“The laddie is a complete wanderer,” said the Mistress, not without a little complacence. “I could not undertake to mind, for my part, all the places he’s been in—though they’re a’ names you see in books—he’s been in Eetaly, and he’s been in Germany, and now he’s back again in France; but I canna say he forgets hame either,” she added, with a tender pride, “only the like of him must improve his mind; and foreign travel, folk say, is good for that—though I canna say I ever had much to do with foreigners, or likit them mysel’.”
“Did you ever hear of any one from this country marrying a Frenchman, Mrs. Livingstone?” asked Katie.
“Marrying a Frenchman? I’ll warrant have I—it’s no’ such a great wonder, but the like of me might hear tell of it in a lifetime,” said the Mistress, with a little offense, “but marriage is no’ aye running in everybody’s head, Miss Katie, and there’s little fear of my Cosmo bringing me hame a French wife.”
“No, I did not think of that,” said Katie, with a smile, “I was thinking of the little French governess at Melmar, whose mother, they say, came from this quarter, or near it. She is an odd little girl and yet I like her—Cosmo saw her in Edinburgh, and she was very anxious, when she came to the manse, to hear about Norlaw. I thought perhaps you might have known who her mother was.”
The Mistress was slightly startled—she looked up at Katie quickly, with a sparkle of impatience in her eye, and a rising color.
“Me!” said the Mistress. “How should I ken? There might have been a hundred young women in the countryside married upon Frenchmen for any thing I could tell. ‘This quarter’ is a wide word. I ken nae mair about Melrose and what happens there, wha’s married or wha dies, than if it was a thousand miles away. And many a person has heard tell of Norlaw that I ken naething about, and that never heard tell of me.”
Katie paused to consider after this. She knew and understood so much of the Mistress’s character that she neither took offense nor wished to excite it. This had not been a quite successful essay at conversation, and Katie took a little time to think before she began again.
But while Katie’s thoughts left this subject, those of the Mistress held to it. Silence fell upon them again, disturbed only by the rustle of their sleeves as they worked, and the crackle of the fire, which burned brightly, when suddenly the Mistress asked:—
“What like is she?” with an abruptness which took away Katie’s breath.
“She?"—it required an effort to remember that this was Desirée of whom they had been speaking—“the little girl at Melmar?” asked Katie. “She is little and bright, and pretty, with very dark eyes and dark hair, a quick little creature, like a bird or a fairy. I confess I was half afraid of her, because she was French,” admitted the little mistress of the manse with a blush and a laugh, “but she is a very sweet, winning little girl, with pretty red lips, and white teeth, and black eyes—very little—less than me.”