“Oh, surely not!”

“There’s no sayin’,” said Bella gloomily.  “She’s young and flighty, but there’s wan thing, she has no money.  I kent a minister—­he was a kinda cousin o’ ma father’s—­an’ he mairret a heiress and they had late denner.  I tell ye that late denner was the ruin o’ that man.  It fair got between him an’ his jidgment.  He couldna veesit his folk at a wise-like hour in the evening because he was gaun to hev his denner, and he couldna get oot late because his leddy-wife wanted him to be at hame efter denner.  There’s mony a thing to cause a minister to stumble, for they’re juist human beings after a’, but his rich mairrage was John Allison’s undoing.”

“Marriage,” sighed Mawson, “is a great risk.  It’s often as well to be single, but I sometimes think Providence must ha’ meant me to ’ave an ‘usband—­I’m such a clingin’ creature.”

Such sentiments were most distasteful to Miss Bathgate, that self-reliant spinster, and she said bitterly: 

“Ma wumman, ye’re ill off for something to cling to!  I never saw the man yet that I wud be pitten up wi’.”

“Ho!  I shouldn’t say that, but I must say I couldn’t fancy a h’undertaker.  Just imagine ’im ‘andlin’ the dead and then ‘andlin’ me!”

“Eh, ye nesty cratur,” said Bella, much disgusted “But I suppose ye’re meaning English undertakers—­men that does naething but work wi’ funerals—­a fearsome ill job.  Here it’s the jiner that does a’ thing, so it’s faur mair homely.”

“Speakin’ about marriages,” said Mawson, who preferred cheerful subjects, “I do enjoy a nice weddin’.  The motors and the bridesmaids and the flowers.  Is there no chance of a weddin’ ’ere?”

Miss Bathgate shook her head.

“Why not Miss Jean?” Mawson suggested.

Again Miss Bathgate shook her head.

“Nae siller,” she said briefly.

“What!  No money, you mean?  But h’every gentleman ain’t after money.”  Mawson’s expression grew softly sentimental as she added, “Many a one marries for love, like the King and the beggar-maid.”

“Mebbe,” said Bella, “but the auld rhyme’s oftener true: 

  “’Be a lassie ne’er sae black,
    Gie her but the name o’ siller,
  Set her up on Tintock tap
    An’ the wind’ll blaw a man till her.

  Be a lassie ne’er sae fair,
    Gin she hinna penny-siller,
  A flea may fell her in the air
    Ere a man be evened till her.’

“I would like fine to see Miss Jean get a guid man, for she’s no’ a bad lassie, but I doot she’ll never manage’t.”

“Oh, Beller, you do take an ’opeless view of things.  I think it’s because you wear black so much.  Now I must say I like a bit o’ bright colour.  I think it gives one bright thoughts.”

“I aye wear black,” said Bella firmly, as she carried the supper dishes to the scullery, “and then, as the auld wifie said, ’Come daith, come sacrament, I’m ready!’”