But there was no "company" invited to the Harrisons' on the following Sunday.

On the preceding Thursday, which was just two days after the evening she was married, Daisy had an impulse to go and see Jean. By arrangement with the Heathcotes, no notice of the wedding had been allowed to get to the papers; and when Daisy, in a white dress, popped in through the kitchen door of the Harrison house on Thursday afternoon, all Jean knew was that she had mysteriously slipped out on Tuesday evening and had not been seen since.

Daisy bounced over to hug her; but the honest Scot drew herself up sternly, and put out a hand.

"It's no like ye," she said, "to traipze oot like yon, an' gie the good leddy no notice—and her on the broad of her back now, at death's door, too. I ha' made the beds mysel' and sweepit up, forbye my ain work, for twa fu' days now, to save her the worry of havin' a stranger aboot, in her last hours."

"Last hours!" exclaimed Daisy, her breath catching, in the impulsive wave of self-reproach that swept over her, "Is she—dying, then, Jeanie? Why, I—"

"Ay," Jean set her great knuckles against her hip as she stirred the broth she was making for the sickroom; "ye reck of naebody so long as ye can please yersel', an gang oot an' in, and come an' go, withoot a 'by your leave' tae ony person.... An' how come ye tae be here, all fettled up, in the middle of the afternoon? Are ye no workin'? An' if no, what are ye daein'? Say!" Jean turned, gripped Daisy by the shoulders suddenly and hard, and studied her with brows knit and eyes ablaze, "ye'll answer me that this minute—what are ye daein' for your bed an' board? If all's no richt, man! I'll tur-rn ye across my knee an' skelp ye, like a bairn! I'll save ye from the street, or I'll no leave a whole inch o' hide on your back!"

"Is the Missis dying?" Daisy repeated, tears now in her eyes.

"Ay," said Jean, shaking her, "an' all the greetin' in the warld'll no save her the now. But come! Aboot yersel'! Oot wi't, I say!"

"Oh, I'm all right, Jean," said Daisy, still thinking about Lady Harrison, "I'm married.... Say, can I go upstairs with you, when you take up her broth, and see her?"

"Married!" Jean sat, almost stumbled, into a chair behind her. In this position, she stared at Daisy for a moment; then murmured, half, as it were, to herself, "Lassie, lassie! ye're a mystery to me. I absolutely gie ye up, as I wad a conundrum book wi' no key. Wha's the lad? Yon jitney man?"

"No." Daisy dimpled a little.

"No?" Jean, her elbow on the side-table, leaned forward with renewed interest; "I thocht, now, it could be nane other than Curly Head Jamie. Well, then, ye've no done the impossible, I take it, and hookit Nicky Cluett, have ye? Man! if ye ha' got him, yon's a laddie will soon gie ye your fine hoose an' motor-car. He's drawin' in the siller with a hand-rake, like, these days."

"It's not Nicky," said Daisy, smoothing out her sash and putting her head a little on one side.

"Weel, ye micht have set your cap for him, onyway," Jean commented, as she reached over and gave the broth a little stir to keep it from burning; "Baby Jock tells me it's common talk ye made a hit wi' Nick, you nicht at the dance. Wha did ye tak', then, if it wasna Nick? Oot wi't. Ye've fair got me on pins an' needles. Do I ken him?"

"Well, I don't know," said Daisy, protracting her mystery with a teasing delight; "may be you do. Yes, I think you know him. It's— it's—" Daisy leaned over, and said the name dramatically, right in Jean's ear.

The Scotswoman looked at her hard: sternness returning to every feature.

"I doubt ye been misconductin' yersel' after all," she said, levelly and coldly, "I kenned it when ye cm' in through yon door. Tellin' me a pack o' lies'll no improve matters—"

"I'm telling you the truth," Daisy asseverated, warmly, "I didn't think you'd go and insult me, Jean!"

The other eyed her doubtfully. "I'd fair loe tae believe ye, lassie," she breathed, "but the thing's impossible. It sounds like a story out of a book. Why, besides his money an' his social position, he's sixty years old, if he's a day—an' forbye, he's an ingrown bachelor. He'd ha' wedded long or now, if it had been in him to marry. He—he hasna offered to keep ye—that's not what ye mean, is it? But, no—I ken fine he wouldna dae that. He's an honorable man, Sir William Ware."

Daisy regarded Jean a second or two; then went over, sat plumply down on the elder woman's knee, and put an arm about her neck.

"Listen", she said, "and I'll tell you all about it, right from the start-off, when I left here Tuesday evening." And therewith Daisy did so. By the time she had finished, Jean's arms were about her waist, and penitence blended with the amazed, generous, unenvying delight that radiated from the Scotswoman's harsh-lined but kindly-expressioned face.

"Forgie me, bairnie," she said, as she laid her great palm around the girl's cheek; "but I—I—why, I juist canna find the words tae say what I think. I'm fair—fair tongue-tied. Fast married—and to a laird o' lairds! Ey, ye bonnie wee thing, ye, bide till I buss ye," and the great arms, tightening about Daisy's waist, hugged her ecstatically. Then Jean set her free, rose up with vigor, and reached down a bowl, spoon and plate of crackers.

"Come!" she exclaimed, as she turned out the gas-jet under the broth, poured the liquid into the bowl, and went to the cupboard for a dessert-spoon; "if the good leddy's conscious an' no in ane of her bad spells, we'll tell her the news. A bittie o' gossip like yon's better than physic or food to a sick wuman.... By the bye, here's a letter cam' for ye yesterday. Open it an' read it, if ye like, while the broth's coolin'."

The letter was from Mrs. Lovina Nixon, in answer to Daisy's first letter home, written under a daughterly impulse during one of Jean's "nights out", when Daisy was alone in the big Harrison kitchen. In her letter, the girl had asked for forgiveness and had hoped that "You and Pa are getting along all right, and that crops are looking good."

Mrs. Lovina's answer was somewhat grim and ominous. "I suppose," she wrote, "you think yourself mighty smart, taking off like that. I suppose you think it was kind of respectable, eh, to go away like you done, alone with a feller. I suppose you reckon your going to have high jinks in town there while me and your Pa milks all them cows, well you ain't. Your not of age yet understand, and your pa and me is coming right into the city to get you, one of these days and fetch you strait home, and if you don't get one tanning from your pa that youl remember all your days, my name aint lovina janet nixon, so mind."

"Bad news, bairnie?" Jean enquired; as Daisy, sobered not so much by the letter as by momentary recollection of her past, stared down at the floor in a grave, pondering way.

"Oh—no," Daisy folded up the letter and slipped it into the bosom of her dress, "not exactly. Is the broth cool now, Jean?"

"Ay," said Jean, picking up the bowl and the plate of crackers; "Come on. The Mistress is lyin' in Sir Thomas' room. I had him move his ugly carcass out of it, because it's the best-ventilated room in the hoose—the best o' the worst, like. He didna object, at least naething to speak of. He kenned fine I'd have taken the besom tae him without much encouragin'.... Ey, what d'ye think, now, I caught him sayin' tae her, one time when I came in to red up the room. He was standin' by the bedside, with his hands in his pockets and his feet spraddled out, in yon way he has.

"'We-ell, Marth',' he oppens up, in his big healthy blat, 'har yuh feelin'? Uh?'.

"'Poorly, Tom, very poorly,' says the good leddy—puir soul!—in a faint-like voice.

"'Thaat's ba-ad,' he says, suckin' his teeth like somebody chirpin' tae a pair o' horses, 'but anyway, I guess, Marth', it's time you was restin' under the sod. You've done your share o' this world's toughin' it. You've aimed the right to rest, if anybody hezz. Ever'thin' wurks furr th' best. Y'see that, don't yuh, Marth'-girl? Uh?'

"Juist then I cam up and gied him a push from behind. Ey, a bonny push! 'Get oot!' I says, chokin'-like. I was sae blind mad, I could ha' stranglit yon man, then and there, so I could. Weel, he went!"

The great muscles on Jean's arms were knotted into ribs and ridges like a man's; her chin was thrust out; her eyes were narrowed into shining slits. Her whole strong frame seemed to become a banked fire of indignation, as memory recalled that scene in the sickroom.

The door of Lady Harrison's room was slightly open as the two reached it. They were barely inside the chamber, when Jean, with an exclamation thrust the broth and crackers down on a side-table and rushed over to the bed.

Daisy, following quickly, saw the Scotswoman, after glancing closely at the half-open eyes and laying her ear to the gaunt sunken chest, hastily remove the pillows from under Lady Martha Harrison's head, lay the scalp levelly on the mattress, and press down the eyelids with her fingers.

"Ey, puir, puir leddy," Jean, keeping finger and thumb on the dead eyelids, turned toward Daisy with two tear-balls bowling down the rugged field of her face; "she's gone, she's gone. Ey, gone off all her lone—died as she lived, bairnie—while we're crackin' awa careless-like down in yon kitchen. Stane deid, an' nigh stark against the layin'-oot."