“A bairn! Yes, but ‘a bairn by the common,’ as Mrs Petrie’s Eppie says. She is a clever little creature.”
“She is a far-awa’ cousin o’ Mrs Petrie’s, and she’s learning some things from the governess of her bairns. But she might well have been spared on an occasion like yesterday, I would think,” said Miss Jean.
“Oh! all the bairns were there, as well as Marion. And she looked as a rose looks among the rest of the flowers.”
“As the violet looks in the wood, I would say,” added Jean. “She’ll be as bonny as her sister ever was.”
There was a moment’s silence, round the table, which Jean broke.
“She was asking when you would be home, aunt. She has gotten her second shirt finished, and she wants you to see it. She is very proud of it. I told her that you werena going to Portie, except on Sundays, for a month yet, and she must come here and let you see it.”
“Weel, she’ll maybe come. It was me that set her to shirt making. There is naething like white seam, and a good long stretch of it to steady a lassie like Marion. And if she learn to do it weel, it may stand her instead when other things fail.”
“White seam!” exclaimed May. “Not she! May Calderwood is going to educate herself, and keep a fine school—in London maybe—she has heard o’ such things. She’s learning German and Latin, no less! And I just wish you could hear her sing.”
“She markets for her mother, and does up her mother’s caps,” said Jean, “and she only learns Latin for the sake of helping Sandy Petrie, who is a dunce, and ay at the foot of the form.”
“She’s nae an ill lassie,” said Miss Jean softly, and the subject was dropped.