Jean had remained in the service of the Manse family all these years, though both the minister and his wife were dead, and the Manse was no longer the home of the remnant of the household. Impoverished as such remnants usually are, and consisting only of Jean’s young ladies, they could hardly have continued to live on, in genteel poverty, if Jean, who was so closely allied to them as to be styled theirs by inalienable possession, had not worked their double work on diminished wages. ‘Jean’s true to a minute,’ said another speaker, a man in the smiddy. ‘She’s nae daidler either at meat or wark.’ ‘Ay, lasses, ye may stand about,’ a woman at the well took up the theme, without hearing the man’s contribution to the subject. ‘Jean Kinloch’s no sma’ graith--least of a’ in her ain opinion.’ It was like a version of that climax of commendation pronounced on the virtuous woman in Proverbs, ‘Let her own works praise her in the gates,’ with the grudging qualification that must have mingled with the praise. Jean did not mind much either the concentrated scrutiny or the sifting analysis of her merits and demerits, to which, with her knowledge of the world, she knew she was exposed. Like a pillar of strength in her self-reliance and composure, her fine presence was unimpaired by her servant’s costume, and her goodly prime untouched by any token of decay. Though she had not risen in worldly rank and prosperity, this was a very different Jean from the miserable lass, high-souled and innocent as she was, who had sat in a back seat in Logan Kirk to hear Bob Meffin cried with another woman. Before Jean could say ‘Gude day’ to anybody, while she was still coming forward in the mingled lights of a cold primrose in the western sky behind her, and a warm saffron from the glare of the smiddy at her right hand, the cart--the rumble of which had been constantly increasing--rattled up, bringing cart, horse, and driver into the illumination. And even before the din of its progress had ceased or the half-dazzled eyes could distinguish the face of the new comer, a voice, which seemed to issue from the past, suddenly called in eager excited tones, ‘Jean Kinloch!’ Jean turned startled, and with a shock even to her well-strung nerves, at the imperative summons. In spite of changes in the speaker, to which those in herself were infinitesimal, she recognised, without a moment’s hesitation, her old lover. She had not seen him since six months before that day in Logan Kirk, on the last occasion when the two had parted a fond loving lad and lass--a plighted bridegroom and bride. She had heard little of him in the interval, for his sister Eppie had married a soldier and ‘followed the drum,’ while with her departure Jean had lost all chance of news of her recreant lover.