“I should have no pleasure in going out of my own sphere,” said Jean with dignity.
“Eh! Jeannie, I’m no’ so sure of that. Werena you just the other day playing at ‘the beds’ with Mavis, and Emily Corbett, and the rest of the bairns on the sands? And didna you finish Maggie Saugster’s seam to let her get away with the rest? And didna you—”
“Nonsense, May! I’ve played at ‘the beds’ all my life, and I dinna look down on Mavis and Maggie and the rest. And it was for their pleasure I played with them, and not for my own.”
“Well, it may be for our pleasure that Mrs Eastwood is coming here, and as for looking down on us—” said May with a toss of her pretty head.
“Whisht, bairns,” said Miss Jean gently. “I dare say she thinks lang in the country as weel as her brother,—her that’s used with London life,—and she would like to come just for a pass-time, with no thought of looking down on any one.”
“Her brother doesna seem to be looking down on any one,” said Mr Dawson with a short, amused laugh.
“Oh! he makes no secret that it is just for a pass-time, that he favours Portie folk with his company. He finds Blackford House dull. He gets awfully bored,” said May in the Captain’s languid manner.
“It’s a wonder he stays on then,” said Mr Dawson.
“I said that to him once, and he said—” May hesitated. It would not have been easy to repeat all that had been said on the occasion alluded to; but she put the gist of his communications more clearly and directly than he had done himself, when she added,—
“It is a good place not to spend money at, and he does not seem to have much to spend.”