“I think it would be different with me,” he said, with a laugh that somehow offended Jeanie, she could not tell how. But then he began to lavish sweet words and praises upon her, so that the girl’s vanity was soothed and her imagination excited. He told her where he would take her—to London, and then abroad, which was a word of no tangible import to her ignorance, but meant only everything that was brilliant and splendid—and of all the beautiful places she should see, and the beautiful things she should have.
“I suppose,” said Jeanie, “we would go to see the king?”
“There is no king, in that way,” he said, with a laugh.
“But there is a court, for we see it in the paper,” said Jeanie. “If it is the prince, it would just be the same.”
“We’ll not go to the court this time,” he said, with another of those laughs which wounded Jeanie, she could not tell how.
“I thought it was the right way,” said Jeanie, thoughtfully. What she was thinking was, that in that case she would not meet him, and that the heart of her triumph would be lost.
“In some cases,” he said, still laughing, “but not in ours, my lovely dear. We will never think of the world, we’ll think only of love. Whatever’s pleasantest my Jeanie shall see, but nothing so bonny as herself.”
“There will be many things in London besides the court—there is my sister Kirsteen,” said Jeanie, still musing. “Oh, I will be glad to see Kirsteen.”
“It’s clear I am not enough for my Jeanie, though my Jeanie is enough for me!”
“Oh, it is not that,” said Jeanie, vaguely. In her heart, however, there was no doubt a sensation that to dazzle him with her grandeur, and to make her sister a spectator of her new and exalted life, were the things to which she looked forward most.