Malcolm

Excerpt:

Miss Horn was interrupted by the sound of the latch of the street door, and sprung from her chair in anger.
"Canna they lat her sleep for five meenutes?" she cried aloud, forgetting that there was no fear of rousing her any more.--"It'll be Jean come in frae the pump," she reflected, after a moment's pause; but, hearing no footstep along the passage to the kitchen, concluded--"It's no her, for she gangs aboot the hoose like the fore half o' a new shod cowt;" and went down the stair to see who might have thus presumed to enter unbidden.
In the kitchen, the floor of which was as white as scrubbing could make it, and sprinkled with sea sand--under the gaily painted Dutch clock, which went on ticking as loud as ever, though just below the dead--sat a woman about sixty years of age, whose plump face to the first glance looked kindly, to the second, cunning, and to the third, evil. To the last look the plumpness appeared unhealthy, suggesting a doughy indentation to the finger, and its colour also was pasty. Her deep set, black bright eyes, glowing from under the darkest of eyebrows, which met over her nose, had something of a fascinating influence--so much of it that at a first interview one was not likely for a time to notice any other of her features. She rose as Miss Horn entered, buried a fat fist in a soft side, and stood silent.
"Weel?" said Miss Horn interrogatively, and was silent also.
"I thocht ye micht want a cast o' my callin'," said the woman....