“Oh, my ain laddie!” said Mrs. Brown, choked by tears and emotion. She could say nothing more, for at this moment the door opened and Marion entered, wearing the skirt of the pretty dress which her father had allowed her to buy at Mr. MacColl’s splendid shop. The stuff intended to make the “body” was wound round her shoulders. She resembled exceedingly one of the figures which make so fine an appearance in the shops. It was an ideal which would certainly have satisfied her highest desires. She was too much absorbed to notice the emotion of the others. “You see,” she said as she came in, “the skirt is very nice and wants no altering. It is just my length, which is a providence. I think this is far better than my silk.” Mrs. Brown awakening to a new interest, got up and walked round her, inspecting the garment closely. Perhaps she was glad of the occasion of concluding an interview which was agitating to both; but the attraction of the half-made dress would have been a great one in any circumstances. Archie took the opportunity to escape, neither having nor pretending to have any interest in the matter, while a very keen and close discussion went on about the manner of “making up the body.” In respect to this these ladies were not of the same mind, Mrs. Brown being reluctant to accept Marion’s new theory of simplicity, which the sharp little girl had picked up somehow since the change which had come in her fortunes. Aunty Jane wanted bright ribbons, a sash, a bow at the throat “to brighten it up,” as she said. But Marion held her own. It was only at the close of the controversy that she found out that anything had been amiss. She turned upon her aunt as if she were making an accusation. “Your eyes are red,” she said; “you’ve been crying!” with a tone in which there was a certain sense of injury, as of one who had been left out. “Weel if I have been crying, it’s naething extraordinary,” said Mrs. Brown; “naething to call for your notice.” “What is it that’s the matter now?” “You have just not as much heart as would lie on a sixpence, to ask me such a question. There’s your father will be just like you. He will think nothing about it. He will think I should just give ye up as I took ye; the one as pleasant as the other. Oh, it is very little that folk kens, when they begin, how it’s to end.” “But I suppose,” said Marion, “you would like us to have the advantage now that he has come home? You never expected we were just to bide on with you.” “Oh, no, I never expected it: I’m no just a fool for all the way that ye set up your little neb to me.” “Well,” said Marion, “then what have ye to complain of, Aunty Jane? You knew all the time: it was always his meaning to come home; and ye have always spoken about it. Bot Archie and me, we’ve learned to look forward to it; and ye would like us to lose all the advantage now!”