“I don’t care a straw for Leith races,” said Harry, rudely; but notwithstanding he raised his head, and looked by no means so indifferent as he spoke.
“Care! who said anybody cared?” answered Gilbert; “one must go to lots of places one doesn’t care a straw for—it becomes a duty to society. I’ll undertake to say you’ll come, Harry. We needn’t be more than a couple of days away, and the ladies won’t miss you. Permit me, Miss Muir.”
And Gilbert, politely shutting out Martha and her uncle from sight of the tea-table with his long loose person and his easy chair, elaborately waited upon Rose, and devoted himself to her in a laborious attempt at conversation; but it is very hard to make a conversation where one of the interlocutors says only “Yes” and “No,” and those with anything but good will; so Gilbert took in Agnes as a partaker of his attentions, and talked so fine, and intimated so many festivities to come when the summer should be over, that the little wife grew interested in spite of herself, and wondered (for Agnes had been very “strictly” brought up) whether it would be proper and decorous for her, a matron and house-mother, twenty years old, to go to a ball. Martha, behind backs, sat quietly at her work, and said nothing; while Uncle Sandy looked on with a slight expression of displeasure and offence. The old man had a sensitive perception of ill manners, and by no means liked them to be applied to himself. But Martha was not offended by the neglect of Gilbert Allenders.
After tea, Harry—who had remained very moody and abstracted, except for a few minutes when he, too, kindled at those descriptions of local party-giving—proposed a walk in the grounds, where Agnes willingly, and Rose with great reluctance, were persuaded to accompany them. Rose was very innocent of flirtation—circumstances had guarded her, and kept from her both temptation and opportunity—so that, fully freighted with her present dreams, there could have been nothing less pleasant to Rose than to walk slowly along the mall, under the over-arching foliage, leaning upon the arm of Mr. Gilbert Allenders. And Mr. Gilbert Allenders was burdened with no delicacy. He kept steadily behind Harry and Agnes, he lingered in quiet places, he spoke tender sentimentalities, he quizzed the young ladies of Stirling, he insinuated his perfect conviction of the extreme superiority of Miss Rose Muir; but no amount of proof could have persuaded Gilbert of a tenth part of the disgust and dislike with which Rose Muir listened. She was very near telling him so several times, and begging rather to hear the rude jokes than the mawkish sentiment. But Rose was shy, and her safest refuge was in silence.
“What has Harry to do with such a man as that?” said Uncle Sandy. “Martha, I doubt this fortune is to have its dangers, as great as the poverty.”
“Ay, uncle.” Martha had seen enough, after a week at Allenders, to convince her of that.
“And he’s taken with Rose,” said the old man. “You were feared for Mr. Charteris, Martha; but there’s more reason here.”
“No reason, uncle, no reason,” was the quiet answer. “He may harm Harry, but Rose is very safe.”
“So she is, it is true,” said the uncle. “Ay, and the man that would do no harm to Harry might harm the free heart that clings by nature to things that are true and of good report. God preserve these bairns! If such a thing were happening as that Rose was to marry, I think, Martha, my woman, you should come cannily hame to me.”
A long time after, when both of them had relapsed into thoughtful silence, Martha answered: