But everything became different when the first stage was over, and Drumsheugh had returned in a state of convalescence to the family sitting-room, with no further trace of having lingered on the brink of the grave than was to be found in that peculiar unreasonable ‘fractiousness’ or crossness, which in itself caused Peggy to shed salt tears half a dozen times a day, as if she had been the most to be pitied instead of the most to be envied of low-born lasses. The fact was she was incurably gentle and tender-hearted, and had neither the wit to understand nor the spirit to withstand what was merely a passing trouble not worth the reckoning, the natural result of the previous disaster, for which the victim, in his inexperience, was not altogether to blame. Not that Peggy found fault with her laird. It was simply over her own presumption and demerits, and because she could no longer ‘please him,’ that she grew periodically hopeless. The servants felt the seal set on their powers of observation, criticism and ridicule--and here and there their secret spitefulness, so far withdrawn. Other spies began to drop in: neighbours who, under the plea of inquiring for Drumsheugh, came to take a look and a laugh at bonnie Peggy on her promotion. When they were formally introduced to her as young Mrs. Ramsay they would, in their own minds and in the same breath, praise Drumsheugh’s taste for beauty, and censure his want of sense and worldly wisdom in committing so gross a _mésalliance_. They would seriously debate with themselves whether it would be fit for their wives and daughters to call on Peggy, and make her acquaintance as one of themselves, till the lass could bear herself more like a gentlewoman and less like a field-worker. The old lady had taken care to have Peggy dressed as became her new station; but of what use was it when Peggy huddled away her hands in her black silk apron, just as she had hidden them in her linen ‘brat,’ and bobbed a curtsey, ‘looting’ till she caught her foot in her train, tearing the lace from her skirt, and threatening to come down with violence on her own drawing-room floor. No, the Lady could not stand the first tug of the social struggle, above all as Drumsheugh had been ordered away from home to avoid the cold spring winds till his chest should be stronger. He was actually going to take a voyage either to Gibraltar or Madeira--great expeditions in those days--promising such adventures and risks of being chased and taken prisoner by foreign privateers, that it quite raised the laird’s spirits to think of them.