And the last time they came they forgot the shawl." "I dinna like to think the Painted Lady has been up here, Tommy." "But she has.

You ken how, when she has a daft fit, she wanders the Den trysting the man that never comes.

Has she no been seen at all hours o' the night, Grizel following a wee bit ahint, like as if to take tent o her ?" "They say that, and that Grizel canna get her to go home till the daft fit has passed." "Well, she has that kechering hoast and spit now, and so Grizel brings her up here out o' the blasts." "But how could she be got to come here, if she winna go home ?" "Because frae here she can watch for the man." Elspeth shuddered.

"Do you think she's here often, Tommy ?" she asked.
"Just when she has a daft fit on, and they say she's wise sax days in seven." This made the Jacobite meetings eerie events for Elspeth, but Tommy liked them the better; and what were they not to Grizel, who ran to them with passionate fondness every Saturday night?
Sometimes she even outdistanced her haunting dreads, for she knew that her mother did not think herself seriously ill; and had not the three gentlemen made light of that curious cough?
So there were nights when the lair saw Grizel go riotous with glee, laughing, dancing, and shouting over-much, like one trying to make up for a lost childhood.

But it was also noticed that when the time came to leave the Den she was very loath, and kissed her hands to the places where she had been happiest, saying, wistfully, and with pretty gestures that were foreign to Thrums, "Good-night, dear Cuttle Well! Good-by, sweet, sweet Lair!" as if she knew it could not last.