She wanted you to see that we hinna been cheapening you." He said, in a sepulchral voice, "There has been leddies here, and they want to ken what Thomas Sandys was like as a boy.

It's me they speir for, but Gavinia she just shoves me out o' sight, and says she, 'Leave them to me.'" Corp told Tommy some of the things Gavinia said about Thomas Sandys as a boy: how he sat rapt in church, and, instead of going bird-nesting, lay on the ground listening to the beautiful little warblers overhead, and gave all his pennies to poorer children, and could repeat the Shorter Catechism, beginning at either end, and was very respectful to the aged and infirm, and of a yielding disposition, and said, from his earliest years, "I don't want to be great; I just want to be good." "How can she make them all up ?" Tommy asked, with respectful homage to Gavinia.
Corp, with his eye on the door, produced from beneath the bed a little book with coloured pictures.

It was entitled "Great Boyhoods," by "Aunt Martha." "She doesna make them up," he whispered; "she gets them out o' this." "And you back her up, Corp, even when she says I was not your friend!" "It was like a t' knife intil me," replied loyal Corp; "every time I forswore you it was like a t' knife, but I did it, ay, and I'll go on doing it if you think my friendship cheapens you." Tommy was much moved, and gripped his old lieutenant by the hand.

He also called Gavinia ben, and, before she could ward him off, the masterful rogue had saluted her on the cheek.

"That," said Tommy, "is to show you that I am as fond of the old times and my old friends as ever, and the moment you deny it I shall take you to mean, Gavinia, that you want another kiss." "He's just the same!" Corp remarked ecstatically, when Tommy had gone.
"I dinna deny," Gavinia said, "but what he's fell taking"; and for a time they ruminated.
"Gavinia," said Corp, suddenly, "I wouldna wonder but what he's a gey lad wi' the women!" "What makes you think that ?" she replied coldly, and he had the prudence not to say.