‘Ay,’ said Janet bitterly; ‘to hear when you’re to drive away in your grand carridge, and leave the house that’s aye been your shelter desolate; to fix the moment when them that have been father and mother to ye are to be but twa puir servant-bodies, and belang to ye nae mair!’
‘Granny!’ cried Joyce, in consternation, drawing Janet’s face towards her, stooping over the little resisting figure.
‘Dinna put your airms about me. Do you ken what I’ll be for you the morn?—your auld nurse—a puir auld body that will be nothing to you. Oh, and that’s maybe just what should be for a leddy like you. You were aye a leddy from the beginning, and I might have kent if my een hadna been blinded. I aye said to Peter, “Haud a loose grip,” but, eh! I never took it to mysel’.’
‘Granny,’ cried Joyce, ‘do you think if the Queen herself were my mother,—if I were the Princess Royal, and everything at my beck and call,—do you think I could ever forsake you?’
‘Oh, how do I ken?’ cried Janet, still resisting the soft compulsion which was in Joyce’s arms; ‘and how can I tell what ye will be let do? You will no’ be your ain mistress as ye have been here. Ye will have to conform to other folks’ ways. Ye will have to do what’s becoming to your rank and your place in the world. If ye think that an auld wife in Bellendean village and an auld ploughman on the laird’s farm will be let come near ye——’
‘Granny, granny!’ cried Joyce, as Janet’s voice, overcome by her own argument, sank into an inarticulate murmur broken by sobs,—‘granny, granny! what have I done to make you think I have no heart?—and to give me up, and refuse to stand by me even before there’s a thing proved.’
‘Me!—refuse to stand by ye?’
‘That is just what you are doing—or at least it is what you are saying you will do; but as you never did an unkind thing in your life——’
‘Oh, many a one, many a one,’ cried the old woman. ‘I’ve just an unregenerate heart—but no’ to my ain.’
‘As you never did an unkind thing in your life,’ cried Joyce, out of breath, for she had hurried in the meantime to the aumry—the great oak cupboard which filled one side of the room—and made a rapid raid therein. ‘I have brought you your bonnet and your shawl.’