hand was laid upon her to hold her up, a voice addressed her in clear, unfaltering accents, which, though they were imperious, were far from unkind. ‘Come away, my dear. Come in where it is your right to be in your man’s house and by your man’s side. If I had been told, for certain, four months since what I’ve been told to-day, you should not have waited and been kept so long out of your own. Fie!’ exclaimed the lady in a little heat, bending her brows, ‘it was not fit that Drumsheugh’s wife should shaw neeps and sell yarn, whatever might be free to his Joe. But we’ll say no more of that. I ken it was not you who were the most to blame, my bonnie Peggy. It was all the fault of these two foolish loons, Drumsheugh and Balcairnie. But we cannot wyte the one, can we? when he is lying sick and sorry, and we may come to forgive the second in time, for the service he has rendered us this night. Cheer up, Peggy, the doctor says Jamie will pull through, and be as braw a man as ever yet.’[4] FOOTNOTES: [4] The author cannot refrain from recording that the magnanimous reception which the Lady of Drumsheugh is represented as according to her son’s low-born, privately married wife, was, in fact, given in similar circumstances by the widow and mother of an old Fife laird to her son’s sorely daunted, humble bride. A very different fate was hers from that of the Portuguese Inez and the German Agnes. The sagacious Scotch mother, finding that the losing game was about to be taken out of her hands, by what she did not hesitate to regard as an interposition of Providence in the illness of the laird, made her concession frankly and handsomely. Stout Drumsheugh and Balcairnie and bonnie Peggy are more than mere shadows, as the reader could not fail to see but for what is lacking in the skill of their chronicler. CHAPTER IV. THE LONG DAYS THAT FOLLOWED Drumsheugh recovered gradually from the consequences of his fall; but he had a long and dangerous illness, during which there was much to subdue any human being to whom he was first and dearest.