Jean had dwelt in her dream of perfect faith and security until two days before the sabbath in question. Then the sister of the lover, who was also Jean’s bosom friend, came to the back door of the manse and called out Jean in the middle of the day at the height of her household work, to break to her a catastrophe. ‘Oh Jean!’ said Eppie, taking the first word--before Jean could cry out was there anything wrong with Bob--and speaking with tears and groans and honest blushes--‘Oh! that ever I should see the day I would be black ashamed of my ain kith an’ kin--that ever I should have to say it to you--a lass that mither an’ me were proud to count as are of the family. There is word by Willie Broon the carrier--and I doubt it is ower true, for Willie, though he may take a drap, was never given to leein’--our Bob has played you fause, he has ta’en up with another lass--ane Leezbeth Red (Reid), a fellow-servant at Blawart Brae. Nae doubt she has set her cap at him ilka day and hour, ilka kye milking and horse suppering, and Bob was aye a simple chield--even mair sae when a fair flattering tongue than when red and white cheeks came in his way. The upshot is--and I could have seen him, my ain brither, in the mools afore I had to carry the tidings to you--and I’ll never speak to the other lass who has stealt him from you--never, be she ten times my gude sister--but it is richt you should ken at aince; they say Bob has done her a sair wrang, and there is nothing left for him but to marry her; so the twa are to be cried together this very incoming sabbath in Logan Kirk. They may be cried and marriet too,’ protested the informant in her righteous indignation for Jean, ‘but it’s no his friends that will ever own them after sic heartless deceit, and sic disgrace as they have brocht upon us a’.’ ‘Dinna speak in that wild way, Eppie,’ said Jean with a little of her natural stateliness and reserve after the first deadly spasm of sick incredulity and terrible pain, when Jean had held her breath for a moment. ‘If it be sae that Bob has changed his mind without telling me, even if he has fallen into greater sin, still it is not for you to refuse to own his wife; though I ken you mean weel, what gude would that do to me? And now I maun go in, Eppie, for I am in the middle of ironing the minister’s best sark, and if I tarry longer the irons will get cauld.’ And the irons must not get cold though Jean’s heart should break. She must go on ironing in a dazed sort of way, but yet to the best of her ability, that special sark of the minister’s which he was to wear when he presided over the Synod next Tuesday.