“It is not that she is pretty,” said Lilias; “I cannot tell what the charm is—but the charm is great, I know. Hope, you know Miss Buchanan best—tell Miss Maxwell what it is.”
“But, Miss Maxwell, I am sure you know better than me,” said Hope, dubiously, her triumph checked by fear, lest her own powers of description should fail. “I don’t know what it is except it is just because Helen is a gentlewoman.”
Miss Maxwell of Firthside elevated her good-looking small head, with its nez retroussé, and looked contemptuous. Mr Oswald pushed back his chair hastily.
“Hope is very right,” said Lilias; “but there are gentlewomen, many of them, to whom nothing could give that singular refinement. It is not conventional grace of manner at all, either; one cannot tell what it is.”
“Is that Miss Buchanan? Oh, I know her—I know her!” cried one of the Firthside boys. “She hit me once; but I think I like her for all that.”
“Miss Buchanan struck you?” said his sister. “What did she do that for?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you, Georgina!” said a smaller youth. “He was hitting Robbie Carlyle’s cuddie with his switch—he’s a cuddie himself—he was hitting me just before; and the young lady came up and took the switch from him and loundered him. Oh, didn’t he deserve it!”
“She didna lounder me!” cried the first speaker, indignantly, forgetting in his haste that his vernacular should not be spoken before ears polite. “She only hit me once, and laughed, and asked me how I likit it. She never hurt me; and we’re good friends now.”
“Is that a way to speak, Hector?” cried the young lady-sister, in dismay. “What a vulgar boy you are!”
Hope with difficulty restrained a retort as to the superior elegance of our kindly Scottish tongue, when little Agnes Elliot came running forward with the nuts which William Oswald could not be induced to put into the fire for her.