“I dinna ken what I’m gaein’ to du,” answered Cosmo. “But for writin’ buiks, I could do that better at hame nor ony ither gait, wi’ a’ thing min’in’ me o’ my father, an’ you nearhan’ to gie me coonsel.”
“I hae aye been yours to comman’, Cosmo,” replied Aggie, looking down for one moment, then immediately up again in his face.
“An’ ye’re no angert wi’ me, Aggie?”
“Angert!” repeated Aggie, and looked at him with a glow angelic in her honest, handsome face, and her eyes as true as the heavens. “It was only ’at ye didna ken what ye war aboot, an’ bein’ sae muckle yoonger nor mysel’, I was b’un’ to tak care o’ ye; for a wuman as weel ’s a man maun be her brither’s keeper. Ye see yersel’ I was richt!”
“Ay was ye, Aggie,” answered Cosmo, ashamed and almost vexed at having to make the confession.
He did not see the heave of Aggie’s bosom, nor how she held back and broke into nothing the sigh that would have followed.
“But,” she resumed, after a moment’s pause, “a’ lasses michtna ken sae weel what was fittin’ them, nor care sae muckle what was guid for you; naebody livin’ can ken ye as I du! an’ gien ye war to lat a lass think ye cared aboot her—it micht be but as a freen’, but she micht be sae ta’en’ wi’ ye—’at—’at maybe she micht gar ye think ’at hoo she cudna live wantin’ ye—an’ syne, what ye du than, Cosmo?”
It was a situation in which Cosmo had never imagined himself, and he looked at Aggie a little surprised.
“I dinna freely un’erstan’ ye,” he said.
“Na, I reckon no! Hoo sud ye! Ye’re jist ower semple for this warl’, Cosmo! But I’ll put it plainer:—what wad ye du gien a lass was to fa’ a greitin’, an’ a wailin’, an’ fling hersel’ i’ yer airms, an’ mak as gien she wad dee?—what wad ye du wi’ her, Cosmo?”