22
Mrs Mason thought too fine for common use. “For common use!” cried Mrs MacClarty; “na, na, we’re no sic fools as put our napery to use! I have a dizen tableclaiths in that press, thirty years old, that were never laid upon a table. They are a’ o' my mother’s spinning. I have nine o’ my ain makin’ forby, that never saw the sun but at the bookin washing.
“It is no doubt a good thing,” said Mrs Mason,
"to have a stock of goods of any kind, provided one has a prospect of turning them to account; but I think a towel of nice clean huck-a-buck would wipe a cup as well, and better, than a damask napkin.”
“Towels!” cried Mrs MacClarty, ‘na, na, we
maunna pretend to towels; we just wipe up the things wi what comes in the gait.”
On saying this, the good woman, pulled out from
between the seed-tub and her husband’s dirty shoes, a long blackened rag, and with it rubbed one of the pewter plates, with which she stepped into the closet for a roll of butter. “There,” says she, “I am sure ye’ll say, that ye never ate better butter in your life. There’s no in a’ the Glen better kye than ours I hope ye’ll eat heartily; and I’m sure ye’re heartily welcome."
Here, thought she, is a home, in which peace and
plenty seem to reign; and yet these blessings, which I thought invaluable, will not be sufficient to afford me any comfort, from the mere want of attention to the article of cleanliness. Of the two girls she could not judge favourably. The elder appeared morose and sullen, and the younger stupid and insensible. She was confirmed in her opinion by observing, that though their mother had several times desired them to go to the field for their father, neither of them stirred a step.
“Ye'll gang, I ken, my dear,”’ said Mrs Mac-
Clarty, addressing herself to the younger; "O ay, I ken ye‘11 gang like a gude bairn, Jean."
