“If ye’re a’ done, I’ll rise from the table. I have things to do before kirk-time,” she said at length, pushing back her chair and turning away. She had nothing to say against Cosmo’s resolution, but she was deeply offended by it--deeply, unreasonably, and she knew it--but could not restrain the bitter emotion. To be absent from the kirk at all, save by some overpowering necessity, was an offense to all her strong Scottish prejudices--but it was an especial breach of family decorum, and all the acknowledged sentiment and punctilio of love, to be absent to-day. “Keep us a’ patient!” cried Marget, in an indignant undertone, when Mrs. Livingstone was out of hearing; for Marget, on one pretense or other, kept going and coming into the dining-parlor the whole morning, to rejoice her eyes with the sight of Huntley. “Some women come into this world for nae good reason but to make trouble. To speak to the Mistress about an emergency! Whaever supported her in _her_ troubles but the Almighty himsel’ and her ain stout heart? I dinna wonder it’s hard to bear! Some gang through the fire for their ain hand, and no’ a mortal nigh them--some maun have a haill houseful to bear them up. Weel, weel, I’m no’ saying any thing against it--it’s kind o’ you, Mr. Cosmo--but you should think, laddie, before you speak.” “_She_ is not like my mother,” said Cosmo, somewhat sullenly. “Like your mother!” cried Marget, with the utmost contempt. “She would smile a hantle mair, and ca’ ye mair dears in a day than _my_ Mistress in a twelvemonth; but would _she_ have fought and struggled through her life for a thankless man and thankless bairns--I trow no! Like your mother! She was bonnie when she was young, and she’s maybe, bonnie now, for onything I ken; but she never was wordy to tie the shoe upon the foot of the Mistress of Norlaw!” “Be silent!” cried Cosmo, angrily; and before Marget’s indignation at this reproof could find itself words, the young man had hurried out from the room and from the house, boiling with resentment and a sense of injury. He saw exactly the other side of the question--his mother’s jealous temper, and hard-heartedness and dislike to the gentle and tender Madame Roche--but he could not see how hard it was, after all, for the honest, faithful heart, which grudged no pain nor hardship for its own, to find their love beguiled away again and again--or even to suppose it was beguiled--by one who had never done any thing to deserve such affection.