In this instance it was, I should say, an intimation that if Jess was ready Tibbie would begin.
"So Pete Lownie's gone," said Jess, whom I could not see from ben the house.

I had a good glimpse of Tibbie, however, through the open doorways.

She had the armchair on the south side, as she would have said, of the fireplace.
"He's awa," assented Tibbie, primly.
I heard the lid of the kettle dancing, and then came a prolonged "ou." Tibbie bent forward to whisper, and if she had anything terrible to tell I was glad of that, for when she whispered I heard her best.

For a time only a murmur of words reached me, distant music with an "ou" now and again that fired Tibbie as the beating of his drum may rouse the martial spirit of a drummer.

At last our visitor broke into an agitated whisper, and it was only when she stopped whispering, as she did now and again, that I ceased to hear her.