“Oh, I will buy her as many gloves as she likes,” said Archie, with something of the tone of the millionaire--as he felt himself to be. He had the remains of the twenty pounds in his pocket after having got many gratifications out of it, including the dinner to the lads, which had been highly successful, but not very costly, and he was on the whole very well satisfied with himself. “I canna remember,” said Mrs. Brown, “that ye have offered gloves or onything else, or so much as a flower, to me. But that’s a very different question,” she added, with satirical briskness; “I’m just mysel’ the old glove that ye toss away. It’s done its part, poor thing, but ye’ve nae mair use for it.--Mey, slip the new frock on ye that I may see how it looks, and then you could run to Miss Peebles. If she canna do it, I will just have to cobble it up for you mysel’.” “I’m going to have no cobbling up,” said Marion decisively. “She must just do it, whether she can or not. She would be very fain to get jobs from Rosmore.” “Aunty, did ye mean yon--about my never giving ye anything?” said Archie, when May had gone. “Me, laddie? No, no, I didna mean it. I was just in a girning humour. She doesna see it, and you dinna see it; and maybe I think more than I should about the dirty siller, and how I am to make my living after having been used to owre muckle comfort and ease. But it’s just my life that’s going from me,” cried Mrs. Brown, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “If I did speak about the housekeeper’s place, it was no for the grand situation nor the wages, nor even the perquisites, it was just that I would have been near my bairns. I would have seen my bairns--them the young lady and the young gentleman, and me the servant woman; but I could have seen them every day, and now the Lord kens if I’ll ever see them mair.” “Aunty, we’re not savages nor brute beasts: how can ye think ye will never see us mair?” “My laddie,” she said in her tears; “it’s no only that you’ll be taken from me, but I’ll have to think of mysel’ too. I canna keep up a house like this over my head, nor a servant to do my work. I will have to get lodgers, or take a place, or do something for my bread. I will maybe leave Gleska a’ thegither,” she added in a tone of despair as who should have said leave paradise; “for I have my little pride like other folk, and I wouldna like them that have kent me here, with every comfort about me, to see me taiglin’ after a wheen lodgers, or standing about the register office looking for a place.” “Aunty Jane, ye cannot for a moment think that my father would leave you like that without a provision. If he does, I will leave _him_.” “Oh, Archie, hold your peace; it’s not your part to speak.”