“Too reasonable,” he said, shaking his head. “Effie, lift up your eyes and look me in the face. Are you sure that you are happy, my little woman? Look me in the face.”
CHAPTER XVI.
“No, Beenie,” said Miss Dempster solemnly, “her heart is not in it. Do you think it is possible at her age that a young creature could resist all the excitement and the importance, and the wedding presents and the wedding clothes? It was bad enough in our own time, but it’s just twice as bad now when every mortal thinks it needful to give their present, and boxes are coming in every day for months. That’s a terrible bad custom: it’s no better than the penny weddings the poor people used to have. But to think a young thing would be quite indifferent to all that, if everything was natural, is more than I can understand.”
“That’s very true,” said Miss Beenie, “and all her new things. If it was nothing but the collars and fichus that are so pretty nowadays, and all the new pocket-handkerchiefs.”
“It’s not natural,” the elder sister said.
“And if you will remember, there was a wonderful look about the little thing’s eyes when Ronald went away. To be sure there was Eric with him. She was really a little thing then, though now she’s grown up. You may depend upon it that though maybe she may not be conscious of it herself, there is another Eemage in her poor bit little heart.”
“Ye are too sentimental, Beenie. That’s not necessary. There may be a shrinking without that. I know no harm of young Dirom. He’s not one that would ever take my fancy, but still there’s no harm in him. The stepmother is just ridiculous. She thinks it’s her that’s getting the elevation. There will never be a word out of her mouth but Allonby if this comes to pass. But the heart of the little thing is not in it. She was angry; that was what her colour came from. It was no blush, yon; it was out of an angry and an unwilling mind. I have not lived to my present considerable age without knowing what a girl’s looks mean.”
“You are not so old as you make yourself out. A person would think you were just a Methusaleh; when it is well known there is only five years between us,” said Miss Beenie in an aggrieved tone.
“I always say there’s a lifetime—so you may be easy in your mind so far as that goes. I am just as near a Methusaleh as I’ve any desire to be. I wonder now if Mrs. Ogilvie knows what has happened about Ronald, and that he’s coming home. To be a well-born woman herself, she has very little understanding about inter-marriages and that kind of thing. It’s more than likely that she doesn’t know. And to think that young man should come back, with a nice property though it’s small, and in a condition to marry, just when this is settled! Bless me! if he had come three months ago! Providence is a real mystery!” said Miss Dempster, with the air of one who is reluctant to blame, but cannot sincerely excuse. “Three months more or less, what were they to auld Dauvid Hay? He was just doited; he neither knew morning nor evening: and most likely that would have changed the lives of three other folk. It is a great mystery to me.”
“He will maybe not be too late yet,” said Miss Beenie significantly.