“I think I am,” replied Hamish. “Mr. Huntley is still in the dining-room, I hear?”
“Mr. Huntley is,” said the lady, speaking as if the fact did not give her pleasure, though Hamish could not conceive why. “My niece has chosen to remain with him,” she added, in a tone which denoted dissatisfaction. “I am quite tired of talking to her! I tell her this is proper, and the other is improper, and she goes and mixes up my advice in the most extraordinary way; leaving undone what she ought to do, and doing what I tell her she ought not! Only this very morning I read her a sermon upon ‘Propriety, and the fitness of things.’ It took me just an hour—an hour by my watch, I assure you, Mr. Hamish Channing!—and what is the result? I retired from the dinner-table precisely ten minutes after the removal of the cloth, according to my invariable custom; and Ellen, in defiance of my warning her that it is not lady-like, stays there behind me! ‘I have not finished my grapes, aunt,’ she says to me. And there she stays, just to talk with her father. And he encourages her! What will become of Ellen, I cannot imagine; she will never be a lady!”
“It’s very sad!” replied Hamish, coughing down a laugh, and putting on the gravest face he could call up.
“Sad!” repeated Miss Huntley, who sat perfectly upright, her hands, cased in mittens, crossed upon her lap. “It is grievous, Mr. Hamish Channing! She—what do you think she did only yesterday? One of our maids was going to be married, and a dispute, or some unpleasantness occurred between her and the intended husband. Would you believe that Ellen actually wrote a letter for the girl (a poor ignorant thing, who never learnt to read, let alone to write, but an excellent servant) to this man, that things might be smoothed down between them? My niece, Miss Ellen Huntley, lowering herself to write a—a—I can scarcely allow my tongue to utter the word, Mr. Hamish—a love-letter!”
Miss Huntley lifted her eyes, and her mittens. Hamish expressed himself inexpressibly shocked, inwardly wishing he could persuade Miss Ellen Huntley to write a few to him.
“And I receive no sympathy from any one!” pursued Miss Huntley. “None! I spoke to my brother, and he could not see that she had done anything wrong in writing: or pretended that he could not. Oh dear! how things have altered from what they were when I was a young girl! Then—”
“My master says, will you please to walk into the dining-room, sir?” interrupted a servant at this juncture. And Hamish rose and followed him.
Mr. Huntley was alone. Hamish threw his glance to the four corners of the room, but Ellen was not in it. The meeting was not very cordial on Mr. Huntley’s side. “What can I do for you?” he inquired, as he shook hands. Which was sufficient to imply coldly, “You must have come to my house for some particular purpose. What is it?”
But Hamish could not lose his sunny temperament, his winning manner. “I bring you great news, Mr. Huntley. We have heard from Borcette: and the improvement in my father’s health is so great, that all doubts as to the result are over.”
“I said it would be so,” replied Mr. Huntley.