This letter did not please Kirsteen as may well be supposed. We are all made up of great feelings and of petty ones, and are not always at our best. Kirsteen had a heart of the noblest constancy, and held the contents of her little silver casket above all that the world could give. But at more vulgar moments it sometimes gave her a sting to know that, notwithstanding all her passion of love and faithfulness, prosaic Mary, who had never known a throb of profound feeling in her life, would assume airs of superior importance, and pity the sister who had no man, and would be an old maid all her life. A woman may be capable of taking her part in a tragedy such as Kirsteen’s yet resent the comedy, generally more or less contemptuous, that winds itself about an unmarried woman’s life, and more at that period than now. She was very angry at the neglect of her warning, but this was only an incident and soon dropped into oblivion.
One day, however, late in the year in which she had performed her rapid and melancholy journey, Kirsteen received, “by private hand,” and in the shape of a small brown paper parcel, concealing a letter in many wrappings, news of a very distressing kind. It was supposed in those days of dear postage to be illegal to send a letter by the “private hand,” which most simple country people infinitely preferred as at once surer and cheaper than the post. This, as Marg’ret informed her in the hurried scrawl enclosed, was to be taken by a lad from the village who was going straight to London, and had promised to deliver it at once. It was to tell Kirsteen that her mother was very ill, so ill that Marg’ret had given up all hope. “I have never done so before,” Marg’ret wrote, “so you may trust me that this is not a fright on my part. And she just yammers for Kirsteen night and day—little, little has she ever said till now—she’s full of complaints, poor body, but yet she’s more patient than words can say. Ye must just come without a moment’s delay; and if he will not let you in, I will let you in, for she shall not be crossed in her last wish by any man, if he was three times her husband—so, my dear bairn, just come and let there be no delay.” Kirsteen obeyed this summons, as she was commanded at once. To go so soon again over the same ground, and undertake once more such a wearisome and protracted journey was very unusual, and was thought something dreadful by all who heard of it. “You will feel as if you were always on the road,” Miss Jean said; and she felt an inclination to blame her sister who thought that the pleasure of her dying mistress was worth the great disturbance of Kirsteen’s life which must result. “What good will it do her, a dying woman? It will just disturb her when her mind should be taken up with other things,” said Miss Jean.
But it was perhaps natural that Kirsteen should not take it in the same way. She set off that evening, by the night coach, arriving in Glasgow on the morning of the second day. But this time Kirsteen remembered her kindred, and finding with difficulty the new house of Dr. Dewar, now a fine tall “self-contained” house with a main door and a brass plate upon it, suddenly appeared at the breakfast table where Anne and her doctor presided over a party consisting of two tall children of nine and ten, and two more set up in high chairs to reach the board. Anne was so much absorbed in the feeding of those small creatures that she scarcely observed the stranger whom Dr. Dewar rose with an apology and a little embarrassment to meet, thinking her a patient improperly introduced into the domestic scene. An exclamation “It’s your sister Kirsteen, Anne!” roused the absorbed mother, at that moment holding a spoonful of porridge to the mouth of one of the babies. Anne had developed much since her sister had seen her last. She had become stout, yet not unpleasantly so, but in a manner which suggested the motherly hen whose wings can extend over many chickens. She wore a cap with plaited lace borders tied under her chin, encircling a rosy face, which, though still young, was losing its higher aspect a little in the roundness of comfort and ease. Her soul was absorbed in the little ones, and in domestic cares. She thrust the spoon into the baby’s mouth before she rose with a wondering cry of “Kirsteen!” And all the children stared, knowing nothing of aunts, except some on the side of the doctor who were not of the same kind as the fashionably dressed London lady in her black fur-trimmed pelisse. Kirsteen was still in something of the solemnity of her first mourning. Her natural colour was subdued, she was slighter than ever she had been, graver, more pale. Her hair once so rebellious was smoothed away. She looked many years older, and very grave, serious and imposing. The two elder children looked at each other with mingled pride and alarm. This grand lady! The doctor was the only one who fully retained his wits. He put a chair to the table for the new comer. “You will have arrived this morning by the coach? And the first thing wanting will be a good cup of tea?”
“Yes, I will take the tea thankfully, for it is very cold, but what I have come for is Anne. There will be a postchaise at the door in an hour.”
“Are you going to run away with my wife?” said the doctor with a smile.
“A postchaise!” cried Anne in dismay.
“Anne!—my mother is dying.”
“God save us, Kirsteen!”
“I want you to come with me, take your warmest cloak: there will be no change of clothes necessary that I know of, for we will most likely be back to-morrow.”
“To go with ye?” faltered Anne—“to—to Drumcarro, Kirsteen?” All the blood forsook her face.