“No, he hasna even that now, and he is unfortunate in caring little for the occupations that seem to pass the time for folk o’ his class. He is coming north again, he says, and I dare say we’ll get a sight o’ him.”
“He was ay an idle man, even when he was a poor man.”
“Yes. But I ay think he might have been made something of, if the right woman would have taken him in hand.”
Miss Jean could not agree with him.
“And whether or no’, he needna come north to find her,” said she.
“No, I suppose not, but it is a pity.”
“George, man! I canna but wonder to hear you,” said his sister gravely.
“Weel, he has a kind heart, and I canna but be sorry for him. And he is a perfect gentleman.”
“Being sorry for him is one thing, and being willing to give him our best is another,” said Miss Jean, with a sharpness that made her brother smile. “But I’m no’ feared—”
Miss Jean paused. She was not quite sure that she had nothing to fear. To her it seemed that the Englishman had been wonderfully constant—“for the like o’ him”—and she was not quite so sure of Jean as she used to be.