“No doubt that’s very true,” said Miss Jean, “and ye may find that ye are not in such a great hurry as ye think, for the Duchess has a number of engagements upon her hands, and will not dine at home for about ten days to my certain knowledge—and probably she will have her table full then if ye have not already received your invitations—for town is just very throng, and everything settled for the grand parties, weeks before.”
CHAPTER VII.
Miss Jean it must be allowed turned to her young companion with some dismay when Mrs. Campbell of Glendochart had been ceremoniously seen to her hackney coach, and deeply cast down and discomfited, had driven away to the respectable person who had been recommended to her to make her new gown. “Were you meaning yon?” Miss Jean asked with solicitude. “Or what were you meaning?”
“I was meaning what I said,” cried Kirsteen holding her head high and with an unusual colour upon her cheeks. “You know yourself that we have more work than can be done if we were to sit at it day and night.”
“For the moment,” said Miss Jean prudently; “but to refuse work just goes to my heart—it might spoil the business.”
“It will do the business good,” said Kirsteen. “We will let it be known, not just yet perhaps, what I said, that we will take no commoners’ orders—that persons who are nobodies need not come here. You did not take me with you into the business just to go on like other folk.”
“No—that’s quite true,” said Miss Jean, but with a little hesitation still.
“By the time,” said Kirsteen, “that you have turned away half-a-dozen from your door, your name will be up over all the town; and whether in the season or out of it, you will have more to do than you can set your face to, and thanks for doing it. Will you trust me or not, Miss Jean? For I allow that I am inexperienced and perhaps I may not be right.”
“It would be very strange if ye were always right,” said Miss Jean with a smile of affectionate meaning, “for all so young and so sure as ye are. But ye have a great spirit and there’s something in me too that just answers till ye. Yes, I’ll trust ye, my dear; and ye’ll just go insulting all the poor bodies that are not good enough to please ye, till ye make a spoon or spoil a horn for yourself; for it does not matter so very much for me.”
“Not the poor bodies,” said Kirsteen, “but the folk with money and nothing else, that come in as if they were doing us a favour—women that Marg’ret would not have in her kitchen; and they will come in here and give their orders as if it was a favour to you and me! I would like to learn them a lesson: that though we’re mantua-makers, it’s not for the like of them—a person with no name to speak of—and giving her orders to one of the Douglases! We will learn them better before we are done.”