s?"

"I'll be late at the works if ye dinna let me go--that's what I mean."

"But--dinna ye love me any more'?"

"Oh, aye--I love ye weel enough, Andy. But I canna be late at the
works, for a' that!"

"To the de'il wi' the works! Ye'll be marrying be as soon as may be,
and then there'll be no more works for ye, lass--"

"That's only a rumor! I'm sticking to my job. Get one for yourself,
and then maybe I'll talk o' marrying you--and may be no!"

"Get me a job? I've got one--the one you've been having!"

"Aye--but it's my job the noo, and I'll be keeping it. I like earning
my siller, and I'm minded to keep on doing it, Andy."

And off she goes, and Andy after her, to find she's told the truth,
and that they'll not turn her off to make way for him.

"We'd like to have you back, Andy," they'll tell him. "But if the
women want to stay, stay they can."

Well, I'll be asking you if it's likely Jenny will act so to her boy,
that's hame frae the wars? Ye'll never mak' me think so till you've
proved it. Here's the picture I see.

I see Jenny getting more and more tired, and waiting more and more
eagerly for Andy to come hame. She's a woman, after a', d'ye ken, and
a young one. And there are some sorts of work women were not meant or
made to do, save when the direst need compels. So, wi' the ending of
the war, and its strain, here's puir Jennie, wondering how long she
must keep on before her Andy comes to tak' care of her and let her
rest.

And--let me whisper something else. We think it shame whiles, to talk
o' some things. But here's Nature, the auld mither of all of us. She's
a purpose in the world, has that auld mither--and it's that the race
shall gae on. And it's in the heart and the soul, the body and the
brain, of Jennie that she's planted the desire that her purpose shall
be fulfilled.

It's bairns Jenny wants, whether or no she kens that. It's that helps
to mak' her so eager for Andy to be coming back to her. And when she
sees him, at long last, I see her flinging herself in his arms, and
thanking God wi' her tears that he's back safe and sound--her man, the
man she's been praying for and working for.

There'll be problems aboot women, dear knows. There are a' the lassies
whose men wull no come back, like Andy--whose lads lie buried in a
foreign grave. It's not for me to talk of the sad problem of the
superfluous woman--the lassie whose life seems to be over when it's
but begun. These are affairs the pr