It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

"It's not easy to be too ready with your sympathy," said her sister, mildly. "Few folk are that."

Margaret was silent, wondering much what had passed. She stood at the window pretending to look out. She was perhaps a little jealous of the love of her life's companion. Had she known nothing of Lewis' intentions, there was indeed no indication to warn her that Jean's calm had been thus disturbed. She had expected some flutter in her sister's gentle spirit. She had expected perhaps a little anger, a few tears, or, what would have been worse, an exaggerated pity for the young man, and a flattered sense of power on Jean's part. Not one of these sentiments was visible in her. An anxious eye could see some traces of emotion: and that she had been much moved was certain, or she would not have "comforted him by telling him," as she had said. Margaret, who was excited and uneasy, was almost jealous that, even by way of crushing this young man's presumptuous hopes, Jean should so far have admitted him into her confidence as to tell him her own story; even that was a great deal too much.

"I would like to know," she said, "what right a strange lad could have, that is not a drop's blood to us, to come with his stories to you?"

"Poor callant!" said Miss Jean, "he has no mother. It was perhaps that, Margaret."

"Was he looking for a mother in you?" cried Margaret, sharply. If she had detected a blush, a smile, a movement of womanly vanity still lingering, there is no telling what Miss Margaret would have been capable of. But Jean worked on at her carnation in her tremulous calm, and made no sign. Perhaps it was the last sublimated essence of that womanly vanity which made her so tender of the young intruder. She would not hand him over to ridicule any more than to indignation. It was perhaps the first secret she had ever kept from Margaret; but then it was his secret, and not hers.

"He did not just say that, or perhaps think it," said Miss Jean; "he may have thought I would be affronted, being a single person: but that was what he meant."

"I hope you will never encourage such folly," said Margaret. "It is a thing that always ends in trouble. You are not old enough to be a man's mother, and it is very unbecoming; it is even not—delicate. You, that have been all your life like the very snowdrift, Jean!"

Jean raised her mild eyes to her sister. They were more luminous than usual with the tears that had been in them. There was a look of gentle wonder in their depths. The accusation took her entirely by surprise, but she did not say anything in her own defence. If there was any reproach in the look, it was of the gentlest kind. It was perhaps the first time in her life that Jean felt herself Margaret's superior. But she did not take any pleasure in her triumph. As for Margaret, her suspicion or temper could not bear that look. She stamped her foot suddenly on the floor with a quick cry.

"I am just a fool!" she said, turning all her weapons against herself in a moment—"just a fool! There's not another word to say."

"You were never that, Margaret."