Mrs. Macdonald was in great form.  She had come away, she told them, leaving the spring cleaning half done.  “All the study chairs in the garden and Agnes rubbing down the walls, and Allan’s men beating the carpet....  In came the telegram, and after I got over the shock—­I always expect the worst when I see a telegraph boy—­I said to John, ’My best dress is not what it was, but I’m going,’ and John was delighted, partly because he was driven out of his study, and he’s never happy in any other room, but most of all because it was Jean.  English Church or no English Church he’ll help to marry Jean.  But,” turning to the bride to be, “I can hardly believe it, Jean.  It’s only ten days since you left Priorsford, and to-morrow you’re to be married.  I think it was the War that taught us such hurried ways....”  She sighed, and then went on briskly:  “I went to see Mrs. M’Cosh before I left.  She had had your letter, so I didn’t need to break the news to her.  She was wonderfully calm about it, and said that when people went away to England you might expect to hear anything.  She said I was to tell Mhor that the cat was asking for him.  And she is getting on with the cleaning.  I think she said she had finished the dining-room and two bedrooms, and she was expecting the sweep to-day.  She said you would like to know that the man had come about the leak in the tank, and it’s all right.  I saw Bella Bathgate as I was leaving The Rigs.  She sent you and Lord Bidborough her kind regards....  She has a free way of expressing herself, but I don’t think she means to be disrespectful.”

“Has she got lodgers just now?” Pamela asked.

“Oh yes, she told me about them.  One she dismissed as ’an auldish, impident wumman wi’ specs’; and the other as ‘terrible genteel.’  Both of them ‘a sair come-down frae Miss Reston.’  Now you are gone you are on a pedestal.”

“I wasn’t always on a pedestal,” said Pamela, “but I shall always have a tenderness for Bella Bathgate and her parlour.”  She smiled to Lewis Elliot as she said it.

Jean, sitting beside Mr. Macdonald, thanked him for coming.

“Happy, Jean?” he asked.

“Utterly happy,” said Jean.  “So happy that I’m almost afraid.  Isn’t it odd how one seems to cower down to avoid drawing the attention of the Fates to one’s happiness, saying, ‘It is naught, it is naught,’ in case disaster follows?”

“Don’t worry about the Fates, Jean,” Mr. Macdonald advised.  “Rejoice in your happiness, and God grant that the evil days may never come to you....  What, Jock?  Am I going to the play?  I never went to a play in my life and I’m too old to begin.”

“Oh, but, Mr. Macdonald,” Jean broke in eagerly, “it isn’t like a real theatre; it’s all Shakespeare, and the place is simply black with clergymen, so you wouldn’t feel out of place.  You know you taught me first to care for Shakespeare, and I’d love to sit beside you and see a play acted.”