er, and
rejoiced in her variousness as he had not thought he would rejoice over
a useless thing. For she had altered utterly in the last few seconds.
When he had come into the room she had been a tiny cowering thing of
soft piteous gazes and miserable silences, like a sick puppy, too sick
to whimper; now she was almost soulless in her beauty and well-being,
and as little a matter for pity as a daffodil in sunshine. She was
completely, absorbedly young and greedy and happy. The fear that life
was really horrid had obscured her bright colours like a cobweb, but now
she was radiant again; it was as if a wind had blown through her hair,
which always changed with her moods as a cat's coat changes with the
weather, and had been lank since morning. He was not used to variable
women. His two wives, Annie and Christian, had always looked much the
same. He remembered that when he went in to see Aggie as she lay in her
coffin he had examined her face very carefully because he had heard that
people's faces altered when they were dead and fell into expressions
that revealed the truth about their inner lives; but she did not seem to
have changed at all, and was still looking sensible.

To keep the situation moving he drawled teasingly, "Och, you women, you
women! Born with the tongues of cats you are, every one of ye, and with
the advawnce of ceevilisation ye're developing the claws! There was a
fine piece in the _Scotsman_ this morning about one of your Suffragettes
standing on the roof of a town hall and behaving as a wild cat would
think shame to, skirling at Mr. Asquith through a skylight and throwing
slates at the polis that came to fetch her. Aw, verra nice, verra
ladylike, I'm sure."

"Well, why shouldn't she? Yon miserable Asquith--"

"Asquith's not miserable. He's a good man. He's an Englishman, but he
sits for Fife."

"Anyway, it was Charlotte Marsh that did it. And if she's not a lady,
who is? Her photograph's given away with this week's _Votes for Women_.
She's a beautiful girl."

"I doubt it, Nelly."

"I'll bring the photo then!"

"Beautiful girls get married," said Mr. Mactavish James guilefully,
watching for her temper to send up rockets. "What for is she not married
if she is so beautiful?"

"Because she's more particular than your wife was!" barked Ellen,
admitting reluctantly as he gasped and chuckled, "Yon's not my own. I
heard Mary Gawthorpe say that at an open-air meeting. She is a wonder,
yon wee thin