“It’s not the case, it’s not the case,” said the poor lady, touched in the tenderest point. “I had my mother’s garnets, as bonny a set as ever was seen, and I had a brooch with a real diamant inside it, and a pearl pin—and—oh, I’m no meaning to say a word to blame your father, but what do men ken of such things? And it’s not the case! It’s not the case! Ye’re not to believe him,” she said, with a feverish flush upon her cheeks.
“Bits of red glass and bits of white, and a small paste head on the end of a brass preen,” said Drumcarro, with a mocking laugh.
“Father, let her be,” cried Kirsteen. “I’ll not have her crossed, my bonny minnie, not for all the balls that ever were.”
“You’ll not have her crossed! You’re a bonny one to lift your face to your father. If you say another word ye shall not go.”
“I care not if I should never go—I will not have my mother vexed, not for the Duke nor the Castle nor a’ Scotland,” cried Kirsteen, with fire gleaming in her hazel eyes.
“Oh, ye fool, ye fool! and him for once in a good key,” cried Mary, in her sister’s ear.
CHAPTER VIII.
Mrs. Douglas was the first to echo this prudent advice when after she had wept away the sting of that atrocious accusation and minutely described her “bonny dyes” (her pretty things) to her children who, indeed, had heard all about them often, and knew the pearl pin and the garnets by heart, and had been comforted with a cup of tea, she came to herself. And by that time Kirsteen’s indignation too had cooled, and thoughts of the heaven of the Castle, with fine ladies and grand gentlemen pacing forth as in the ballads, and music playing and the sound of the dancers’ feet, began to buzz in her young head and fill it with longings. If he had been at home he would have been there. It would never now be what it might have been had it happened before. But even with that great blank of absence Kirsteen was but twenty, and her heart did not refuse to throb a little at this unthought of, unhoped for prospect. Just to see it, and how great persons behaved, and what like the world was, when you were in it, that world which represents itself in so many different ways to the youthful imagination. Kirsteen felt that at the Castle she would see it in all its glory, nothing better in the King’s own court—for was it not under the shadow of the Duke, and what could fancy desire more? She would need no further enlightenment or experience of the aspect of society, and what it was and how it looked, than she could get there. This was the Highland girl’s devout belief; Vedi Napoli e poi morire; earth could not have anything to show more fair.
Marg’ret would have been more than a woman had she not been all-glorious over this event “I just daured him to do it,” she said, “to let the occasion pass by and nane of his daughters seen, and a’ their chances lost.”