“I have no objection that ye should try,” said Miss Macnab, rising from her knees, “it’s aye the best lesson. When I was in a lairger way of business, with young ones working under me, I aye let them try their ain way; and maistly I found they were well content after to turn to mine—that is if they were worth the learning,” she added composedly; “there are many that are just a waste of time and pains.”
“And these are the ones that take their own way? But if I were to take mine I would never yield, I would make it answer,” said Kirsteen. She added with a blush, “I just cannot think enough of all your trouble and the pains ye take.”
Miss Macnab gave the blushing girl a friendly look. She had again her mouth full, so that speech was impossible, but she nodded kindly and with dignity in return for this little burst of approval which she knew to be her due; and it was with all the confidence of conscious merit and a benign condescension that she expounded her methods afterwards. “If ye dinna get the skirt to fall straight from the waist, ye will never mend it at the foot,” she said. “I can see you’re ane that can comprehend a principle, my bonnie missie. Take a’ the trouble ye can at the beginning, and the end will come right of itsel’. A careless start means a double vexation in the finish. And that ye’ll find to apply,” said this mild philosopher, “to life itsel’ as well as to the dressmaking, which is just like a’ the airts I ever heard tell of, a kind of epitome of life.”
Kirsteen could not but break out into a laugh again, notwithstanding her compunction, at the dressmaker’s high yet mild pretension; but she listened with great interest while Mary stood and gave all her thoughts to the serious subject of the skirt and how it would hang. “I just pay no attention to what she’s saying, but I would like my gown to hang as well as any there, and you must take trouble for that,” was Mary’s report afterwards when the gown was found to be perfect. And what with these differing motives and experiences the workroom was the opening of new interests in Drumcarro, as important as even the ball at the Castle. The excitement and continued interest made the greatest improvement in Mrs. Douglas’s health, who came and sat in Miss Macnab’s room and gave a hundred directions which the dressmaker received blandly but paid no attention to. Marg’ret herself was stirred by the presence of the artist. She not only excelled herself in the scones she made for Miss Macnab’s tea, but she would come in the afternoon when she was not “throng” and stand with her hands upon each side of her ample waist and admire the work and add no insignificant part to the conversation, discoursing of her own sister, Miss Jean Brown, that was in a very large way of business in London, having gone there as a lady’s maid twenty years before. The well-born Miss Macnab allowed with a condescending wave of her hand that many began in that way. “But my opinion is that it wants good blood in your veins and a leddy’s breeding before you’ll ever make a gown that will set off a leddy,” she said to the little circle, but only, not to hurt her feelings, after Marg’ret was gone.
While these proceedings were occupying all his family, Drumcarro himself proceeded with the practical energy which hitherto had only been exercised on behalf of his sons to arrange for his daughters’ presentation to the world. More exciting to the county than a first drawing-room of the most splendid season was the ball at the Castle which was by far the finest thing that many of the Argyllshire ladies of those days ever saw. Even among those who like the family of Drumcarro owned no clan allegiance to the Duke, the only way of approaching the beau monde, the great world which included London and the court as well as the Highlands was by his means. The Duke in his own country was scarcely second to the far off and unknown King whose throne was shrouded in such clouds of dismay and trouble, and the Duchess was in all but name a far more splendid reality than the old and peevish majesty, without beauty or prestige, who sat in sullen misery at Windsor. To go to London, or even to Edinburgh, to the Lord High Commissioner’s receptions at Holyrood, was a daring enterprise that nobody dreamed of; but to go to the Castle was the seal of good blood and breeding. When he had got this notion into his head Drumcarro was as determined upon it as the fondest father could have been. The girls were of no consequence, but his daughters had their rights with the best, and he would not have the family let down even in their insignificant persons; not to speak of the powerful suggestion of relieving himself from further responsibility by putting them each in the way of finding “a man.”
He made his appearance accordingly one afternoon in the little house inhabited by Miss Eelen, to the great surprise of that lady. It was a very small, gray house, standing at a corner of the village street, with a small garden round it, presenting a curious blank and one-eyed aspect, from the fact that every window that could be spared, and they were not abundant to start with, had been blocked up on account of the window-tax. Miss Eelen’s parlour was dark in consequence, though it had originally been very bright, with a corner window towards the loch and the quay with all its fishing-boats. This, however, was completely built up, and the prospect thus confined to the street and the merchant’s opposite—a little huckster’s shop in which everything was sold from needles to ploughshares. Miss Eelen was fond of this window, it was so cheerful; and it was true that nobody could escape her who went to Robert Duncan’s—the children who had more pennies to spend than was good for them, or the servant girls who went surreptitiously with bottles underneath their aprons. Miss Eelen kept a very sharp eye upon all the movements of the town, but even she acknowledged the drowsiness that comes after dinner, and sat in her big chair near the fire with her back turned to the window, “her stocking” in her lap, and her eyes, as she would have described it, “gathering straes,” when Mr. Douglas paid her that visit. Her cat sat on a footstool on the other side, majestically curling her tail around her person, and winking at the fire like her mistress. The peats were burning with their fervent flameless glow, and comfort was diffused over the scene. When Drumcarro came in Miss Eelen started and instinctively put up her hands to her cap, which in these circumstances had a way of getting awry.
“Bless me, Drumcarro! is this you?”
“I hope they’re all well?”
“Very well, I am obliged to you. I just came in to say a word about—the Castle—”