trailed in the dirt from "beggarly extravagance," or kicked out behind
at every step by feet which fortune (and a very large fortune, too) had
never taught to walk properly.

"And how should she know how to walk?" said Miss Betty. "Her mother
can't have taught her, poor body! that ran through the streets of Leith,
with a creel on her back, as a lassie; and got out of her coach (lined
with satin, you mind, sister Kitty?) to her dying day, with a bounce,
all in a heap, her dress caught, and her stockings exposed (among
ourselves, ladies!) like some good wife that's afraid to be late for the
market. Aye, aye! Malcolm Midden--good man!--made a fine pocket of
silver in a dirty trade, but his women'll jerk, and toss, and bounce,
and fuss, and fluster for a generation or two yet, for all the silks and
satins he can buy 'em."

From this it will be seen that the little old ladies inherited some
prejudices of their class, and were also endowed with a shrewdness of
observation common among all classes of north-country women.

But to return to what else they inherited. They were heiresses, as the
last representatives of a family as old in that Border country as the
bold blue hills which broke its horizon. They were heiresses also in
default of heirs male to their father who got the land from his uncle's
dying childless, sons being scarce in the family. They were heiresses,
finally, to the place and the farm, to the furniture that was made when
folk seasoned their wood before they worked it, to a diamond brooch
which they wore by turns, besides two diamond rings, and two black lace
shawls, that had belonged to their mother and their Auntie Jean, long
since departed thither where neither moth nor rust corrupt the true
riches.