I think that young Jack had not been at Drumglen for even a week before the rigidity of the mansion began to thaw.
Jack was jolly, but never with a jollity approaching to vulgarity. Indeed, in company and at table, thanks to his mother's tuition, the boy behaved himself like a little lord. But he often said droll things that made everybody laugh, and caused even the orthodox Mr. M'Thump to smile.
As a rule, the ladies and gentlemen who assembled at a dinner-party here were as stiff and straight in the back, physically and morally, as the chairs in which they sat.
When the ladies retired, however, the men folks did unbend, and some of them drew Jack out; and Jack—he did not require a very great deal of encouragement—gave his ideas about life and things in general in such a comically philosophical way, that old-fashioned lairds thumped the table and laughed aloud.
There was just one subject, however, on which Jack was wisely silent—namely, his sad life of poverty and distress in stony-hearted Glasgow.
Some things are better left unsaid, some stories better left untold. And Jack knew this instinctively as it were, and held his peace—for his grandma's sake.
Moreover he kept his own counsel concerning the whereabouts of his mother and sister, even when so eminent and dignified an individual as the Rev. Mr. M'Thump endeavoured to draw him out.
"This is Jack."