“What did they say that for?”

“I can’t tell you now. You wouldn’t understand. When you’re as old as me, you will. But just the same, Father did marry her and took her to Aberdeen to the big Mackenzie house. Mother wore her best dress and her best head-shawl, but even then, all fixed up that nice way, the Mackenzies didn’t like her. Father’s mother were Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie and she were awful proud and I hate her for not liking Mother. I hate her so bad that I’m sorry I’m named for her. If Mother would let me, I’d change it to Rosamond. I read about a Rosamond and she . . .”

“Go on about her . . . not you.”

“Well . . . she were ashamed of Mother, but she had to take her in because she were Father’s wife, and she dressed her up grand and tried to make her different. But when Mother would go back to see her folks, she’d put on her peasant dress and wear her shawl on her head and slip away. And Sundays when the Mackenzies would go to the kirk . . .”

“What’s kirk?”

“Church. Where were I? Oh . . . the aristocrats set down below and the peasants all set up in the loft . . .”

“Like a hay loft?”

“No. Stop interrupting, or I won’t tell you one thing more. And Mother wouldn’t leave her folks, the O’Conners, so Father went and set with them and the Mackenzies were just sick with shame. Then Grandfather Mackenzie died, and a long time afterward . . . after Janet and James and Mary and Dennie and I were all born, Grandmother Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie . . .”

“I just admire to hear that name . . .”

“There you go again. Now I’m through telling it.”

“Please . . . I won’t stop you again.”

“Well . . . Grandmother died, too. Then Father come to America on a sailing vessel, just for a pleasure trip, and he were gone so long and folks thought he weren’t coming back at all . . . and Mother cried something terrible . . . and Father had signed a note for a man . . .”

“What’s signed a . . .? Oh, . . . go on.”

“And it made him lose all his money. Men come and put cards up on the house and stables while he were gone and the signs said there were going to be a roup there.”

“What’s . . .? Go on.”

“A roup’s an auction sale. There were fifteen saddle-horses in the stables, but after the roup cards went up Mother were not allowed to touch one on account of the law, and so her and James and Janet walked twenty-seven miles to have her father and mother come and bid in some of her things. She’s got ’em yet in that little wooden chest with calf-skin all over it. It’s in the other wagon and I know just what’s in it because I saw ’em. There’s a white silk shawl with big solid roses in the corners . . . all four corners . . . and a jeweled fan . . . and a breast-pin with lavender sets and a string of pearls. There are just as many things as there are girls in our family and Mother says each girl are to have one for a keepsake. I know which one I want . . . the silk shawl. I tried it on once when Mother were gone and I looked a lot like the painting of Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie that hung up on the landing of the stairway in the great hall. Course, you understand, Abbie, I never said I hated her looks . . .”