She knew she ran a risk of discovery, yet it was probable that Tommy would only hear her referred to in Thrums Street by her maiden name, which he had never heard from her, and as for her husband he had been Magerful Tam to everyone.

The risk was great, but the pleasure-- Unsuspicious Tommy soon had news of another letter from Jean Myles, which had sent Esther Auld to bed again.
"Instead of being brought low," he announced, "Jean Myles is grander than ever.

Her Tommy has a governess." "That would be a doush of water in Esther's face ?" his mother said, smiling.
"She wrote to Martha Scrymgeour," said Tommy, "that it ain't no pleasure to her now to boast as her laddie is at a school for gentlemen's children only.

But what made her maddest was a bit in Jean Myles's letter about chairs.

Jean Myles has give all her hair-bottomed chairs to a poor woman and buyed a new kind, because hair-bottomed ones ain't fashionable now.