The Twa Miss Dawsons

by Margaret M. Robertson

Jean listened and said little through all the preliminary discussion of the matter; but when it was settled that the invitation was to be at once accepted, she quietly declined to leave home.

She gave several good reasons why one should pay the visit rather than them both, and several why it should be May that should pay it. She gave several reasons also, why it would be wrong for both of them to leave home at once. Their father would be left in the house alone. Their aunt was by no means strong. Indeed if there were no other reason she would never think of leaving her alone during the spring months, which had during the last few years been so trying to her. Then there had been something said about certain changes to be made in the early spring in the grounds and gardens. These might certainly be put off till another year, as her father suggested, but it would be a pity to do so, and if they were to be made, Jean must be at home to superintend them.

“And indeed, papa, it was May who used to be Miss Browning’s friend, much more than I. Mrs Seldon would enjoy May’s company better than mine, and May would take ten times the pleasure that I should take. How should I have any pleasure knowing that my sister was lonely and disappointed at home. As to both going, it is out of the question. And I can go next time.”

Of course Mr Dawson could not do otherwise than yield to such an array of good reasons, especially as May was as eager to go as her sister was to stay; but he had an uneasy feeling that Jean herself had needed none of these good reasons to induce her to remain. It pleased him, of course, that she should like home best, and he was glad not to be left to the trial of a silent and forsaken house during a gloomy month or two. But it did not please him that Jean should care so little for the enjoyment that her sister anticipated with such delight. It was not natural, and he wearied himself trying to imagine what it might be.

“I will see what my sister says about it,” thought he.

But in the mean time he could only let her take her way; and he and May set out together on their journey, for he would not permit his daughter to travel alone.

And then for a few days Jean had the house to herself, and during these days, she became aware of one thing. She must turn her thoughts away from the constant dwelling on poor lost Geordie, and his wanderings on northern seas, or she would lose the power of thinking or caring for any one or any thing in the world besides.

It had nearly come to that already. If the wind blew, it was of him she thought, and it was the same if the sun shone, or the rain fell. Night and day her heart was heavy with fears for him. It was the shipping news she read first in the papers, about storms and wrecks of whale ships that had come home, and of some that might never come, till she grew morbid and heartsick with her doubts and her fears.

When she went to the town, or took her daily walk by the sea, she spoke with the fishermen about the signs of wind and weather, and with certain old sailors—long past sailing because of age and rheumatism—about the voyages they had made, and about the dangers of the deep, and the dreariness of Arctic seas when winter nights were long and the days “but a blink.” And of late, she had come to be aware that now and then as they talked, there was a look of wondering curiosity in their dim old eyes. They took her sixpences, and her “bits o’ backey” with smiles and nods of encouragement, and with assurances “that there was nothing like keeping a stout heart and a cheerful, on the shore as well as on the sea.”

“And they canna ken about Geordie,” she said to herself wondering.