To-night, while Mrs. Granton gossipped with papa and Penelope, Colin talked to me. He bears Lisabel's marriage far better than I expected, probably because he has got something to do. He told me a long story about a row of labourers' cottages, which Doctor Urquhart advised him to build at the corner of the moor, each with its bit of land, convertible into a potato-field or a garden. There Colin busies himself from morning till night, superintending, planning, building, draining, “working like a horse,” he protests, “and never enjoyed anything more in his life.” He says, he has seen a great deal of Doctor Urquhart lately, and had great assistance from him in the matter of these cottages.
Then can he be so exceedingly occupied as not to have an hour or two for a visit? Shame on me for the suspicion! The idea that Doctor Urquhart would, even in a polite excuse, state a thing which was not true!
Colin is much improved. He is beginning to suspect that Colin Granton, Esq., owner of a free estate, and twenty-seven years old, has got something to do besides lounge about, shoot rabbits, and play billiards. He opened up to my sympathy a long series of schemes about these cottages: how he meant to instigate industry, cleanliness, and, indeed, all the cardinal virtues, by means of cottagers' prizes for tidy houses, well-kept gardens, and the best brought-up and largest families. He will never be clever, poor Colin! but he may be a most useful character in the county, and he has the kindest heart in the world. By the way, he told me in his ultra-simple fashion, that somebody had informed him one of the Rockmount young ladies said so! I felt myself grow hot to the ears, which exceedingly astonished Colin.
Altogether, a not unpleasant evening. But oh, moon!—whom I saw making cross-panes on the carpet, when I came in—it was not like the evenings a month ago, when Lisabel was at home.
I think women, as well as men, require something to do. I wish I had it; it would do me as much good as it has done Colin. I am beginning to fear I lead a wretchedly idle life: all young ladies at home do, it seems, except perhaps the eldest sister, if she chances to be such a woman as our Penelope. Why cannot I help Penelope? Mrs. Granton took it for granted that I do; that I shall be the greatest comfort and assistance to Miss Johnston, now Miss Lisabel is gone.
I am not, the least in the world! which I would fain have explained, only mere friends can never understand the ins and outs of a family. If I offered to assist her in the house, how Penelope would stare! Or even in her schools and parish—but that I cannot do. Teaching is to me perfectly intolerable. The moment I have to face two dozen pairs of round eyes, every particle of sense takes flight, and I become the veriest of cowards, ready to sink through the floor. The same, too, in district visiting. What business have I, because I happen to be the clergyman's daughter, to go lifting the latch, and poking about poor people's houses, obliging them to drop me curtseys, and receive civilly my tracts and advice—which they neither read nor follow; and might be none the better for it if they did?
Yet this may be only my sophistries for not doing what I so heartily dislike. Others do it—and successfully: take by storm the poor folks' hearts, and, what is better, their confidence; never enter without a welcome, and depart without a blessing; as, for instance, Dr. Urquhart. Mrs. Granton was telling about his doings among the poor families down with fever and ague, near the camp, at Moor-edge.
Why cannot I do the same good? not so much, of course, but just a little? Why can not somebody show me how to do it?
No, I am not worthy. My quarter-century of-life has been of no more use to myself or any human creature than that fly's which my fire has stirred up to a little foolish buzzing in the window-curtain, before it drops and dies. I might drop down and die in the same manner, leaving no better memorial.
There—I hear Penelope in her room fidgetting about her drawers, and scolding the housemaid—she is always taking juvenile incompetent housemaids out of her village school, teaching and lecturing them for a twelvemonth, and then grumbling because they leave her. Yet, this is doing good: sometimes, they come back and thank her for having made capital servants of them; and very seldom, indeed, does such a case happen, as pretty, silly Lydia Cartwright's, who went up to London and never came back any more.