“Leave the sea? Is it Willie you are speaking about? He would never do it. May, you must not ask it of him. It would be putting him in a false position altogether. He is a true sailor.”
“Oh! I shall not ask him. It would do little good. But I wonder at you all the same. You have no ambition. He can never be more than just a sea captain—and always away.”
“A sea captain!” repeated Jean. “A sailor!—And what would you have? Would you put him behind the counter in a shop? or set him to casting up figures or counting money in a bank? Would you even old Mr Petrie or James or any of them with the like of him?”
May laughed. “Oh! well, a sailor let him be. But ye needna flee at me as though I had said something horrible. And we needna vex ourselves. That will do no good.”
“It must be late,” said Jean rising. “She takes it quietly enough, and it is well she does. It would wear her out to be ay thinking and fearing and longing for his coming home, as I long for poor George’s. She is ay light-hearted, dear child. God bless her,” added Jean with a sigh.
The rest of the summer passed quietly away. The little Corbetts went home strong and brown and with a wonderful knowledge of and delight in their father’s mother tongue, rejoicing over the invitation for another visit the next summer, if all should be well.
They were much missed in Saughleas, and so was Miss Jean, who, though she enjoyed a visit to her brother and her nieces now and then, liked best the quiet of her own house, and the silent secret doing of the work which she had chosen among the sinful and suffering poor creatures of which, especially in winter-time, Portie had its share. Her stay at Saughleas had done her good. She left her crutch behind her there, and she was able now to go with her staff in one hand and “help and comfort” in the other, to those who in the back sheets and lanes of the town needed her help most. At Saughleas they missed her greatly, for various reasons, and chiefly for this, that at meal times, and at other times also, Mr Dawson was ready to fall into his old habit of silence and reserve, when left alone with his daughters. This silence was good neither for them nor for himself.
“And I am going to try and have it otherwise,” said Jean to herself, as she sat behind the urn, waiting for his coming the first morning they were alone.
He came in as usual with a bundle of papers in his hand, letters that had been received last night, and that must be answered this morning as soon as he reached the bank, and in the mean time he meant to look them over while he drank his coffee.
“I think,” said his daughter looking straight into his face as he adjusted his spectacles, so that he might not let her remark fall as though it had been made to her sister, “I think Aunt Jean is the woman the most to be envied among all the women I know.”