"I can't think, Miriam," said Mrs. Teesdale, "how you came by that red hair o' yours! Your father's was very near black, and your mother's a light brown wi' a streak o' gold in it; but there wasn't a red hair in either o' their heads that _I_ can remember."
At this speech John William bit off an oath under his beard, while David looked miserably at his wife, and Arabella at their visitor, who first turned as red as her hair, and then burst into a fit of her merriest laughter.
"Well, I can't help it, can I?" cried she, with a good-nature that won two hearts, at any rate. "I didn't choose my hair; it grew its own colour--all I've got to do is to keep it on!"
"Yes, but it's that red!" exclaimed Mrs. Teesdale stolidly, while John William chuckled and looked less savage.
"Ah, you could light your old pipe at it," said Missy to the farmer, making the chuckler laugh outright.
Not so Mr. Teesdale. "My dear," he said to his wife; "my dear!"
"Well, but I could understand it, David, if her parents' hairs had any red in 'em. In the only photograph we have of you, Miriam, which is that group there taken when you were all little, you look to have your mother's fair hair. I can't make it out."
"No?" said Missy, sweetly. "Then you didn't know that red always comes out light in a photograph?"
"Oh, I know nothing at all about that," said Mrs. Teesdale, with the proper disregard for a lost point. "Then have the others all got red hair too?"
"Well, that's a good thing, Miriam, I'm sure it is!"
"Nay, come, my dear, that'll do," whispered David; while John William said loudly, to change the subject, "You're not to call her Miriam, mother."
"Because she's not used to it. She says they call her Missy at home; and we want to make her at home here, surely to goodness!"
Missy had smiled gratefully on John William and nodded confirmation of his statement to Mrs. Teesdale, who, however, shook her head.
"Ay, but I don't care for nicknames at all," said she, without the shadow of a smile; "I never did and I never shall, John William. So, Miriam, you'll have to put up with your proper name from me, for I'm too old to change. And I'm sure it's not an ugly one," added the dour woman, less harshly. "Is your cup off, Miriam?" she added to that; she did not mean to be quite as she was.