answered Tommy; "and she
wishes she could find out where Jean Myles bides, so as she could write
and tell her that she is grand too, and has six hair-bottomed chairs."

"She'll never get the satisfaction," said his mother triumphantly. "Tell
me more about her."

"She has a laddie called Francie, and he has yellow curls, and she
nearly greets because she canna tell Jean Myles that he goes to a school
for the children of gentlemen only. She is so mad when she gets a letter
from Jean Myles that she takes to her bed."

"Yea, yea!" said Mrs. Sandys cheerily.

"But they think Jean Myles has been brought low at last," continued
Tommy, "because she hasna wrote for a long time to Thrums, and Esther
Auld said that if she knowed for certain as Jean Myles had been brought
low, she would put a threepenny bit in the kirk plate."

"I'm glad you've telled me that, laddie," said Mrs. Sandys, and next
day, unknown to her children, she wrote another letter. She knew she ran
a risk of discovery, yet it was probable that Tommy would only hear her
referred to in Thrums Street by her maiden name, which he had never
heard from her, and as for her husband he had been Magerful Tam to
everyone. The risk was great, but the pleasure--

Unsuspicious Tommy soon had news of another letter from Jean Myles,
which had sent Esther Auld to bed again.

"Instead of being brought low," he announced, "Jean Myles is grander
than ever. Her Tommy has a governess."

"That would be a doush of water in Esther's face?" his mother said,
smiling.

"She wrote to Martha Scrymgeour," said Tommy, "that it ain't no pleasure
to her now to boast as her laddie is at a school for gentlemen's
children only. But what made her maddest was a bit in Jean Myles's
letter about chairs. Jean Myles has give all her hair-bottomed chairs to
a poor woman and buyed a new kind, because hair-bottomed ones ain't
fashionable now. So Esther Auld can't not bear the sight of her chairs
now, though she were windy of them till the letter went to Thrums."

"Poor Esther!" said Mrs. Sandys gaily.

"Oh, and I forgot this, mother. Jean Myles's reason for not telling
where she bides in London is that she's so grand that she thinks if auld
Petey and the rest knowed where the place was they would visit her and
boast as they was her friends. Auld Petey stamped wi' rage when he heard
that, and Martha Scrymgeour said, 'Oh, the pridefu' limmer!'"

"Ay, Martha," muttered Mrs. Sandys, "you and Jean M