I was sorry that she should have spoken of money at that moment, but then if she had not been sharp we would all have been on the roadside in a twelvemonth.
"Aye, she'll pay, and she's coming this very day.

Jock lad, I'll want you to drive to Ayton and meet the evening coach.

Your Cousin Edie will be in it, and you can fetch her over to West Inch." And so off I started at quarter past five with Souter Johnnie, the long-haired fifteen-year-old, and our cart with the new-painted tail-board that we only used on great days.

The coach was in just as I came, and I, like a foolish country lad, taking no heed to the years that had passed, was looking about among the folk in the Inn front for a slip of a girl with her petticoats just under her knees.

And as I slouched past and craned my neck there came a touch to my elbow, and there was a lady dressed all in black standing by the steps, and I knew that it was my cousin Edie.
I knew it, I say, and yet had she not touched me I might have passed her a score of times and never known it.