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For such a look he could pardon many rebuffs; without it no praise greatly pleased him; he was always on the outlook for it. "I warrant," he said to her one evening, "you want to have some man-body to take care of you the way I take care of Elspeth." "No, I don't," she replied, promptly. "Would you no like somebody to love you?" "Do you mean kissing?" she asked.
"Do you mean just in the supplementary sense of the term?" "Well, not in the fifth-wheel sense. I mean that he supplements us, all and singular if you will excuse the legal exactness." "Oh, certainly," said Sewell; "I should like even more exactness." "Yes; but before I particularise I must express my general satisfaction in him as a man-body.
"Give me time, and I'll confess all," he entreated. "Don't be too hard on a poor solitary man-body. Remember, you're four to one, and be easy. I had asked the Todds for a surprise to you all, and today I met Miss Howes on the street just back in town and honing for a sight of old friends, and I nailed her on the spot.
I had no idea that man bodies in a house were so perfectly admirable." "I've sometimes feared that we were not fully appreciated," said Sewell. "Well?" "The house is another thing with a man-body in it. I've often gone without little things I wanted, simply because I hated to make Sarah bring them, and because I hated still worse to go after them, knowing we were both weakly and tired.
"It's awful never to have a man-body with some brains to talk to once in a while. And like as not he'll never come near the house again. There's Norman Douglas, too I like that man, and I'd like to have a good rousing argument with him now and then.
It made Mr. McLean ask him why he was so fond of Miss Ailie. "I'm the only man-body she has," he answered. "Oh? But why are you her man-body?" The boy could think of no better reason than this: "Because because she's so sair in need o' are." Mr. McLean turned to the window, and perhaps forgot that he was not alone. "Well, what are you thinking about so deeply?" he asked by and by.
'Ye're never gaein' oot, Robert? said Betty, in a hoarse tone of expostulation. ''Deed am I, Betty. What for no? 'You 'at's been in a' day wi' a sair heid! I'll jist gang benn the hoose and tell the mistress, and syne we'll see what she'll please to say till 't. 'Ye'll do naething o' the kin', Betty. 'What ken ye aboot my age? There's never a man-body i' the toon kens aught aboot my age.
"She hasna a man-body in the world to take care o' her," sobbed the girl. "Has she no?" cried Tommy, fiercely, and under one of the impulses that so easily mastered him he marched into the blue-and-white room. "Well, my young friend, and what may you want?" asked Mr. McLean, impatiently. Tommy sat down and folded his arms.
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