The next day Robert went fishing, and Theodora put in order the china, crystal, and fine damask, and the books and ornaments she had brought down to Inverkip. Robert praised what she had done, vowing she would make the best of housekeepers; and the evening and the next day were altogether full of love and sweet content.
Then Robert went back to Glasgow and business, and Mr. and Mrs. Oliphant and Dr. Robertson's family arrived. The young wife visited and helped her friends, and they spent long, pleasant evenings at each other's houses. Theodora said to herself: "Things are not going as badly with me as I thought, and I wonder if we ever know if bad is bad, or good is good."
Many happy weeks followed this initial one and Theodora was grateful for every pleasant hour, for she was facing the trial and the glory of maternity and she wished her child's prenatal influences to be favorable on every side. The social life of Inverkip could not in its present conditions be called fashionable, and that was a good thing, for few women can go into fashionable society without catching its fashionable insanity, whatever it may be at the time. Theodora spent many quiet, delightful hours with her friends the Oliphants and Robertsons, but her chief pleasure she took from the hand of Nature.
Every fine day she was up among the great hills, and it is a bad heart that is not purified by walking on them. She was passionately fond of birds, and had the power to attract them to her. Morning and evening she fed at her dining-room window
"The bird that man loves best,
The pious bird with scarlet breast,
The little English robin."
They crowded the sweet briar bush that grew beside the window, and praised and thanked her in the sweetest songs mortal ever heard. The blue cushat's "croodle" and its mournful love monologue moved her to sympathetic tears. She was sure the pretty faithful creature had a forgetful, or unkind mate. The swallows cradling themselves in the air, and chattering so amiably; the tiny wren's quick, short song; the fond and faithful bullfinch couples; the honest, respectable thrushes; the pilfering blackbirds; the nightingale's solemn music in the night; the lark's velvety, supple, indefatigable song in the early morning—these, and many more of the winged voices of the firmament, she understood; but to the humble, poorly-clad lark, she gave an ardent affection. To her it was a bird of heaven, living on love and light, singing for half-an-hour without a second's pause, rising vertically a thousand yards as she sang, without losing a note, and sending earthward exquisite waterfalls of song.
In this sane and peaceful life, month after month went onward delightfully, while she waited in the fulness of health and hope for the child which God would give her. During these months Robert also had been happy. Now and then there had been invasions of the lower man, but in the main he was joyous and amiable, thoughtful for her comfort, and delighted to share all her hopes and pleasures. He had insisted on his mother and sisters going to the Bridge of Allan for the summer months, had given Jepson and Mrs. McNab holiday, and practically closed the Glasgow house until September. And he had found Inverkip so pleasant, that he was even more with Theodora than his promise demanded.
One day near the end of July Mrs. McNab came to Inverkip and called on Theodora, who was delighted to see her. In a few minutes she began to take off her bonnet and shawl. "I hae been thinking things o'er," she said, "and I hae made up my mind to stay wi' you the next four weeks—for there's nane that I can see about this house fit to take my place—a wheen lilting lasses, tee-heeing and giggling as if life was a dance-hall."
"They are nice, good girls, McNab."
"They may be, but they are flighty and nervous, and they hae no experience. I am going to take care o' you and the house mysel'. When you are sick——"