’Get out my wedding-silk, Ally,’ commanded Mrs. Graham. Alison reached up long arms, and got down the silk, which was laid by, with layers of fine muslin between its folds. It was a superb brocade of sweet floral bunches on a ground of greenish-grey; the flounces of Mechlin on it were fragile as a fairy’s web, and ivory-tinted with age. Mrs. Graham fingered and examined the fabric; then she said, significantly: ’So, ’tis you that’s going to rob me of my fine silk, after all, Ally? ’Tis just as it should be—my eldest girl!’ Alison shook in her shoes, for she knew well that determined inflection of the maternal voice. ’I don’t understand, mother,’ she managed to stammer. ’Tuts, nonsense!’ said Mrs. Graham, sharply, ’you’re no fool, Ally: you understand fine. That honest gentleman you saw yesterday is to marry you, and lucky you are to get him!’ ’Sure, not _that_ man, mother!’ cried poor Alison. ’And why not that man, miss?’ retorted the matron with a rising colour and an angry eye. ’He’s as old as my father,’ blurted out the reluctant bride, ’and has no liking for me, for-bye!’ ’And why should he ask you when he’s seen you, if he has no liking for you?’ demanded the matron. ’Because no one else will have him, likely,’ said Alison, in desperation. She had never spoken in rebellion to her mother before, and the effort it cost her was truly desperate. ’If I have to take that man,’ she plunged on recklessly, ’I’ll be the laughing-stock of the countryside and of my very sisters!’ ’Alison,’ said Mrs. Graham, in a more reasoning tone, for she felt her own strength, ’you are a silly lassie, and just don’t know the grand chance you’re wanting to throw away. Think what it will be to be a married woman, wi’ a house and man of your own—a man of substance, too—and lord it over a whole countryside! Why, here, Ally, you’re little better than a nurse-girl and a hen-wife!’ ’And I’d rather be a nurse-girl and a hen-wife all my days, than married to that old man,’ cried Alison, with a rising sob. ’He’ll neither love me, nor I him!’ ’_Love!_’ cried Mrs. Graham, with a blaze of fury, ’and who taught _you_ to speak of love, and you twenty, and never a lover near you! Set _you_ up to be saucy, indeed! I had had my choice long afore I was your age, and might ha’ turned up a neb at a decent man, maybe. But for the likes of you, it’s very different, let me tell you!’ ’You lived in a town,’ said poor Alison, in weak defence, ’and saw the men.’ ’Town or no town makes no difference,’ said Mrs. Graham with lofty superiority. ’The men come down the lum to likely lasses, and them that’s not likely may be thankful to get a chance at all. What’s to become of you all,’ she continued, her tone of reasoning degenerating into the high voice of the scold, ’you seven muckle, useless lasses? Are you all to sorn on Jacky, poor wee man, for all his days, and take the very bread out of his mouth?’ ’I would not sorn on Jacky,’ said Alison, with a quivering lip.