“Sophy is well enough,” answered Janet with a touch of pride. “She suits Andrew, and it is Andrew that has to live with her.”
“And you too, Janet?”
“Not I! Andrew is to build his own bigging. I have the life rent of mine. But I shall be a deal in Glasgow myself. Jamie has his heart fairly set on that.”
She made this statement with an air of prideful satisfaction that was irritating to Mistress Roy; and she was not inclined to let Janet enter anew into a description of all the fine sights she was to see, the grand guns of preachers she was to hear, and the trips to Greenock and Rothesay, which Jamie said “would just fall naturally in the way of their ordinary life.” So Marget showed such a hurry about her household affairs as made Janet uncomfortable, and she rose with a little offence and said abruptly:—
“I must be going. I have the kirkyard to pass; and between the day and the dark it is but a mournful spot.”
“It is that,” answered Marget. “Folks should not be on the road when the bodiless walk. They might be in their way, and so get ill to themselves.”
“Then good night, and good befall you;” but in spite of the benediction, Janet felt nettled at her friend’s sudden lack of interest.
“It was a spat of envy no doubt,” she thought; “but Lord’s sake! envy is the most insinuating vice of the lot of them. It cannot behave itself for an hour at a time. But I’m not caring! it is better to be envied than pitied.”
These reflections kept away the thought and fear of the “bodiless,” and she passed the kirkyard without being mindful of their proximity; the coming wedding, and the inevitable changes it would bring, filling her heart with all kinds of maternal anxieties, which in solitude would not be put aside for all the promised pride and eclat of the event. As she approached the cottage, she met Jamie and Christina coming down the cliff-side together, and she cried, “Is that you, Jamie?”
“As far as I know, it’s myself, Mother,” answered Jamie.