“But, Mother, if Andrew does not get Sophy at once, he may lose her altogether.”
“Humph! No great loss.”
“The biggest loss in the world that Andrew can have. Things are come to a pass. If Andrew does not marry her at once, I am feared Braelands will carry her off.”
“He is welcome to her.”
“No, no, Mother! Do you want Braelands to get the best of Andrew?”
“The like of him get the best of Andrew! I’ll not believe it. Sophy isn’t beyond all sense of right and feeling. If, after all these years, she left Andrew for that fine gentleman, she would be a very Jael of deceit and treachery. I wish I had told her about her mother’s second cousin, bonnie Lizzie Lauder.”
“What of her? I never heard tell, did I, Mother?”
“No. We don’t speak of Lizzie now.”
“Why then?”
“She was very bonnie, and she was very like Sophy about hating to work; and she was never done crying to all the gates of pleasure to open wide and let her enter. And she went in.”