The Hewan was a long way up the water from Lasswade, yet not so far but that many a visitor would climb the brae to “get their tea” with old Mrs Moffatt, who was the mother of the proprietor,--living in charge of the house, and not too proud to superintend the domestic arrangements of small families who hired it for the summer. She had a little room with a “box-bed,” that mystery of discomfort and frowsiness, but which was neither frowsy nor uncomfortable in the hands of the brisk little old woman--which her son had built on to the back of the house for her, and in which she continued summer and winter, retiring herself there in dignified privacy when “a family” was in full possession. Mrs Moffatt’s little room, which had been made on purpose for her, had no communication with the cottage. She considered it a very dignified retirement for her old age. John Moffatt, her son, was a shoemaker in Lasswade; and when the savings of his cobbling enabled him to buy the Hewan, and establish his mother there, no noble matron in a stately jointure-house was ever half so proud. Such a feeling indeed as pride, or even satisfaction, rarely moves the mind of the dethroned queen who has to move out of the house she has swayed for years, and descend into obscurity when the humiliation of widowhood befalls her. Mrs Moffatt, good old soul, had no such past to look back upon. She had been long a widow, knocking about the world, doing whatever homely job she could find, struggling to bring up her children; and the Hewan and the little back room represented a kind of earthly paradise to the cobbler’s mother. The summer lodgers who paid her for cooking and keeping in order their little rooms, gave the frugal old soul enough to live on during the winter; and when by chance “a family” came which had no need of her, good John, out of the abundance of the rent, allowed his mother the few weekly shillings she required. She had a little kitchen-garden to the back, surrounding her nest, as she called it, and kept a pig, which was her pride and joy, and a few chickens. If she could but have had a cow, the old woman would have been perfectly happy; but as it is not, I suppose--or at least so people say--good for us to be perfectly happy, the cow was withheld from her list of mercies granted. Good little soul, her mouth watered sometimes when she thought of the butter she could make, and of the cheeriness of having “a neebor’s lassie” coming in with her pitcher for the milk, or even the luxury of a “wee drap real cream” in her cup of tea. But to mourn for unattainable things had never been her way; and when she went “doon the toun” with a basketful of eggs for her daughter-in-law, she was as proud and happy in her homely gift as if it had been gold or diamonds. She was a friendly body everybody testified, and known up the water and down the water as always serviceable and always cheery. When there was any gossip going on of an interesting nature, some one in Lasswade or the neighbourhood always found opportunity of taking a walk up to the Hewan, and a cup of tea with old Jean, who was every one’s friend.