So the subject died in bad temper, and Robert felt his proffered kindness to have been very ungraciously received. But when he rose from the table, Christina touched his arm as he passed her chair. "Thank you, brother," she said. "You wished to give us a little pleasure. It is not your fault we are deprived of it."
He saw that her eyes were full of tears, and her weary, plaintive voice touched his heart, so he turned to his mother and said:
"Think of what I have proposed. I will not stint you in expenses. Give the girls and yourself a little pleasure—do."
"Your own expenses are going to be tremendous, Robert, furnishing, travelling and what not. I can't conscientiously increase them."
At these words Christina left the room. Robert did not answer his mother's remark, but he looked at Isabel, and she understood the look as entrusting the further prosecution of the subject to her.
Mrs. Campbell, however, refused to give up Campbelton. "I heard," she said, "that Mrs. Walter Galbraith was going to France and Italy. Perhaps she will allow you to travel with her."
Isabel looked at her mother with something like reproach. "You know well, mother, that Mrs. Galbraith dresses and travels in the most extravagant fashion. She would not be seen with two old maids in plain brown merino suits. We should look like her servants. Even if we got stylish travelling gowns, we should want dinner dresses, and opera dresses, and cloaks and changes, and small necessities innumerable. It would cost a thousand pounds, if not more, to clothe us both for a three months' travel with Mrs. Galbraith."
"Then be sensible women and go to Campbelton. You can take your wheels and on the firm sands of Macrihanish Bay have a five miles' unbroken spin. There are boating and fishing and very interesting walks."
"And Christina will find company for her wheel and walks, mother. The last time we were in Campbelton, the schoolmaster, James Rathey, was constantly with her. He was in love, and Christina liked him. After we came home he wrote to her, and I had hard work to prevent her answering his letters."
"You ought to have told me this before."