These young men had disturbed all the quiet order of her life. They had turned her house into something like the taverns which, without knowing them, were Mrs Ogilvy’s horror. Nobody could tell what a depth of shame and misery there was to her in the noisy nights, the long summer mornings wasted in sleep; nor how much she suffered from the careless contempt of the one, the angry criticism of the other. It was her own boy who was angrily critical, treating her as if she knew nothing, and made the other laugh. One of these scenes sprang up in her mind as she spoke, with all its accessories of despair. But yet she could not but excuse the stranger, who had some good in him, who was not a hardened criminal, and make her fancy picture of Robert, who had been “led astray.” The sudden realisation of that scene, and the terror lest something might have happened in the meantime, something from which she might have protected them, seized upon her once more after her moment of repose. She accepted with trembling Mr Somerville’s proposal to come out to the Hewan to see Robbie, and to endeavour to persuade him that his friend must be got away. “It is just some romantic notion of being faithful to a friend,” said the old gentleman, “and the prejudice which is in your mind too, my dear mem, in favour of one that has taken refuge in your house--but you must get over that, in this case, both him and you. It is too serious a matter for any sentiment,” said Mr Somerville, very gravely. In the meantime things had been following their usual routine at the Hewan. The late breakfast had been served; the three o’clock dinner, arranged at that amazing hour in order to divide the day more or less satisfactorily for the two young men, had followed. That the mistress should not have come home was a great trouble and anxiety to Janet, but not to them, who were perhaps relieved in their turn not to have her anxious face, trying so hard to approve of them, to laugh at their jests and mix in their conversation, superintending their meal. “Where’s your mother having her little spree?” said the stranger. “In Edinburgh, I suppose,” said Robbie. “Eh! Edinburgh? that’s not very good for our health, Bob. She might drop a word----” “She will never drop any word that would involve me,” said Robert. “Well, she’s a brick of an old girl, and pluck for anything,” said the other. And then the conversation came to a stop. Their talk was almost unintelligible to Janet, who was of opinion that Mr Lewis’s speech was too “high English” for any honest sober faculties to understand. Mrs Ogilvy’s presence, though all that she felt was their general contempt for her, had in fact a subduing influence upon them, and the mid-day meal was generally a comparatively quiet one. But when that little restraint was withdrawn, the afternoon stillness became as noisy as the night, and their voices and laughter rose high.