"A 'm dootin', Miss Carnegie, the gude-wife hes keepit ye ower lang in the gairden haiverin' awa' aboot the flooers an' her ither trokes. But she 's michty prood for a' that aboot yir comin' up tae veesit us."
Such was the second conference on Kate's affairs on that day.
No place could be more thoroughly cleansed from vulgar curiosity than our Glen, or have a finer contempt for "clatters," but the atmosphere was electrical in the diffusion of information. What happened at Burnbrae was known at the foot of Glen Urtach by evening, and the visit of spiritual consolation which Milton, in the days of his Pharisaism, paid to Jamie Soutar on his deathbed was the joy of every fireside in Drumtochty within twenty-four hours. Perhaps it was not, therefore, remarkable that the arrival of Lord Kilspindie's groom at Tochty Lodge post haste with two letters on Saturday morning—one for the General from his Lordship, and one from his son for Miss Kate—should have been rightly interpreted, and the news spread with such rapidity that Hillocks—a man not distinguished above his fellows for tact—was able to inform Carmichael in the early afternoon that the marriage between the young lord and the "Miss" at Tochty was now practically arranged.
"It's been aff and on a' winter, an' the second veesit tae the Castle settled it, but a 'm hearin' it wes the loss o' the Lodge brocht the fast offer this mornin'. She 's an able wumman, an' cairried her gear tae the best market. Ma certes," and Hillocks contemplated Kate's achievement with sympathetic admiration, "but she 'll set her place weel, an' haud her ain wi' the Duchess o' Athole."
Carmichael ought perhaps to have taken his beating like a man, and said nothing to any one, but instead thereof he betook himself for consolation to Marget, a better counsellor in a crisis than Janet, with all her Celtic wiles, and Marget set him in the very seat where Kate had put her case.
"It has, I suppose, been all a dream, and now I have awaked, but it was … a pleasant dream, and one finds the morning light a little chill. One must just learn to forget, and be as if one had never … dreamed," but Carmichael looked at Marget wistfully.
"Ye canna be the same again, for a' coont, gin ony man loves a wumman wi' a leal hert, whether she answer or no, or whether she even kens, he 's been the gainer, an' the harvest will be his for ever.
"It hes seemed to me that nae luve is proved an' crooned for eternity onless the man hes forgotten himsel' an' is willin' tae live alane gin the wumman he luves sees prosperity. He only is the perfect lover, and for him God hes the best gifts.
"Yes, a 've seen it wi' ma ain eyes,"—for indeed this seemed to Carmichael an impossible height of self-abnegation,—"a man who loved an' served a wumman wi' his best an' at a great cost, an' yet for whom there cud be no reward but his ain luve." Marget's face grew so beautiful as she told of the constancy of this unknown, unrewarded lover that Carmichael left without further speech, but with a purer vision of love than had ever before visited his soul. Marget watched him go down the same path by which Kate went, and she said to herself, "Whether or no he win is in the will of God, but already luve hes given his blessin' tae man and maid."
Kate did not go to kirk on Sunday, but lived all day in the woods, and in the evening she kissed her father and laid this answer in his hands:—