occasion to her mistress for leaving the room without encountering
the dilemma of either turning the woman out--a proceeding which
the latter, from the way in which she set her short, stout figure
square on the floor, appeared ready to resist--or of herself
abandoning the field in discomfiture: she turned and marched from
the kitchen with her head in the air, and the gait of one who had
been insulted on her own premises.

She was sitting in the parlour, still red faced and wrathful, when
Jean entered, and, closing the door behind her, drew near to her
mistress, bearing a narrative, commenced at the door, of all she
had seen, heard, and done, while "oot an' aboot i' the toon." But
Miss Horn interrupted her the moment she began to speak.

"Is that wuman furth the hoose, Jean?" she asked, in the tone
of one who waited her answer in the affirmative as a preliminary
condition of all further conversation.

"She's gane, mem," answered Jean--adding to herself in a wordless
thought, "I'm no sayin' whaur."

"She's a wuman I wadna hae ye throng wi', Jean."

"I ken no ill o' her, mem," returned Jean.

"She's eneuch to corrup' a kirkyaird!" said her mistress, with more
force than fitness.

Jean, however, was on the shady side of fifty, more likely to have
already yielded than to be liable to a first assault of corruption;