'Mr. Holcroft seems to be fairly absorbing Olive; he has been talking to her quite long enough, and this will not do; ask her to play something at my request, and do you lead her to the piano.'
'We are anticipated,' said Allan, as he saw his sister seat herself at the instrument with young Cameron by her side, busy among the leaves of her music; and a shade of annoyance deepened in the face of Lady Aberfeldie as she glanced at her husband, whose eyes were turned also towards the pair, and she knew from personal experience how much may be inferred or deduced from the words of a song, and also how many a tender speech, an accompaniment, however ill or well executed, may conceal.
Lord Aberfeldie, of course, would never consent to Eveline having a suitor with means so limited as those of her young admirer; but, though the idea of such a contingency had not occurred to him. Lady Aberfeldie was much sharper and more suspicious; she saw 'how the tide set,' and was much opposed to Cameron being even a visitor at Dundargue in any way, as an utter 'detrimental,' and declined to see how his being one of 'Ours'—the Black Watch—altered that matter.
And now, after a considerable amount of preluding, much unnecessary whispering, as 'my lady' thought, much glancing and many reciprocal smiles, Evan Cameron began to sing, accompanied by her daughter; and more annoyed became the matron on finding the theme chosen one of love and tenderness that could be, and was, sung with considerable point—a now forgotten little Scotch song, which the author adapted to the air of 'Rousseau's Dream,' and with the desire to excel before the girl he loved better than life, young Cameron, gave his whole soul to the lyric.
'See the moon o'er cloudless Jura
Shining in the loch below;
See the distant mountain towering
Like a pyramid of snow.
Scenes of grandeur—scenes of childhood—
Scenes so dear to love and me!
Let us roam by bower and wild wood,
All is lovelier when with thee.
'On Jura's hills the winds are sighing,
But all is silent in the grove;
And the leaves with dewdrops glistening
Sparkle like the eye of love.
Night so calm, so clear, so cloudless,
Blessed night to love and me;
Let us roam by bower and fountain,
All is lovelier when with thee.'
And it was not unnoticed by Lady Aberfeldie that at the closing word of each verse the eyes of the pair unconsciously met. Ere Eveline could be prevented, she had acceded to Cameron's softly uttered desire that she would sing anything for him; and she frankly did so, throwing into her voice the thrill and tenderness that are sure to come into a girl's utterances when singing to the man she loves. The heart of Cameron responded to this mysterious influence, and, as the girl regarded him furtively from time to time, she thought, with his crisp wavy hair, his clear grey eyes, general expression and bearing, he looked every inch what he was, the descendant of that Sir Evan Cameron of Lochiel who met Cromwell's men in combat under the shadow of Ben Nevis; yet to other eyes he seemed just a good sample of an infantryman who had across his forehead the genuine sunmark of his craft, made under the line of his forage-cap by a scorching tropical sun.
And now when Lady Aberfeldie, to stop any more musical performances between these two, prevailed upon Olive to replace her cousin, she was quick enough to detect that the former, displeased or piqued by Allan's apparent attention to Ruby Logan, swept past him with the most subtle little touch of disdain in the carriage of her handsome head.
Now Cameron had once more to give place to pudgy little Sir Paget, who—puffing out his chest and jerking forward his bald shining head—began to do his best to make himself pleasing to Eveline, while the latter, under her mother's watchful eye, was compelled to listen and appear to act with compliance and complacency; and poor Eveline, like Olive, often felt with some compunction that her mother's general bearing—which a certain quiet yet lofty dignity seemed never to forsake—was more calculated to inspire respect than love.
And Cameron, while he found himself talking rather absently on regimental matters with Lord Aberfeldie, as he looked at Eveline from time to time, was thinking sadly in his honest heart,