Margaret laughed.
“Yes—just the Cow!” she said—“The wee wise-looking thing you see ever on a shelf somewhere near Miss Letty, with the old shoes Master Boy left behind him when he first stayed with her. Well, when he came to Scotland, he didna care for the puir beastie any more,—and that’s just how it is wi’ me,—he’s just as indifferent to me as he is to the toy he put away in his babyhood. That’s where all we women have to suffer, Miss Violet,—when the bairnies we ha’ loved and tended grow up to be men and women, they never give us more thought than the playthings they have done with!”
Violet heard, and went away, thinking gravely of many things. She was growing a little more serious and wistful in her manner; the difficulties and disappointments of life were beginning to suggest themselves to her young spirit, although vaguely as yet and dimly. She had nothing to complain of at present in her own fortunes—except—except that Max Nugent’s letters were all very brief and scrappy. She would have liked longer and more ardent epistles from her declared lover,—and she scolded herself for this wish, which she said was selfish, because of course, with all his great responsibilities of wealth, he must have a great deal to do. But despite her struggle with herself, the little shadow of disappointment hung like a faint cloud in her sky, and made her particularly sensitive to the possible griefs of others.
“It must be so hard to be disappointed in persons you love!” she thought. “To find that they are not the good or noble beings you imagined them—it must be so hard! I do hope Miss Letty will find Boy all that she expects him to be—and more!”
The anxiously expected Wednesday came at last, and Miss Letty ordered a charming little luncheon in her private sitting-room, and decorated the table herself with the loveliest flowers to welcome Boy. Violet, with instinctive tact, arranged to go out that morning with her uncle, and not to return till it was quite the luncheon-hour, in order that Miss Letty might have the first meeting with her young friend alone. The dear lady was in a great flutter; she was for once quite fastidious about her appearance, and put on her newest gown, a soft, silver-grey silk, trimmed with an abundance of fine old Irish point lace. And when she was dressed, it was no exaggeration on the part of the faithful Margaret to say she looked “quite beautiful”! With her sweet, good face, and soft hair, now snow-white, raised from her clear, open brow, and that indefinable grace of perfect breeding which always distinguished her, Miss Letty looked much fairer than many a young woman in the pride of her earliest days. And when, as the hour grew nearer for Boy’s arrival, a little pink flush coloured the pale transparency of her cheeks, she had such a charm about her as would certainly have made fresh havoc in the good Major’s warm heart, had he seen her just at that moment. There was an elaborate Parisian clock in the sitting-room, the pendulum of which was an unpleasant-featured gilt nymph in a swing, and Miss Letty looked anxiously at the ugly and inflexible young lady as she jerked the minutes away with a seemingly infinite tedium. At last the hotel waiter appeared with the brief announcement,—
“A young gentleman to see you, mum!”
Miss Letty advanced trembling, as a slim lad, getting on for six feet in height, stumbled over the door-mat and entered awkwardly.
“Boy! I am so glad to see you again!”
The stripling giggled nervously.
“Yes—er,—how d’you do?” he stammered; and he sought anxiously about for a place to put his bowler hat, and finally set it carefully down on an empty flower-pot and began to stare doubtfully at the ceiling. But Miss Letty was not disheartened by these signs of indifference.