Away ran Gibbie, nothing loath, and at his knock was admitted.
Mistress Croale sat in the parlour, taking her tea, and expecting
him. She was always kind to the child. She could not help feeling
that no small part of what ought to be spent on him came to her; and
on Sundays, therefore, partly for his sake, partly for her own, she
always gave him his tea -- nominally tea, really blue city-milk -- with
as much dry bread as he could eat, and a bit of buttered toast from
her plate to finish off with. As he ate, he stood at the other side
of the table; he looked so miserable in her eyes that, even before
her servant, she was ashamed to have him sit with her; but Gibbie
was quite content, never thought of sitting, and ate in gladness,
every now and then looking up with loving, grateful eyes, which must
have gone right to the woman's heart, had it not been for a vague
sense she had of being all the time his enemy -- and that although she
spent much time in persuading herself that she did her best both for
his father and him.

When he returned, greatly refreshed, and the boots all but
forgotten, he found his father, as he knew he would, already started
on the business of the evening. He had drawn the chest, the only
seat in the room, to the side of the bed, against which he leaned
his back. A penny candle was burning in a stone blacking bottle on
the chimney piece, and on the floor beside the chest stood the
bottle of whisky, a jug of water, a stoneware mug, and a wineglass.

There was no fire and no kettle, whence his drinking was sad, as
became the Scotch Sabbath in distinction from the Jewish. There,
however, was the drink, and thereby his soul could live -- yea, expand
her mouldy wings! Gibbie was far from shocked; it was all right,
all in the order of things, and he went up to his father with