"No, my dear, he isn't," assented Lord George, cheerfully. "Some of us are made that way; his uncle, for instance; but he isn't a fool, and he knows which side his bread is buttered; a fact which has a marvellous effect in keeping a man straight."
"My dear George! what a terrible thing to say. It is a reversion to that fear of punishment----"
"My dear! I should like a second cup of tea, and this time I think you might let me have a small lump of sugar--quite a small one."
That evening Blanche wrote a long letter to her brother, which gave her some trouble to compose. In it she lavished endless praises on dear Mrs. Vane, who, to judge from her looks, must have had great trouble, and fully deserved dear, kind Paul's grateful remembrance of past services; which, by the way, she seemed to have extended to many other fortunate invalids. Altogether a most delightful woman, of varied experiences if a trifle manierée; "though this," she added, "my dear Paul, is, I fear, a common fault with women who have been made much of by many men."
As it so happened he read this remark at a small picnic party where Marjory, the only lady present, was dispensing tea to Will Cameron, himself, the Reverend James Gillespie, Father Macdonald, Mr. Wilson, and Donald Post, who had been waylaid on the road just above the little creek on the loch, where they had lit their fire, to say nothing of the minister's man holding the Manse dogcart until its occupants should choose to tear themselves away from temptation and proceed on their journey.
"Quid datur a Divis felice optatius hora?" quoted the minister gallantly, as he set aside the girl's offer of another cup and rose to go, while little Father Macdonald, following his example, quoted a verse from Tasso to show that the memory of a pleasant hour might give even greater pleasure than the hour itself. Paul Macleod, watching them, and fully alive to the adoring look on the Reverend James's face, continuing, as it were the kindly affection of Will's, gave a short laugh as he tore up his letter and threw it into the embers of the dying fire.
Marjory looked at him inquiringly.
"Only something that seems singularly out of place with my present surroundings," he said in quick response; "but the world has a knack of seeming very far away when one is in Gleneira."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
It was true. The more so because the heat-haze lingered, turning the hills which lay between the Glen and the world beyond it, into a pale blue, formless wall, which seemed somehow more of an arbitrary division than it would have done had the contours of each successive rise been clearly visible. The fierce sun beat down on the limestone rocks, giving a russet tinge even to their mosses, and Paul Macleod's useless rod lay in its case, since the river was reduced to a mere tinkle of clear water in a moraine of boulders. So he took to haymaking instead, partly because it suited his mood to play the rôle of country proprietor--for to a certain extent he shared his sister's dramatic temperament--and partly because Marjory always brought Will Cameron's tea into the fields. It was quite idyllic to watch her from afar, making it ready on the outskirts of a nut coppice or belt of firs, and then to see her stand out into the rolling, undulating waves of new cut grass which were creeping up the hillsides before the scythes, and call to them in her clear, young voice, for, of course, the laird could not be left out in the heat when his factor was enjoying the cool. So he used to lounge about as Will did in the scented hay, and talk nonsense, with infinite grace and skill, until, with the extinction of his pipe, the latter's tardy sense of duty would take fire, and he would insist on a return to work.