The dame of Shoulthwaite loved every one, apparently, but there were special corners in her heart for her favorites, and Rotha was one of them.
"Cannot that lass's father earn aught without keeping yon sulking waistrel about him ?" asked the old dalesman one day.
It was the first time he had spoken of Wilson since the threatened ducking.

Being told of Wilson's violence to Rotha, he only said, "It's an old saying, 'A blate cat makes a proud mouse.'" Angus was never heard to speak of Wilson again.
Nature seemed to have meant Rotha for a blithe, bird-like soul, but there were darker threads woven into the woof of her natural brightness.

She was tall, slight of figure, with a little head of almost elfish beauty.

At milking, at churning, at baking, her voice could be heard, generally singing her favorite border song:-- "Gae tak this bonnie neb o' mine, That pecks amang the corn, An' gi'e't to the Duke o' Hamilton To be a touting horn." "Robin Redbreast has a blithe interpreter," said Willy Ray, as he leaned for a moment against the open door of the dairy in passing out.
Rotha was there singing, while in a snow-white apron, and with arms bare above the elbows, she weighed the butter of the last churning into pats, and marked each pat with a rude old mark.

The girl dropped her head and blushed as Willy spoke.