“It is two years now since Randall came to London. From Dumfriesshire we send out a great many cadets into the world, Miss Annie; and some one who knew his father found a situation here for Randall Home. He brought his book with him, and it was published, and very successful; then he came home, and sought my consent to his engagement with Menie. That is all Randall’s history in connection with us. The other young man you expect to-night, Miss Annie, is only a cottager’s son—very clever, I hear, but not in any way, I fancy, to be put in comparison with Randall Home.”

And Mrs Laurie took up her work with a little quiet pride, resolved to be very kind to Johnnie Lithgow, but by no means pleased to have him mentioned in the same breath with her future son-in-law.

“I adore talent,” said Miss Annie, opening her work-table to take out a tiny bit of “fancy” work. “I could not describe the delight I have in the society of people of genius—self-taught genius too—so charming; and both of these delightful young men must be self-taught.”

Mrs Laurie drew herself up with a little hauteur.

“Mr Home has had an excellent education; his father is a very superior man. Johnnie Lithgow, as I said before, is only a cottager’s son.”

But Miss Annie could not see the distinction, and ran on in such a flutter of delight in anticipation of her guests, that Mrs Laurie quietly retired into the intricacies of her work, and contented herself with a resolution to be very kind and condescending to the popular editor, the cottager’s son.

The drawing-room is in special glory—the pinafores discarded from the chairs, the little tables crowded with gay books and toys and flowers, and everything in its company dress. Mrs Laurie—who never can be anything but Mrs Laurie, a matron of sober years, and Menie’s mother—sits, in her grave-coloured gown and snowy cap, upon the sofa; while on a stool low down by her side, in a little tremor of expectation, Miss Annie perches like a bird, waiting the arrival of her visitors. Mrs Laurie, with her Dumfriesshire uses, quite believes what Miss Annie says, that only “a few friends” are coming to-night, and has not the slightest idea that the lady of the house will be greatly mortified if her rooms are not filled in an hour or two with a little crowd.

And up-stairs, resplendent in Jenny’s gown, Menie Laurie stands before the glass, fastening on one or two simple ornaments, and admiring, with innocent enjoyment, her unusually elegant dress. You may guess by this glimpse of these well-known striped skirts, full and round, revealing themselves under cover of the curtains, that Jenny, too, has been admiring her own magnificent purchase. But Jenny by this time has grown impatient, and jealous that Menie’s admiration prolongs itself only to please her, Jenny; so, giving premonition by sundry restless gestures of the advent of a “fuff,” she has turned to look out from the window upon the sandy road which leads to ’Eathbank.

“Eh, Miss Menie! that brockit ane’s a bonnie cow,” said Jenny; “I never see onything else in this outlandish place that minds me o’ hame, if it binna the mistress and yoursel. I’ll just bide and look out for the young lads, Miss Menie. Ye needna clap your hands, as if Jenny was turning glaikit; if they werena lads frae our ain countryside, they might come and gang a twelvemonth for me.”

“But the ladies and the gentlemen will see you from the window, Jenny,” said Menie Laurie.

“Ise warrant they’ve seen waur sights,” said Jenny briskly; “I’m no gaun to let down my ainsel, for a’ I have a thraw; and I would just like to ken, if folk wanted to see a purpose-like lass, fit for her wark, wha they could come to in this house but me? There’s my lady’s maid—set her up!—in her grand gown, as braw as my lady; and there’s the tither slaving creature put off a’ this morning clavering to somebody, and no fit to be seen now; for a’ they scoff at my short-gown and guid linsey coats. But they may scoff till they’re tired, for Jenny; I’m no gaun to change, at my time o’ life, for a’ the giggling in London toun.”

“But you’ll put on your gown to-night, Jenny,” said Menie, persuasively, patting her shoulder. “There’s Randall did not see you last time he was here; and Johnnie Lithgow, you would like to see him. Come, Jenny, and put on your gown.”

“It’s no muckle Randall Home heeds about me, and you ken that,” said Jenny; “and for a’ he didna see me, I saw him the last time he was here. I’ll just tell you, Miss Menie, yon lad, to be a right lad, is owre heeding about himsel.”

“You’re not to say that, Jenny; it vexes me,” said Menie, with simple gravity; “besides, it is not true. You mistake Randall—and then Johnnie Lithgow.”

“I wouldna say but what I might be pleased to get a glint o’ him,” said Jenny. “Eh, my patience! to think o’ Betty Armstrong’s son sitting down with our mistress. But I’ll be sure to ca’ them by their right names afore the folk. I canna get my tongue about thae maisters. Maister Lithgow! and me minds him a wee white-headed laddie, hauding up his peeny for cakes on the Hogmanay, and pu’ing John Glendinning’s kail-stocks at Hallowe’en. What would I put on my gown for, bairn? As sure as I gang into the room, I’ll ca’ him Johnnie.”

But Jenny’s scruples at last yielded, and Jenny came forth from her chamber glorious in a blue-and-yellow gown, printed in great stripes and figures, and made after an antediluvian fashion, which utterly shocked and horrified the pretty Maria, Miss Annie Laurie’s favourite maid. Nor was Miss Annie Laurie herself less disconcerted, when honest Jenny, the high shoulder largely developed by her tight-fitting gown, and carrying a cake-basket in her brown hands, made her appearance in the partially-filled drawing-room, threading her way leisurely through the guests, and examining, with keen glances and much attention, the faces of the masculine portion of them. Miss Annie made a pause in her own lively and juvenile talk, to watch the strange figure and the keen inquiring face, over which a shade of bewilderment gradually crept. But Miss Annie no longer thought it amusing, when Jenny made an abrupt pause before her young mistress, then shily endeavouring to make acquaintance with some very fine young ladies, daughters of Miss Annie’s loftiest and most aristocratic friends, and said in a startling whisper, which all the room could hear, “Miss Menie! ye might tell folk which is him, if he’s here; but I canna see a creature that’s like Johnnie Lithgow o’ Kirklands, nor ony belanging to him, in the haill room.”

Miss Annie Laurie, much horrified, rose from her seat somewhat hastily; but at the same moment up sprang by her side the guest to whom her most particular attentions had been devoted—“And Burnside Jenny has forgotten me!”

Burnside Jenny, quite forgetful of “all the folk,” turned round upon him in an instant. Not quite Johnnie Lithgow, the merriest mischief-doer in Kirklands parish, but a face that prompted recollections of his without dispute—blue eyes, dancing and running over with the light of a happy spirit—and a wisp of close curls, not many shades darker in colour than those of the “white-headed laddie,” whose merry tricks Jenny had not forgotten. “Eh, man! is this you?” said Jenny, with a sigh of satisfaction. “I aye likit the callant for a’ his mischief, and it’s just the same blithe face after a’.”

Randall Home stood leaning his fine figure against the mantelpiece, and took no notice of Jenny. Randall was somewhat afraid of a similar recognition; but Johnnie Lithgow, who did not affect attitudes—Johnnie Lithgow, who was neither proud nor ashamed of being a cottager’s son, and who had a habit of doing such kindly things as occurred to him without consideration of prudence—drew her aside by both her brown hands, out of which Jenny had laid the cake-basket, to talk to her of home. A slight smile curled on the lip of Randall Home. How well he looked, leaning upon his arm, his lofty head towering over every other head in Miss Annie’s drawing-room, with his look of conscious dignity, his intellectual face! Menie Laurie and Menie Laurie’s mother did not find it possible to be other than proud of him; yet the eyes of both turned somewhat wistfully to the corner, to dwell upon a face which for itself could have charmed no one, but which beamed and shone like sunshine upon Jenny, greeting her as an old friend.

“Your friend is a literary man?” said somebody inquiringly, taking up a respectful position by Randall’s side.

“Yes, poor fellow; he spins himself out into daily portions for the press,” said Randall.

“A high vocation, sir; leader of public opinions and movements,” said the somebody, who professed to be an intellectual person, a man of progress.

“Say rather the follower,” said Randall; “and well for those who have the happy knack of following wisely—chiming in, before itself is fully aware of it, with the humour of the time.”

Menie Laurie, who was close at hand, and heard all this, ventured a whisper, while Randall’s companion had for the moment turned away.

“Your words sound as if you slighted him, Randall, and you too call yourself a literary man.”

“Good Johnnie Lithgow, I like him extremely,” said Randall, with the half-scornful smile which puzzled Menie; “but he is only a literary workman after all. He does his literature as his day’s labour—he will tell you so himself—a mere craft for daily bread.”

And just then Lithgow turned round, with his radiant face—he who had no fame to lose, and did an honest day’s work in every day, not thinking that the nature of his craft excused him from the natural amount of toil—and again Menie felt a little pang at her heart, as she thought of Randall’s jealous guardianship of Randall’s youthful fame.