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just like her mother.
    â€˜You should be mourning your father, girl instead of gallivanting around the countryside on the Sabbath.’
    â€˜B-but …’ Rachel stared at her. ‘I was visiting your grandchildren, Mistress Maxwell.’
    â€˜My grandchildren do not need the likes o’ you. Your time would be better spent reading the Bible and showing respect for the dead.’
    â€˜Oh, come on Gertie,’ Cameron protested. ‘Connor would never have expected his lassie to mope. It’s good for her visit Ruth and the bairnies.’
    â€˜I’ll thank you not to interfere with the way I discipline my maids, Cameron Maxwell. Get into the dairy and remember what I’ve told you. I’ll have a word with Willie.’
    So the brief pleasure of getting to know Ruth and the children ended before it had begun.

Chapter Four
    R ACHEL WAS SURPRISED WHEN Tam the postie delivered a letter for her. She sensed that Gertrude Maxwell would have snatched it from him if she could, but he arrived while they were having breakfast. She fancied there was a devilish gleam in his eye as he deliberately stretched across the table to hand it to her personally. Certainly there was no doubt about the wink he gave her. She turned the letter over and over, puzzled by the unfamiliar, rather shaky, writing.
    â€˜Well don’t stare at it all day, girl. Get it opened and then we can all get on with our work.’
    â€˜Oh no!’ Rachel gasped and the colour ebbed from her face. Meg placed an arm around her thin shoulders.
    â€˜Surely it can’t be bad news for you, Rachel?’ she prompted gently, wondering what could upset her so much when she had already lost both her parents and she had no other close family.
    â€˜It’s Minnie.’ She looked across at Ross, her mouth trembling. She bit her lip. ‘You remember Minnie Ferguson, Ross?’ she pleaded.
    â€˜Of course I do,’ he agreed recalling the old woman who had befriended Rachel. ‘Is she ill?’
    â€˜She has died. Two weeks ago,’ she added in a whisper, ‘and I never knew.’ She scanned the careful sentences. ‘This letter is from our neighbour. She lived next door to the smiddy. The minister gave her my address. Minnie has left a vase for me as a wee minding. It belonged to her parents.’
    â€˜Much good an old thing like that will do you,’ Gertrude sniffed. ‘A few sovereigns would have been more use.’
    â€˜Minnie did not have much money,’ Rachel defended her old friend. ‘The vase was the thing she loved more than anything else in her little cottage. It was a wedding gift to her parents. It was very pretty. Mistress Chalmers says she will keep it safe for me until I can collect it.’
    â€˜Aye, weel I reckon it’s real nice of the old lady to leave the lassie something to remind her of an old friend,’ Tam nodded vigorously. He looked shrewdly at Rachel. ‘You canna have too many friends, lassie.’
    â€˜Tam’s right. If I’m invited over that way to play the fiddle I will collect it for you, Rachel.’
    â€˜Oh, would you, Ross? Really?’
    â€˜A-ah,’ Tam gave a knowing wink at Ross, ‘I reckon you’ll be collecting it before long then if Widow Fawcett has anything to do with arranging the entertainment over there.’ Ross scowled silently at Tam, but Cameron saw the guilty flush which coloured his fair skin. He felt a twinge of uneasiness. He knew only too well the temptations which could fall into the path of entertainers after a good evening of merriment.
    Gertrude sniffed impatiently and made a noisy clatter of collecting the porridge plates, a pointed hint that Tam should get on his way.
    Memories were awakened by the letter and Rachel could not dispel the brooding melancholy which descended on her during the days which followed. The last true and trusted friend from her old life had gone and she felt