Lady Eskside was an acute woman, but she was foolish in this particular. She caught her own healthy blooming grandchild on the edge of the low embankment, where he was hazarding his life in warm enjoyment of the risk, and gave him a kiss though he deserved a whipping, and said, “Poor Sandy Pringle!” with the most genuine feeling. She went into Lord Eskside’s library, when her drive was over, full of this information. “You need not alarm yourself about Sandy Pringle, poor man,” she said; “he has taken the Hewan on account of his poor little girl who is delicate--her chest, I am afraid. If you remember, his mother died of consumption quite young. It’s a terrible scourge when it’s in a family. My heart is sore for him, poor man. When the child comes we must have her here, and see if anything can be done. Perhaps if they were to take it in time, and send her to Madeira or some of these mild places; there is always hope with a bairn.” “My word, my lady, but you go fast,” said the old lord, with his little keen eyes twinkling under his shaggy eyebrows. But he did not convince her any more than she convinced him. And indeed, when the Pringle family began to appear about the woods, every member of the household at Rosscraig, down to my lady’s young footman, felt that curiosity of opposition in respect to them which is almost as eager as the curiosity of partisanship. Mrs Harding the housekeeper had for her part taken up Lord Eskside’s view of the subject, and when she too made a visit to Jean Moffatt one evening of the early summer, her purpose was of a more sternly investigating order than that of Lady Eskside.