“Whatever they needed to learn. I can hardly tell yet about it. But Mrs Manners has promised me her boys.”
“She is to lose no time it seems,” said Miss Jean smiling.
“Oh! but you forget, I have to educate myself first. I am afraid I should have to be a great deal older before people would trust their boys to me. But that is what I mean to do.” Marion spoke gravely.
“And ye’ll do it too, if you set yourself to do it,” said Mr Dawson.
“And she could hardly set herself to a better work,” said Miss Jean.
But Mr Petrie by no means agreed with them, and expressed himself to that effect with sufficient decision. He ridiculed the idea, and being very much in earnest, he was not so guarded as he might have been, and allowed a tone of contempt to mingle with the banter which he meant to be playful, and at the same time severe. Marion answered lightly enough, and was in no danger of being angry as Miss Jean feared, and as, after a time, Mr James hoped she might be. The necessity of making his peace with her would have pleased the young man better, than her laughing indifference to his opinions, or to his manner of expressing them. But she was so friendly in her manner, and so willing to oblige him by singing his favourite songs when Miss Jean sent her to the piano, that he had no excuse for returning to the subject again.
His errand, he told them when he rose to go, was to ask Miss Marion to join his sisters and some of their friends in walking to the Castle the next day, and after an inquiring glance at Miss Jean the invitation was accepted with sufficient readiness.
“And if the day should not be fine, it is understood that you will spend it with my sisters, and the Castle can wait till fair weather.”
To this also Marion assented with a good grace, and the young man went away assuring himself that he ought to be content. He might have been less so, had he seen the shrug of her pretty shoulders, and heard her voice as she said to Miss Jean,—
“What should the like of James Petrie ken?”