“Bless me, no, Miss Lily!” cried Robina; but she added: “Eh, my bonnie bairn, there’s many a thing that’s no expedient, though it’s no wrong. I wouldna just say any thing to Miss Eelen if I was you. She’s maybe no to be trusted with a story. The minister had sent her out o’ the road yon evening in the Manse. Baith me and Katrin remarked it, for she’s his right hand and he can do nothing without her in a common way, but yon time she just didna appear.”
“Did he think I was not good enough——” Lily began in a flutter, but stopped immediately. “What a silly creature I am! as if there could be any thing in that. Do you think I have such a long tongue that I want to go and publish to every-body every thing that happens?”
“Oh, Miss Lily, no me! never such a thought was in my head; but it would be real natural, and you no a person to speak to except Katrin and me, that are servants baith, though we would go through fire and water for you. But you see she wasna there, and if I were you, Miss Lily——”
“You happen not to be me,” cried Lily, with eyes blazing, glad of an opportunity to shed upon Beenie something of the vague irritation in her heart, “and since we are speaking of that, what do you mean, both Katrin and you, that were both present, in calling me Miss Lily, Miss Lily, as if I were a small thing in the nursery, when you know I am a married woman?” Lily cried, throwing back her head.
“Oh, Miss Lily!” cried Robina, with a suppressed shriek, running to the door. She looked out with a little alarm, and then came back apologetically. “You never ken who may be about. That Dougal man might have been passing, though he has nothing ado up the stair.”
“And what if he had been passing?” Lily said in high disdain.
“Oh, Miss Lily!” cried Robina, again giving the girl a troubled look.
“Do you mean to say that Dougal does not know? Do you mean he thinks—that man that is my servant, that lives in the house—— Oh, what can he think?” cried Lily, clasping her hands together in the vehemence of her horror and shame.
“He just thinks nothing at a’. He’s no a man to trouble any body with what he thinks. He’s keepit very weel in order, and if he daured to fash his head with what he has nae business with! He just guesses you twa are troth-plighted lovers, Miss Lily, and glad he was to get our young maister away.”
Lily covered her face with her hands. “Am I a secret, then, a secret!” she cried. “Something that’s hidden, just a lie, no true woman! How dared you let me do it, then—you that have been with me all my days? Why did ye not step in and say: ‘Lily, Lily, it’s all deceiving. It’s a secret, something to be hidden!’ Would I ever have bound myself to a secret, to be a man’s wife and never to say it? Oh, Beenie, I thought you cared, that you were fond of me, and me not a creature to tell me what I was doing! No mother, no friend, nobody but you.”