“It is not kind in you to be reminding me of them, Mother. It is not like you.”
“One o’ my duties to a’ my men-folk, is to keep them in mind o’ the little bits o’ kindness they are apt to forget. Your feyther isna to mind, he ne’er misses the least o’ them. Your brother Norman is like him, the rest o’ you arena to lippen to—at a’ times.”
“I think I have helped Christine as much as she has helped me. She knows that, she has often said so.”
“I’ll warrant! It was womanlike! She said it to mak’ ye feel comfortable, when you o’erworked her. Did ye ever say the like to her?”
“I am going to call her. She is better with me than with Cluny Macpherson—that I am sure of.”
“You and her for it. Settle the matter as it suits ye, but I can tell ye, I hae been parfectly annoyed, on several occasions, wi’ your clear selfishness—and that is the vera outcome o’ all my thoughts on this subject.”
Then Neil went to the door, and called Christine thrice, and the power of long habit was ill to restrain, 14 so she left her lover hurriedly and went to him.
“I have been watching and waiting—waiting for you, Christine, the last three hours.”
“Tak’ tent o’ what you say, Neil. It isna twa hours yet, since we had dinner.”
“You should have told me that you were intending to fritter and fool your afternoon away.”