And the tears were all clear out of her brown eyes, and her smile ready, to meet the world with, when she came out of the dimness of the cottage door. John Robertson stood there watching her as she went along by the neighbors’ doors, and it was more from the shadow on his face than on hers that the women divined some trouble in the family.
“Is’t about Willie?” they said. “You should speak to your faither, Jeanie, a sensible lass like you. Though he’s listed, what’s to hinder but he may do real well yet?”
“I had an uncle, as decent a man as ever was, that listed in his young days,” said another.
Jeanie received these consolations with her habitual smile.
“I think that too,” she said. “There wouldna be so muckle about good sodgers in the Bible if they were all bad men that listed; and so I’ve tellt him.”
So close to her heart did she wear it, that nobody suspected Jeanie’s own private cincture of care.
CHAPTER X.
“Papa has no objections,” said Margaret, demurely; “he says if you will come he will be—glad to see you.” This, however, being an addition made on the spot, she faltered over it, not quite knowing how it was to be supported by fact; and she added, timidly, “Will you really take all that trouble for me? Perhaps I am stupid. I think very likely I am stupid; for I cannot draw anything— I have been trying,” she said, with a great blush.
“You have been trying! I should like to see what you have done. If you could have seen my stumbles and blunders, you would have had no respect for me at all,” said Rob Glen; “and how I dare now to take upon me to teach you, who probably know more than I do—”
“Oh, I know nothing at all—just nothing at all! What shall we do, Mr.—Glen? I found a book and some pencils. I think there is everything in the world up in the old presses in the high room. What shall we do first? Might I begin with—the house? or a tree?”