'The gilt ball fell frae the standard pole, and there's nane to think
that a good omen!' But I _saw_ it," said Mother Binning. She turned
her wheel, a woman not yet old and with a large, tranquil comeliness.
"What I see makes fine company!"

Strickland plucked a rose and smelled it. "This country is fuller of
such things than is England that I come from."

"Aye. It's a grand country." She continued to spin. The tutor looked
at the sun. It was time to be going if he wished another hour with the
stream. He took up his rod and book and rose from the door-step.
Mother Binning glanced aside from her wheel.

"How gaes things with the lad at the House?"

"Alexander or James?"

"The one ye call Alexander."

"That is his name."

"I think that he's had ithers. That's a lad of mony lives!"

Strickland, halting by the rose-bush, looked at Mother Binning. "I
suppose we call it 'wisdom' when two feel alike. Now that's just what
I feel about Alexander Jardine! It's just feeling without
rationality."

"Eh?"