“Well, I must say I thought well of what I saw of him,” said Mr Dawson. “I would hardly call him a sharp man, but he may have good sense without much surface cleverness. I had a while’s talk with him yesterday.”
“And he’s a good listener,” said Jean archly.
Her father laughed.
“I dare say it may have been partly that. He is a fine man as far as looks go, anyway.”
“Very. They all said that,” said May. “And Mavis said to me, ‘Eh, May, wouldna he do grand deeds if he were the same a’ through?’ He has the look of ‘grand deeds.’ But I have my doubts, and so had Mavis,” added May shaking her head.
“There are few men that I have ever met, the same a’ through. But who is Mavis that sets up with you to be a judge?” asked her father.
“Mavis!”—said May, hanging her head at her father’s implied reproof, as he supposed. “Mavis—is wee Marion—Marion Calderwood.”
“And we used—in the old days—to call her Mavis because she has a voice like a bird, and to ken her from our May, and Marion Petrie,” said Jean, looking straight at her father, and as she looked the shine of tears came to her bonny eyes.
“She is but a bairn,” said Miss Jean gravely.
Mr Dawson’s face darkened as it always did at the mention of any name that brought back the remembrance of his son. May was not quick at noticing such signs, and she answered her aunt.