"Hoo mony years is it, Tammy, sin' Bobby's been leevin' i' the auld
kirkyaird? At Maister Traill's snawy picnic ye war five gangin' on
sax." They exchanged glances in which lay one of the happy memories
of sad childhoods.
"Noo I'm nineteen going on twenty. It's near fourteen years syne,
Ailie." Nearly all the burrs had been pulled from Tammy's tongue,
but he used a Scotch word now and then, no' to shame Ailie's less
cultivated speech.
"So long?" murmured the Grand Leddy. "Bobby is getting old, very
old for a terrier."
As if to deny that, Bobby suddenly shot down the slope in answer to
a cry of alarm from a song thrush. Still good for a dash, when he
came back he dropped panting. The lady put her hand on his rippling
coat and felt his heart pounding. Then she looked at his worn down
teeth and lifted his veil. Much of the luster was gone from Bobby's
brown eyes, but they were still soft and deep and appealing.
From the windows children looked down upon the quiet group and,
without in the least knowing why they wanted to be there, too, the
tenement bairns began to drop into the kirkyard. Almost at once it
rained--a quick, bright, dashing shower that sent them all flying
and laughing up to the shelter of the portico to the new kirk.
Bobby scampered up, too, and with the bairns in holiday duddies
crowding about her, and the wee dog lolling at her feet, the Grand
Leddy talked fairy stories.
She told them all about a pretty country place near London.
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