“Have I? It’s perhaps difficult to avoid it—if ye have anything of an ear for music.” This was perhaps an unkind thing to say, for it was well-known in the family that Mary had no ear for music and could not “turn a tune” to save her life. With a compunction Kirsteen turned to a more natural subject. “And how is my mother?”
“Oh,” said Mary, “she is just wonderfully well for her. The marriage was a great divert to her, settling how it was to be and the clothes and everything. She was dressed herself in a new gown that Glendochart presented to her for the occasion, with white ribbons in her cap, and looking just very well. ‘It’s easy to see where ye get your looks from,’ Henry said to me: which I thought was a very pretty compliment to both of us, for if ever a man was pleased with his wife’s looks it should be on his wedding-day.”
“Very likely,” said Kirsteen drily, “but I have no experience. I got your letter, with an account of what you had on.”
“Yes, it was considered very becoming,” said Mary. “And Jeanie was just beautiful in a white frock; I will have her with me at Glendochart when she gets a little older, and bring her out, and maybe take her to Edinburgh for a winter that she may have every advantage. I would like her to make a grand marriage, and there is nothing more likely when she’s seen as she ought to be in a house like Glendochart.”
“I have yet to learn,” said Kirsteen with dilating nostrils and quivering lips (for she too intended Jeanie to make a great match, and to marry well, but under her own auspices not her sister’s), “I have yet to learn that a Campbell who is the Duke’s clanswoman can give credit to a Douglas that comes of the first family of her own name.”
“Maybe you think too,” said Mary with all the force of ridicule founded on fact, “that the house of Drumcarro is a good place for letting a young thing see the world.”
Kirsteen was silenced by this potent argument, but it by no means softened the irritation in her mind. She had thought of Jeanie as her own, her creation in many ways, between whom and every evil fate she was determined to stand. To have the child taken out of her hands in this calm way was almost more than she could bear. But she compelled herself to patience with a hasty self-argument: Who was she to stand between Jeanie and any advantage—when nobody could tell whether she would be able to carry out her intentions or not? And at all events at the present moment Jeanie being only fourteen there was not much to be done. Mary’s smooth voice going on forbade any very continued strain of thought.
“And, Kirsteen, what is to be done about yourself? We would be real willing to do anything in our power—But oh! it was rash—rash of you to run away—for you see by what’s happened that it was all a mistake, and that Glendochart——”
Kirsteen’s milk-white brow again grew as red as fire. To have your old lover console himself with your sister is bad enough; but to have her explain to you that your alarm was a mere mistake of vanity, and that the only person who was ridiculous or blamable in the business was only yourself,—— this is too much for mortal flesh and blood!
“I am much obliged to you,” she said with self-restraint which was painful, “but I am very happy where I am. It was no mistake so far as I am concerned. It was just impossible to live on down yonder without occupation, when there are so many things to be done in the world.”