“Why didn’t you go too?”
“I couldn’t thole the sail, nor the company.”
“Do you like Miss Glamis?”
“I’m feared I hate her. Oh! Aunt, she makes love to Archie before my very eyes, and Madame tells me morning, noon, and night, that she was his first love and ought to have married him.”
“I wouldn’t stand the like of that. But Archie is not changed to you, dearie?”
“I cannot say he is; but what man can be aye with a fond woman, bright and bonnie, and not think of her as he shouldn’t think? I’m not blaming Archie much. It is Madame and Miss Glamis, and above all my own shortcomings. I can’t talk, I can’t dress, I can’t walk, nor in any way act, as that set of women do. I am like a fish out of its element. It is bonnie enough in the water; but it only flops and dies if you take it out of the water and put it on the dry land. I wish I had never seen Archie Braelands! If I hadn’t, I would have married Andrew Binnie, and been happy and well enough.”
“You were hearing that he is now Captain Binnie of the Red-White Fleet?”
“Aye, I heard. Madame was reading about it in the Largo paper. Andrew is a good man, Aunt. I am glad of his good luck.”
“Christina is well married too. You were hearing of that?”
“Aye; but tell me all about it.”