“Yes, I have been anxious.”
“Because of Willie Calderwood? But, my dear, I canna think that there’s any occasion.”
“I seem to have been mistaken as far as she is concerned. She says so.”
“And as for him—I never asked him and he never told me—but I’m no feared that he’ll be the worse in the end for any such trouble. And, Jean, my lassie, we ha’e great reason for thankfulness that so it is. It would only have been anither heartbreak.”
“Yes. That is what May said.”
“Not but what they both would have outlived it—and had many a happy day after it. But I am glad we havena to go through all that, for all our sakes, and more especially for the sake of your father. For he is growing an old man now, and another blow like that would have been ill on him, whichever way it had ended.”
“But, aunt,—ye mustna be angry at me for saying it,—but I canna think that my father was altogether wise or right in the way he took with George and Elsie.”
“My dear, who is ever altogether wise and right in all they do, even to those they love best? And, my dear, ye are nae your father’s judge. And do ye think that he sees now that all he did was wisest and best? and yet he might do the very same again. And even if he shouldna, it would be a misery and a lifelong pain to him all the same. My dear, I’m mair than thankful and we’ll say nae mair about it.”
And no more was said. But as Jean went slowly homeward, she had many thoughts of all she had heard that day. Glad! Of course she could not but be glad that all which must have brought disappointment and pain upon so many, had only been a dream of hers. How could she have been so mistaken! How much better it would have been if she had spoken plainly to her sister a year ago! Would May have answered as decidedly then?
Yes. Jean did not doubt that she would have done so. She did not doubt her sister’s sincerity when she declared that she had never cared for Willie Calderwood “in that way.”