s a simple,
well-behaved girl, and the entrance of neither father nor mother
would have made the least difference in her behaviour to Sir
Gilbert, though doubtless she was more pleased to have a chat with
him than with her father's apprentice, who could speak indeed, but
looked dull as the dough he worked in, whereas Gibbie, although
dumb, was radiant. But the faces of people talking often look more
meaningful to one outside the talk-circle than they really are, and
Mrs. Sclater, gazing through the glass, found, she imagined, large
justification of displeasure. She opened the door sharply, and
stepped in. Gibbie jumped from his seat on the counter, and, with a
smile of playful roguery, offered it to her; a vivid blush
overspread Mysie's fair countenance.

"I thought you had gone to see Donal," said Mrs. Sclater, in the
tone of one deceived, and took no notice of the girl.

Gibbie gave her to understand that Donal would arrive presently, and
they were then going to the point of the pier, that Donal might
learn what the sea was like in a nor'-easter.

"But why did you make your appointment here?" asked the lady.

"Because Mysie and I are old friends," answered the boy on his
fingers.

Then first Mrs. Sclater turned to the girl: having got over her
first indignation, she spoke gently and with a frankness natural to
her.

"Sir Gilbert tells me you are old friends," she said.

Thereupon Mysie told her the story of the ear-ring, which had
introduced their present conversation, and added several other
little recollections, in one of which she was drawn into a
description, half pathetic, half humorous, of the forlorn appearance
of wee Gibbie, as he ran about in his truncated trousers. Mrs.
Slater was more annoyed, however, than interested, for, in view of
the young baronet's future, she would have had all such things
forgotten; but Gibbie was full of delight in the vivid recollections
thus brought him of some of the less painful portions of his past,
and appreciated every graphic word that fell from the girl's pretty
lips.

Mrs. Sclater took good care not to leave until Donal came. Then the
boys, having asked her if she would not go with them, which
invitation she declined with smiling thanks, took their departure
and went to pay their visit to the German Ocean, leaving her with
Mysie--which they certainly would not have done, could they have
foreseen how the well-meaning lady--nine-tenths of the mischiefs in