“Would you like me to ring for Haygate and have you turned out of the house? If you stay another minute, that will be my last word.” “Na,” said Beenie, “Haygate’s out, Sir Robert, and Tommy’s not the lad----” “Will you go, you vixen?” Sir Robert shouted at the top of his voice. “I’ll go, since I cannot help it; but if it comes to harm, oh, Sir Robert! afore God the wyte will be on your head.” Beenie dried her eyes as she went sorrowfully upstairs. “The wyte will be on his head; but, oh, the sufferin’ and the sorrow that will be on hers!” Beenie said to herself. But it was evident there was no more to be said. As she went slowly upstairs with a melancholy countenance, she met at the door of the drawing-room the three young ladies who had been--according to her own description--“talking a’ the nonsense that came into their heads,” with Lily in the midst, who was taking leave of them. “Oh, there is Robina,” they all cried out together. “Beenie will tell us what it means. What is the meaning of it all? She says she is going away. Beenie, Beenie, explain this moment! What does she mean about going away?” “Eh, my bonnie misses,” cried Beenie, “who am I that I should explain my mistress’s dark sayings? I am just a servant, and ken nothing but what’s said to me by the higher powers.” There was what Beenie afterward explained as “a cackle o’ laughing” over these words, which were just like Beenie, the girls said. “But what do you know from the higher powers? And why, why is Lily to be snatched away?” they said. Robina softly pushed her way through them with the superior weight of her bigness. “Ye must just ask herself, for it is beyond me,” she said. Lily rushed after her as soon as the visitors were gone, pale with expectation. “Oh, Beenie, what did he say?” she cried. “What did who say, Miss Lily? for I do not catch your meaning,” said the faithful maid. “Do you mean to say that you did not go down stairs----” “Yes, Miss Lily, I went down the stairs.” “To see my uncle?” said the girl. “I know you saw my uncle. I heard your voice murmuring, though they all talked at once. Oh, Beenie, Beenie, what did he say?” “Since you will have it, Miss Lily, I did just see Sir Robert. There was nobody but me in the way, and I saw your uncle. He was in a very good key after that grand dish of Scots collops. So I thought I would just ask him if it was true.” “And what did he say?” Beenie shook her head and said, “No,” in dumb show with her pursed-out lips. “He just said it was your own doing, and not his,” she added, after this impressive pantomime. “Oh, how did he dare to say so! It was none of my doing--how could he say it was my doing? Was I likely to want to be banished away to Dalrugas moor, and never see a living soul?” “He said you wouldna yield, and he wouldna yield; and in that case, Miss Lily, I ask you what could the like of me do?”