Mhor said nothing, but stared with grave green eyes at the stricken figure of the heiress.

“It’s awful,” Jean moaned.

“But, my dear,” said Pamela, “I thought you wanted to be rich.”

“Oh—­rich in a gentle way, a few hundreds a year—­but this—­”

“Poor Jean, buried under bullion.”

“You’re all looking at me differently already,” cried poor Jean.  “Mhor, it’s just the same me.  Money can’t make any real difference.  Don’t stare at me like that.”

“Will Peter have a diamond collar now?” Mhor asked.

“Awful effect of sudden riches,” said Pamela.

“Bear up, Jean—­I’ve no doubt you’ll be able to get rid of your money.  Just think of all the people you will be able to help.  You needn’t spend it on yourself you know.”

“No, but suppose it’s the ruin of the boys!  I’ve often heard of sudden fortunes making people go all wrong.”

“Now, Jean, does Jock look as if anything so small as a fortune could put him wrong?  And David—­by the way, where is David?”

“Out,” said Jock, “getting something at the stationer’s.  Let me tell him when he comes in.”

“Then I’ll tell Mrs. M’Cosh,” cried Mhor, and, followed by Peter, he rushed from the room.

The colour was beginning to come back to Jean’s face, and the stunned look to go out of her eyes.

“Why in the world has he left it to me?” she asked Pamela.

“You see the lawyer suggests coming to see you.  He will explain it all.  It’s a wonderful stroke of luck, Jean.  No wonder you can’t take it in.”

“I feel like the little old woman in the nursery-rhyme who said, ’This is none of I.’  I’m bound to wake up and find I’ve dreamt it....  Oh, Mrs. M’Cosh!”

“It’s the wee laddie Scott to say his mother canna come and wash the morn’s mornin’; she’s no weel.  It’s juist as weel, seein’ the biler’s gone wrang.  I suppose I’d better gie the laddie a piece?”

“Yes, and a penny.”  Then Jean remembered her new possessions.  “No, give him this, please, Mrs. M’Cosh.”

Mrs. M’Cosh received the coin and gasped.  “Hauf a croon!” she said.

“Silver,” said Pamela, “is to be no more accounted of than it was in the days of Solomon!”

“D’ye ken whit ye’ll dae?” demanded Mrs. M’Cosh.  “Ye’ll get the laddie taen up by the pollis.  Gie him thruppence—­it’s mair wise-like.”

“Oh, very well,” said Jean, thwarted at the very beginning of her efforts in philanthropy.  “I’ll go and see his mother to-morrow and find out what she needs.  Have you heard the news, Mrs. M’Cosh?”

Mrs. M’Cosh came farther into the room and folded her hands on her snow-white apron.

“Weel, Mhor came in and tell’t me some kinna story aboot a lot o’ money, but I thocht he was juist bletherin’.  Is’t a fac’?”

“It would seem to be.  The lawyer in London writes that Mr. Peter Reid—­d’you perhaps remember an old man who came here to tea one day in October?—­he came from London and lived at the Temperance—­has left me all his fortune, which is a large one.  I can’t think why....  And I thought he was so poor, I wanted to have him here to stay, to save him paying hotel bills.  Poor man, he must have been very friendless when he left his money to a stranger.”