“Oh, Janet, my woman!” said the mistress, holding out her hand. It was so small and delicate that Janet was seized with a compunction after she had squeezed it in her own hard but faithful one, which felt like an iron framework in comparison. “I doubt I’ve hurt her,” she said to herself; “but I was just carried away.” And Mrs Ogilvy was restored to her musing and her prayers, which presently were interrupted again by sounds in the room overhead--Janet’s step going in, which shook and thrilled the flooring, and the sound of voices. The mother sat and listened, and heard his voice speaking to Janet, the masculine tone instantly discernible in a woman’s house, speaking cheerfully, with after a while a laugh. His tone to her had been very different. It had been full of involuntary self-defence, a sort of defiance, as if he felt that at any moment something might be demanded of him, excuse or explanation--or else blame and reproach poured forth upon him. The mother’s heart swelled a little, and yet she smiled. Oh, it was very natural! He could even joke and laugh with the faithful servant-woman, who could call him to no account, whom he had known all his life. If there was any passing cloud in Mrs Ogilvy’s mind it passed away on the instant, and the only bitterness was that wistful one, with a smile of wonder accompanying it, “That he could think I would demand an account--me!” He came down-stairs later, half amused with himself, in the high collar of Andrew’s gala shirt, and with a smile on his face. “I’m very ridiculous, I suppose,” he said, walking to the glass above the mantelpiece; “but I did not want to vex the woman, and clean things are pleasant.” “Is your luggage--coming, Robbie?” she ventured to say, while he stood before the glass trying to fold over or modify as best he could the spikes of the white linen which stood round his face. “How much luggage do you think a man would be likely to have,” he said impatiently, standing with his back towards her, “who came from New York as a stowaway in a sailing-ship?” She had not the least idea what a stowaway was, but concluded it to be some poor, very poor post, with which comfort was incompatible. “My dear,” she said, “you will have to go into Edinburgh and get a new outfit. There are grand shops in Edinburgh. You can get things--I mean men’s things--just as well, they tell me, as in London.” She spoke in a half-apologetic tone, as if he had been in the habit of getting his clothes from London, and might object to a less fashionable place--for indeed the poor lady was much confused, believing rather that her son had lived extravagantly and lavishly than that he had been put to all the shifts of poverty.