"Well Janet, your Christina has been long spared from it. She'll be
past twenty, I'm thinking."

"Christina has had her offers, Marget. But what will you? We must all
wait for the right man, or go to the de'il with the wrong one."

Thus the conversation went on, until Janet had exhausted all the
advantages and possibilities that were incident to Christina's good
fortune. And perhaps it was out of a little feeling of weariness of the
theme, that Marget finally reminded her friend that she would be
"lonely enough wanting her daughter," adding, "I was hearing too, that
Andrew is not to be kept single much longer; and it will be what no one
expects if Sophy Traill ever fills Christina's shoes."

"Sophy is well enough," answered Janet with a touch of pride. "She
suits Andrew, and it is Andrew that has to live with her."

"And you too, Janet?"

"Not I! Andrew is to build his own bigging. I have the life rent of
mine. But I shall be a deal in Glasgow myself. Jamie has his heart
fairly set on that."

She made this statement with an air of prideful satisfaction that was
irritating to Mistress Roy; and she was not inclined to let Janet enter
anew into a description of all the fine sights she was to see, the
grand guns of preachers she was to hear, and the trips to Greenock and
Rothesay, which Jamie said "would just fall naturally in the way of
their ordinary life." So Marget showed such a hurry about her household
affairs as made Janet uncomfortable, and she rose with a little offence