A stout, elderly woman stood at a little distance among the fast-thinning crowd surveying her unblinkingly, but Joey was sure that _could not_ be Miss Craigie. Just as Mrs. Tresham came back with the luggage and a porter, this personage moved forward and spoke to Joey with distinct caution. "I'm thinking you might be perhaps Miss Jocelyn Graham?"
The stout woman became less cautious, and more communicative.
"As am own husband's cousin to Maggie M'Tulloch, and when she telled me of Miss Craigie being down, puir body, wi' the influenzy, and the young leddy not to gang near the hoose for fear o' carrying the infection to her braw new schule...."
"Oh, is Miss Craigie ill? I _am_ sorry," Joey cried out.
"The temperature being one hundred and four, forbye some points up which I canna mind exactly, I'm douting she's for the pewmonia, and twa in the next hoose abune lying deed of the same," the stout woman mentioned, with a certain gloomy satisfaction that puzzled Joey. "And says I to Maggie M'Tulloch, 'I'll take the young leddy,' says I, 'and what o'wer chances _she'll_ not tak' the infection awa' wi' her.'"
"Thank you; that's awfully kind," Joey said politely, though mournfully. She explained to Mrs. Tresham, who looked somewhat mystified by the flood of broad Scotch.
"You poor child, I should like to take you with me to my hotel for to-night, but I suppose I hardly could, as I am staying with a friend there. But I don't like this for you. Have you authority from Miss Craigie?" she asked suddenly, turning to Maggie M'Tulloch's "own cousin" as though she rather hoped for a negative answer.
But there was no escape. Maggie M'Tulloch's kinswoman dived promptly into a black knitted bag that she carried and produced a sheet of paper, scrawled in pencil:
"I am so sorry, but I may not see you, Joey. Mrs. Nicol will take care of you, and put you into your train to-morrow. Good luck.
There was no help for it. Joey shook hands with kind Mrs. Tresham and thanked her, and walked off beside Mrs. Nicol in the wake of a huge outside porter, who wheeled her trunk on a barrow. They came up into the width and glare of Princes Street, crossed it, turned up a narrower street running at right angles to it, went half-way down, still following the porter, and turned into another narrower still, where narrow "wynds" or thread-like passages showed between the immensely tall old houses. In this street Mrs. Nicol stopped at last, produced a latch-key, and opened the door into a hall made dimly visible by a glimmer only of gas.