said Pamela.
"I've never seen an Honourable before, neither has Peter."
"You'd better come in and see me quite close," Pamela suggested. "I've got some chocolates here."
Mhor and Peter needed no further invitation. They sprang from the wall and in a few seconds presented themselves at the door of the sitting-room.
Pamela shook hands with Mhor and patted Peter, and produced a box of chocolates.
"I hope they're the kind you like?" she said politely.
"I like any kind," said Mhor, "but specially hard ones. I don't suppose you have anything for Peter? A biscuit or a bit of cake? Peter's like me. He's always hungry for cake and never hungry for porridge."
Pamela, feeling extremely remiss, confessed that she had neither cake nor biscuits and dared not ask Miss Bathgate for any.
"But you're bigger than Miss Bathgate," Mhor pointed out. "You needn't be afraid of her. I'll ask her, if you like."
Pamela heard him cross the passage and open the kitchen door and begin politely, "Good morning, Miss Bathgate."
"What are ye wantin' here wi' thae dirty boots?" Bella demanded.
"I came in to see the Honourable, and she has nothing to give poor Peter to eat. Could he have a tea biscuit—not an Abernethy one, please, he doesn't like them—or a bit of cake?"
"Of a' the impidence!" ejaculated Bella. "D'ye think I keep tea biscuits and cake to feed dowgs wi'? Stan' there and dinna stir." She put a bit of carpet under the small, dirty boots, and as she grumbled she wiped her hands on a coarse towel that hung behind the door, and reached up for a tin box from the top shelf of the press beside the fire.
"Here, see, there's yin for yerself, an' the broken bits are for Peter.
Here he comes snowkin'," as Peter ambled into the kitchen followed by
Pamela. That lady stood in the doorway.
"Do forgive me coming, but I love a kitchen. It is always the nicest place in the house, I think; the shining tins are so cheerful, and the red fire." She smiled in an engaging way at Bella, who, after a second, and, as it were, reluctantly, smiled back.
"I see you have given the raider some biscuits," Pamela said.
"He's an ill laddie." Bella Bathgate looked at the Mhor standing obediently on the bit of carpet, munching his biscuit, and her face softened. "He has neither father nor mother, puir lamb, but I must say Miss Jean never lets him ken the want o' them."
"Miss Jean?"
"He bides at The Rigs wi' the Jardines—juist next door here. She's no a bad lassie, Miss Jean, and wonderfu' sensible considerin'. … Are ye finished, Mhor? Weel, wipe yer feet and gang ben to the room an' let me get on wi' ma work."
Pamela, feeling herself dismissed, took her guest back to the sitting-room, where Mhor at once began to examine the books piled on the table, while Peter sat himself on the rug to await developments.
"You've a lot of books," said Mhor. "I've a lot of books too—as many as a hundred, perhaps. Jean teaches me poetry. Would you like me to say some?"
"Please," said Pamela, expecting to hear some childish rhymes. Mhor took a long breath and began:
"'O take me to the Mountain O,
Past the great pines and through the wood,
Up where the lean hounds softly go,
A whine for wild things' blood,
And madly flies the dappled roe.
O God, to shout and speed them there
An arrow by my chestnut hair
Drawn tight, and one keen glittering spear—
Ah, if I could!'"
For some reason best known to himself Mhor was very sparing of breath when he repeated poetry, making one breath last so long that the end of the verse was reached in a breathless whisper—in this instance very effective.
"So that is what 'Jean' teaches you," said Pamela. "I should like to see Jean."
"Well," said Mhor, "come in with me now and see her. I should be doing my lessons anyway, and you can tell her where I've been."
"Won't she think me rather pushing?" Pamela asked.
"Oh, I don't know," said Mhor carelessly. "Jean's kind to everybody—tramps and people who sing in the street and little cats with no homes. Hadn't you better put on your hat?"
So Pamela obediently put on her hat and coat and went with her new friends down the road a few steps and up the flagged path to the front door of the funny little house that kept its back turned to its parvenu neighbours, and its eyes lifted to the hills.
In Mhor led her, Peter following hard behind, through a square, low-roofed entrance-hall with a polished floor, into a long room with one end coming to a point in an odd-shaped window, rather like the bow of a ship.
A girl was sitting in the window with a large basket of darning beside her.
"Jean," cried Mhor as he burst in, "here's the Honourable. I asked her to come in and see you. She's afraid of Bella Bathgate."
"Oh, do come in," said Jean, standing up with the stocking she was darning over one hand. "Take this chair; it's the most comfortable. I do hope Mhor hasn't been worrying you?"
"Indeed he hasn't," said Pamela; "I was delighted to see him. But please don't let me interrupt your work."
"The boys make such big holes," said Jean, picking up a damp handkerchief that lay beside her; and then with a tremble in her voice, "I've been crying," she added.
"So I see," said Pamela. "I'm sorry. Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing in the least wrong," Jean said, swallowing hard, "only that I'm so silly." And presently she found herself pouring out her troubled thoughts about David, about the lions that she feared stood in his path at Oxford, about the hole his going made in the little household at The Rigs. It was a comfort to tell it all to this delightful-looking stranger who seemed to understand in the most wonderful way.
"I remember when my brother Biddy went to Oxford," Pamela told her. "I felt just as you do. Our parents were dead, and I was five years older than my brother, and took care of him just as you do of your David. I was afraid for him, for he had too much money, and that is much worse than having too little—but he didn't get changed or spoiled, and to this day he is the same, my own old Biddy."
Jean dried her eyes and went on with her darning, and Pamela walked about looking at the books and talking, taking in every detail of this girl and her so individual room, the golden-brown hair, thick and wavy, the golden-brown eyes, "like a trout-stream in Connemara," that sparkled and lit and saddened as she talked, the mobile, humorous mouth, the short, straight nose and pointed chin, the straight-up-and-down belted brown frock, the whole toning so perfectly with the room with its polished floor and old Persian
