een there.

"Na," said Hendry, who was shut up in the closet-bed, taking off his
blacks, "I heard tell he wasna bidden."

"Yea, yea," said Jess, nodding to me significantly. "Ay, weel," she
added, "we'll be hae'n Tibbie ower here on Saturday to deave's (weary
us) to death aboot it."

Tibbie, Davit's wife, was sister to Marget, Pete's widow, and she
generally did visit Jess on Saturday night to talk about Marget, who
was fast becoming one of the most fashionable persons in Thrums.
Tibbie was hopelessly plebeian. She was none of your proud kind, and
if I entered the kitchen when she was there she pretended not to see
me, so that, if I chose, I might escape without speaking to the like of
her. I always grabbed her hand, however, in a frank way.

On Saturday Tibbie made her appearance. From the rapidity of her walk,
and the way she was sucking in her mouth, I knew that she had strange
things to unfold. She had pinned a grey shawl about her shoulders, and
wore a black mutch over her dangling grey curls.

"It's you, Tibbie," I heard Jess say, as the door opened.

Tibbie did not knock, not considering herself grand enough for
ceremony, and indeed Jess would have resented her knocking. On the
other hand, when Leeby visited Tibbie, she knocked as politely as if
she were collecting for the precentor's present. All this showed that
we were superior socially to Tibbie.

"Ay, hoo are ye, Jess?" Tibbie said.

"Muckle aboot it," answered Jess; "juist aff an' on; ay, an' hoo hae ye
been yersel?"

"Ou," said Tibbie.

I wish I could write "ou" as Tibbie said it. With her it was usually a
sentence in itself. Sometimes it was a mere bark, again it expressed
indignation, surprise, rapture; it might be a check upon emotion or a
way of leading up to it, and often it lasted for half a minute. In
this instance it was, I should say, an intimation that if Jess was
ready Tibbie would begin.

"So Pete Lownie's gone," said Jess, whom I could not see from ben the
house. I had a good glimpse of Tibbie, however, through the open
doorways. She had the armchair on the south side, as she would have
said, of the fireplace.

"He's awa," assented Tibbie, primly.

I heard the lid of the kettle dancing, and then came a prolonged "ou."
Tibbie bent forward to whisper, and if she had anything terrible to
tell I was glad of that, for when she whispered I heard her best. For
a time only a murmur of words reached me, distant music with