Ribekka blushed like a lassie o' fifteen, an' bringin' her tongue alang her upper lip, she shook her heid an' says, "Juist a lot o' blethers. Jeems wudna hae a puir thing like me." 

 "Ye dinna tell me!" said Mistress Winton, never lattin' wink she heard Ribekka.  "That's the wey o't is't? Imphm! What d'ye think o' that, na? Weel dune, Ribekka. He's a fine coodie man, Jeems; an' he'll tak' care o' Ribekka, the young taed. Wha wudda thocht it?" 

 Ribekka had her moo half fu' o' the lace on her saitin apron, an' was enjoyin' the raggin' fine, altho' she was terriple putten aboot, wi' her wey o't. 

 "Better sit still than rise up an' fa'," said Mysie.  "Gin I were Ribekka I'd bide my leen. I wud like to see the man that wud tak' me oot o' my present state." 

 "He wudna need to be very parteeklar," says I, juist to gie Mysie a backca'; for she was sailin' gey near the wind, I thocht.  "When I was young," I says, says I—— 

 "Auld wives were aye gude maidens," the Gairner's wife strak in; an' I saw I was cornered, an' said nae mair. 

 "An' a weeda man too!" said Mysie wi' a grumph.  "Better keep the deil atower the door than drive him oot o' the hoose." 

 "'Saut,' quo the souter, when he ate the soo, an' worried on the tail," was the Gairner's wife's comment; an' Mysie didna like it, I can tell ye. 

 "You wasna in that wey o' thinkin' when Dossie Millar, the skulemester, used to come an' coort you, when you was up-by at the Provost's," said Ribekka to Mysie.  "If it hadna been for the lid o' the water-barrel gien wey yon nicht, you michta been skelpin' Dossie's bairns the day—an' your ain too." 

 We a' took a hearty lauch at Ribekka's ootburst. 

 "Eh, that was a pliskie," said Mistress Kenawee.  "Dossie got a gey drookin' that nicht. They said it was ane o' the coachmen that was efter Mysie that sawed the lid half throo; an' when Dossie climbed up to hae his crack wi' Mysie at the winda, in he gaed up to the lugs. The story was that Mysie fair lost her chance wi' him, wi' burstin' oot lauchin' when he climbed oot o' the barrel soakin'-dreepin' throo an' throo. He never got ower't, for it got oot aboot, an' the very bairns at the skule began to ca' him the Drookit Dominie. He got a job at the Druckendub skule, an' never lookit Mysie's airt again." 

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