The Able McLaughlins
"If it is'na Isobel's Wully!" She shook his hand, and patted him on his shoulder, and reached up and kissed him. He didn't mind that. She was practically an aunt, so intimate were the families. In her silent excitement she brought him into her wretched little cabin.
And there stood another woman. By the window—a young woman—turning towards him with sunshine on her white arms—and on the dough she was kneading—sunshine on her white throat—and on the little waves of brown hair about her face—sunshine making her fingertips transparent pink—a woman like a strong angel—beautiful in light!
Wully just stared.
"It's only Chirstie." Jeannie was surprised at his surprise.
Only Chirstie!
"She was just a wee'un when I saw her," he stammered. "I did'na ken she was so bonny!" Fool that he was! Idiot! Yammering away in bits of a forsaken dialect! What would the girl think of him!
"It's more than four years you've been away," Jeannie reminded him kindly. She began plying him with questions. He answered them realizing that the girl was covering her bread with a white cloth freshly shaken from its folds—that she was washing her hands, and pulling down her sleeves—and seating herself near him composedly enough. His mother was well, he said. They were all well. It was twelve days now since he had come home.
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