“It must have been a long time ago,” said Kirsteen; “and my father, what does he say?”
“I never saw the laird so father-like—no since the day when I put your brother Alexander into his arms, that’s now the Cornel and a great man among the blacks in India. I mind the gleam in his face when he got his son, and thought upon all the grand things that would come with the lad-bairn. Ye ken yoursel’ he never heeded a lass he had. But when he sees my lord coming like a little colley doguie after our Jeanie, following her wherever she goes, there’s the same look upon his face. I was the first to tell him,” said Marg’ret with pride, “that it wasna just a bonny lass that bairn would be, but a beauty to be kent about the world. And now he sees it himsel’. What your father says?—He just says naething for pleasure and pride.”
“Oh, Marg’ret—I fear, I fear, that this will be the worst of all.”
“And what is there that’s ill among ye, that ye speak of the worst of a’. There’s Mrs. Doctor Dewar just a very comfortable-like person, that’s done weel enough for hersel’. She’s a poor creature with little heart, wrapt up in her common man and her little vulgar bairns. But that is just a’ she would have been fit for whether or no. And there’s Leddy Glendochart that is a real credit to the family, and has travelled, and can knap English with the best—far better than you. And there’s yourself, Kirsteen, that makes all the grand London leddies stand about. And where is the ill among ye, that our bonny little Jeanie should be the worst of a’?”
Marg’ret raised her voice unconsciously as she gave forth this flourish, with her head in the air and all her banners waving. But the sound of her own utterance brought her back with a shock to the reality of things. She gave a low cry. “Eh, to think I should forget myself and brag and boast—with her, just an angel of God lying ben the house.”
And once more Marg’ret paid a little hasty hot tribute of tears to the presence, now so solemn, but which till now had counted for so little amid the agitations of the family. During those days of mourning, at least the mistress could not be altogether forgotten.
Mary and her husband arrived from Glendochart in the afternoon of that day. She was very full of explanations as to how it was impossible to come sooner, and how the illness had gone on so long, she had no belief in its speedy ending. She went up dutifully to the death-chamber, and shed a natural tear or two and came down again with her handkerchief to her eyes. “I thought my mother would have seen us all out, I never mind of her anything but ill,” she remarked, her ideas still being Scottish though her voice, since her visit to London, had taken on what she considered an English accent. “We had got to think, Glendochart and me, that she would go on as long as any of us. It was a great shock. If I had thought there was danger, I would have been here.”
Then there was a little natural family conversation and a few more natural tears. And Kirsteen gave her sister an account of the last hours which she had witnessed, which Mary listened to with due gravity and a little feeling, saying at intervals, “My poor mother!” “She had always a very feeling heart!” “She was always so proud of her family!” as occasion required. “And what did my father say when he saw you, Kirsteen? I did not think you would dare to come, but Glendochart thought ye would dare anything, and it appears he knew better than me.”
Kirsteen repressed the spark of resentment which this speech called forth. “My father said little to me. He made no objection, but he was not kind to Anne.”
“To Anne!” Mary cried with horror, looking round lest any one should hear.