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She hardly dared to conjecture that it was Baubie Wishart's first visit to that place, but as she stood on the entrance-steps and shook out her skirts with a sense of relief, she breathed a sincere hope that it might be the child's last. A cab was waiting. Baubie, to her intense delight and no less astonishment, was requested to occupy the front seat.
"Thirteen past," replied Baubie, with a promptness that made her listeners smile, suggesting as it did the thought that the question had been put to her before, and that Baubie knew well the import of her answer. She grew more communicative now.
And if the lassie Grant's excellences were somewhat obtrusively contrasted with Baubie's shortcomings, it was because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to rouse thereby a spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any pharisaical self-exaltation on the part of the rival.
Wishart shifted the boards from about his shoulders, and, following her, laid them against the wall at the side of the basement-steps, and sat down heavily beside her. He was a sickly-looking man, sandy-haired, with a depressed and shifty expression of face not vicious, but weak and vacillating. Baubie seemed to have the upper hand altogether: every gesture showed it.
They remained standing still for a moment, looking at each other. The boy and the woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty high-road seemed all their own domain. Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the direction of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It was for her, as usual, to decide.
From the arm-chair of the matron's sitting-room Miss Mackenzie surveyed her charge with satisfaction. Baubie looked subdued, contented, perhaps grateful, and was decidedly uncomfortable.
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