’Listen, sir!’ she cried, ’didn’t you hear the sound of wheels? It seems like a chaise driving up.... Father,’ she clutched the laird’s sleeve, and turned upon him a piteous face, white with fear, ’it will not be Mr. Cheape come back?’ The laird shook her off, crossly; that frightened face gave a horrid prick to his conscience. ’Tut, girl,’ he said, ’don’t be a fool! Mr. Cheape, indeed! ’Tis you have been in disgrace, and don’t know the news; indeed, I had forgotten it myself. Your mother has a friend—’tis a Mistress Maclehose of Edinburgh—comes to lie here for a night on her way back to the town, from a visit. Fine and put about your mother’s been—to get the best room ready, and a dinner cooked, and all the best china out, and the silver candlesticks and the tea-set, and all without you. I was for having you down, but deil a bit! She’s thrawn, is your mother, Ally, when the notion takes her! But it will be all right now—and there, I must away to bid welcome to this fine Edinburgh madam. She’ll set you all the fashions, Ally, and so cheer up!’ And the laird hustled off, well pleased with himself in the end. Ally listened to his heavy footsteps on the wooden stair, but did not follow him. *CHAPTER V.* It had been on the second or third day of Alison’s incarceration that the mistress of The Mains had been thrown into a flutter by receiving a dispatch from her almost forgotten friend, Nancy Maclehose, craving a night’s hospitality for old acquaintance’ sake. The country lady now wished to make a good show before the urban one. She could not rival her in the fashions, or in modish gossip, but she could exhibit good store of silver and fine linen, and could set a feast before her of all the country delicacies. ’It’ll be a queer thing if I’m not upsides wi’ Nancy Maclehose,’ she remarked, ’for all the _belle_ that Nancy was; it didna bring her much.’ ’Ay, ay, I remember her fine,’ said the laird, ’nothing but a lassock when we married, wife—but "pretty Miss Nancy" then, though hardly ten. I mind her well when we were coortin’, in the old Glasgow days—pretty Miss Nancy!’ ’There’ll be none o’ the "Miss" and little of the "pretty" about her _now_, I’se warrant,’ said Mrs. Graham, with meaning, ’a wife, and not a wife, and a widow, and not a widow. There’s little to be proud o’ there, that _I_ can see.’ ’Ay, they discorded, to be sure,’ said the laird. ’Yet he was a fine sprig, young Maclehose, too. Ye’ll mind all the clash about their coortin’ you got from Glasgow? That was a neat trick of his about the coach—as neat a trick as ever a young buck played, to my thinking.’ ’I never heed such clash,’ said the lady, severely.