“Christina would never give occasion for them. She is as true as steel to her own lad.”
“Maybe she has no temptation to be false. That makes a deal of differ. Anyway, Sophy is a woman now in the married state, and answerable to none but her husband. I hope Andrew is not fretting more than might be expected.”
“Andrew! Andrew fretting! Not he! Not a minute! As soon as he knew she was a wife, he cast her out of his very thoughts. You don’t catch Andrew Binnie putting a light-of-love lassie before a command of God.”
“I won’t hear you talk of my niece—of the mistress of Braelands—in that kind of a way, Janet. She’s our betters now, and we be to take notice of the fact.”
“She’ll have to learn and unlearn a good lot before she is to be spoke of as any one’s ‘betters.’ I hope while she is seeing the world she will get her eyes opened to her own faults; they will give her plenty to think of.”
“Keep me, woman! Such a way to go on about your own kin.”
“She is no kin to the Binnies. I have cast her out of my reckoning.”
“She is Christina’s sixth cousin.”
“She is nothing at all to us. I never did set any store by those Orkney folks—a bad lot! A very selfish, false, bad lot!”
“You are speaking of my people, Janet.”