"
"Ay," said Dame Ursley, still busied putting on additional defences
against the night air; "and you know for certain that she has two
hundred pounds a-year in good land, at her own free disposal?"
"Left by her grandmother, heaven rest her soul!" said the Scotswoman;
"and to a daintier lassie she could not have bequeathed it."
"Very true, very true, mistress; for, with all her little whims, I
have always said Mistress Margaret Ramsay was the prettiest girl in
the ward; and, Jenny, I warrant the poor child has had no supper?"
Jenny could not say but it was the case, for, her master being out,
the twa 'prentice lads had gone out after shutting shop, to fetch them
home, and she and the other maid had gone out to Sandy MacGivan's, to
see a friend frae Scotland.
"As was very natural, Mrs. Janet," said Dame Ursley, who found her
interest in assenting to all sorts of propositions from all sorts of
persons.
"And so the fire went out, too,"--said Jenny.
"Which was the most natural of the whole," said Dame Suddlechop; "and
so, to cut the matter short, Jenny, I'll carry over the little bit of
supper that I was going to eat. For dinner I have tasted none, and it
may be my young pretty Mistress Marget will eat a morsel with me; for
it is mere emptiness, Mistress Jenny, that often puts these fancies of
illness into young folk's heads." So saying, she put the silver
posset-cup with the ale into Jenny's hands and assuming her mantle
with the alacrity of one determined to sacrifice inclination to duty,
she hid the stewpan under its folds, and commanded Wilsa, the little
mulatto girl, to light them across the street.
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