Primrose heard from Mrs. Forsyth, with a mixture of interest, amusement, and pain, all the nonsensical stories, loud ridicule, and blame, and increasingly rampant scandal afloat with regard to young Mrs. Ramsay. Primrose could not help feeling diverted, in spite of her goodness; for she was a girl in whom the sense of humour abounded in exceptional strength, keeping pace with that ‘weeping-blood in woman’s breast,’ which made her sorry too; because it went to her heart not to be able to go over to Drumsheugh where she had spent some of her happiest youthful holidays, or to hold out her hand to Jamie Ramsay’s wife, when Jamie was Primrose’s nearest male relative, and he and she had been fast boy and girl friends. And she was sure Jamie was not half a bad fellow, though he had made a low marriage. Primrose entertained a shrewd suspicion that the day had been when her aunt, Mrs. Ramsay, had experienced a dread lest Jamie should throw his handkerchief at her (Primrose); and so, just when the girl was growing up, had managed to put a stop to her annual visits to Drumsheugh. But in place of bearing malice or enjoying her revenge, Primrose proved, among other things, how perfectly disengaged her own juvenile feelings had been, by only laughing and shaking her head, ever so little, over the _mal à propos_ recollection, and perhaps cherishing a livelier grain of curiosity respecting that bonnie Peggy who had figured as Primrose’s unconscious rival. Primrose’s sole chance of catching a glimpse of her cousin’s wife, whom she did not remember having seen as the cotter lass, Peggy Hedderwick, was at Craigture Kirk, to which the Forsyths went one afternoon on purpose to furnish their guest with the desired opportunity. Primrose felt puzzled and disappointed by the glimpse she got. Yes, young Mrs. Ramsay was very bonnie so far as features, skin, and what colour remained to her, went. But could this shabby, dowdy, almost slatternly ‘disjasket’ (out of joint from some depressing cause)--young woman be the lass who had caught bauld Jamie Ramsay’s fancy? Primrose, notwithstanding her fine eye for beauty, had some difficulty in believing it. Poor, low-born lass! bonnie Peggy’s exaltation seemed likely to end in her destruction. Poor Jamie! whose single-heartedness and recklessness had brought Drumsheugh to such a pass. But there was nothing to be done: Peggy Ramsay, according to all accounts, was developing into a woman with whom no lady, no respectable person, would care to hold intercourse.