"My son-in-law!" said his wife, in a suppressed shriek. "But Carry has refused him," she added, with relief.
"To-night—being flurried, and not knowing her own mind; but she will know better to-morrow."
"Robert! for heaven's sake, when she has been so distressed by this most hateful proposal, you surely will not suffer it to be repeated!"
"Why should it be a hateful proposal?" he said.
"Why?" Lady Lindores did not know how to answer; if he did not see it, if it did not jump at his eyes, as she said to herself, what explanation would make it clearer? She tried to smile and approach him on another side. "Dear Robert," she said, tremulously—"to think of you taking the part of such a man! He must have some fine qualities, I am sure, or you never could have endured the outside of him, or his manners, or his talk. He is so unlike you, so unlike anything the girls have ever been taught to care for." If this was flattery, surely it may be forgiven to the anxious mother. She was anxious too, as a wife, that her husband should not come down from the pedestal on which it had been her pride to keep him for so many years.
"That is all very well," he said, impatiently; "but I never set myself up as a model of what my children were to like. Yes; he has fine qualities, golden qualities. Do you know that he is the richest commoner in Scotland, Lady Lindores?"
"I know," she said, with quick offence, the tears starting suddenly to her eyes, "that my name is Mary, and that I hate this wretched title, which I shall never get used to, and never tolerate if my husband calls me by it. We are all, all, put asunder, all changed, and finding each other out since we came here."
This little outburst was partly real and partly a half-conscious art to find an outlet for her excitement. Her husband was more touched by it than if it had been more serious. The complaint was fantastic, yet it was one which love might be excused for making. "My love," he said, "of course I meant nothing unkind. There have been times when I called you Mrs Lindores in jest, as I did just now. But, seriously, you must see what I am thinking of—you must give me your support. We are poor. If Rintoul is to take the position to which he is entitled after me——"
"You mean Robin? I tell you I hate those new names!" she cried.
"This is foolish, Mary. If he is to enter upon life when his time comes weighted with a heavy provision for his sisters—consider; there is poor Jane. She is quite young; she may outlive us all: and if I were to die, there would be two jointures besides Car and Edith."