“And if I mind right, ye once thought Jamie Petrie would ha’e little temptation to look that way, and little chance of success if he did.”
“That is just what I thought, but I was wrong it seems as to the temptation. As to the success—I canna say, but—”
“But why should you be downcast about it?”
“It is for the lad I am sorry, because I doubt he has disappointment before him. He should have been content to bide awhile. She is but a lassie, with no such thoughts in her mind.”
“She looks like a woman.”
“Ay, she does that. But she is but a bairn in some things. She is no’ thinkin’ o’ him. She doesna even amuse herself with him. He is just Jamie Petrie to her, and that is all. I’m wae for the lad.”
“His father and mother will be all the better pleased.”
“That may be, but I dinna think it.”
Then Miss Jean told in few words a story to which Mr Dawson listened with varying feelings,—the story of James Petrie’s love and what was like to come of it.
He had seen her in London about six months since, Miss Jean said, and had made his admiration very evident to the mother whose surprise was great; for like the rest of the world she had given him credit for a degree of worldly wisdom greater than a serious attachment to a penniless girl would seem to imply. He made no formal declaration of his suit, to which indeed Mrs Calderwood would not have listened, as Marion was in her eyes little more than a child. In her heart she believed and hoped that his fancy would pass away, or be put by prudent thoughts out of his head, without a word spoken.