“Oh,” said Mrs. Brown, perceiving Eddy’s not very distinguished figure behind. She made him something between a curtesy and a bow. “I am sure,” she said, “any friend of Archie’s is welcome to me, sir. Come in and take a seat. I’m glad to see ye--But oh, Archie, my man! the sight of my own laddie is just light to my een. And how is a’ wi’ you, my bonnie boy?--and Mey? And are ye getting on well at Rosmore? And is your father well? and the leddy? I have so many questions to ask I dinna know when to stop. Eh, Archie, how I have missed you--life itself is not the same--and Mey! I just sit dowie all the day, and care for nothing, looking out at my window as if I might see ye pass, and sitting by the fireside and listening as if I might hear ye coming down the stair. Eh, but life’s a different thing when there’s naething but an old wife sitting her lane by her fire side----” And here Mrs. Brown broke down and cried; but looking up smiling, in the midst of her tears, bade them to tell her if they had got their dinner, or what she could give them. “I will have mince-collops ready in a moment,” she said. “I told Rowland so,” said Eddy, “that he should have come and asked you for some dinner instead of going to that queer place in--what do you call the street? but he thought it would be giving you too much trouble. That’s the worst of that modest sort of dreadfully proud fellow. He can’t be got to see that you would like to take the trouble--for him.” “Eh, laddie,” cried Mrs. Brown, her face lighting up through the half-dried tears; “are ye a warlock, or how do ye ken? That’s just heaven’s truth; and though he’s blate, he’s awfu’ proud: and ye must be a lad of uncommon sense to ken.” “Yes,” said Eddy, modestly, “I’ve always been noted for my sense; but I am not at all proud, and I think if you were to make some of your nice tea for us--I am quite sure that you make delightful tea.” “Hear to him!” said Mrs. Brown, delighted. “Ye shall have your tea, my young gentleman, and a pleasure it will be to serve ye. I will just ask Bell if the kettle is boiling; and Archie, ye can show your friend the pictures of Mey and you when you were bairns, and the views your father sent home from India, and anything you can find to amuse him. I’ll no be a minute.” She left the two young men alone together while she hurried to the kitchen to see after the tea. “Let me see the picture of your sister and you, not the views from India, Rowland,” said Eddy. “Saumarez,” cried Archie, clearing his throat; “I told you this was a--relation. She brought us up, and she was very kind to us. I can’t have her laughed at, you know.” “Laughed at?” cried Eddy; “how you misunderstand! I found out all that in the twinkling of an eye. And as for being disrespectful to your aunt, it is not I that will ever be disrespectful; besides which, I delight in an old lady like that--was the kettle boiling, Mrs. Brown?”