“And Graeme is like her mother?”
“Yes, she’s like her, and she’s not like her. She is quieter and no’ so cheery, and she is no’ near so bonny as her mother was. Rose is more like her mother in looks, but she doesna ’mind me of her mother in her ways as her sister does, because, I suppose, of the difference that the age and the country make on all that are brought up in them. There is something wanting in all the young people of the present day, that well brought up bairns used to have in mine. Miss Graeme has it, and her sister hasna. You’ll ken what I mean by the difference between them.”
Mr Snow could not. The difference that he saw between the sisters was sufficiently accounted for to him by the ten year’s difference in their ages. He never could be persuaded, that, in any undesirable sense, Rose was more like the modern young lady than her sister. Graeme was perfect, in his wife’s eyes, and Rose was not quite perfect. That was all. However, he did not wish to discuss the question just now.
“Well! Graeme is about as good as we can hope to see in this world, and if he’s good enough for her that is a great deal to say, even if he is not what her father was.”
“There are few like him. But Allan is a good man, Will says, and he is not one to be content with a false standard of goodness, or a low one. He was a manly, pleasant lad, in the days when I kenned him. I daresay his long warstle with the world didna leave him altogether scatheless; but he’s out of the world’s grip now, I believe. God bless my bairn, and the man of her choice.”
There was a moment’s silence. Mrs Snow turned to the window, and her husband sat watching her, his brow a little clearer, but not quite clear yet.
“She is pleased. She ain’t making believe a mite. She’s like most women folks in that,” said Mr Snow, emphasising to himself the word, as though, in a good many things, she differed from “women folk” in general. “They really do think in their hearts, though they don’t always say so, that it is the right thing for girls to get married, and she’s glad Graeme’s going to do so well. But, when she comes to think of it, and how few chances there are of her ever seeing much of her again, I am afraid she’ll worry about it—though she sartain don’t look like it now.”
Certainly she did not. The grave face looked more than peaceful, it looked bright. The news which both Rose and Will had intimated, rather than announced, had stirred only pleasant thoughts as yet, that was clear. Mr Snow put on his spectacles and looked at the letters again, then putting them down, said, gravely,—
“She’ll have her home a great way off from here. And maybe it’s foolish, but it does seem to me as though it was a kind of a come down to go back to the old country to live after all these years.”
Mrs Snow laughed heartily.