Then she extended her hand, crooking the forefinger like a claw, in a beckoning gesture.
"Coom tha here," she commanded, "an set thysen down to talk to me."
She gave the order in the manner of a female potentate, and Murdoch obeyed her with a sense of overpowering fascination.
"Wheer art tha fro'?" she demanded.
He made his reply, "From America," as distinct as possible, and was relieved to find that it reached her at once.
"'Merica?" she repeated. "I've heerd o' 'Merica often enow. That's wheer th' blacks live, an' th' Indians. I knowed a young chap as went theer, an' th' Indians scalped him. He went theer because I would na ha' him. It wur when I wur a lass."
She paused a moment and then said the last words over again, nodding her head with a touch of grim satisfaction.
"He went theer because I would na ha' him. It wur when I wur a lass."
He was watching her so intently that he was quite startled a second time when she turned her eyes upon him and spoke again, still nodding.
"I wur a han'some lass," she said. "I wur a han'some lass—seventy year' ago."
It was quite plain that she had been. The thing which was least pleasant about her now was a certain dead and withered suggestion of a beauty of a not altogether sinless order.
The recollection of the fact seemed to enliven her so far that she was inspired to conducting the greater part of the conversation herself. Her voice grew louder and
