“How can you judge yourself?” said Margaret, with fine and flattering scorn; “it is other people that can judge best. No; if I were you, I would go away and paint and write, and be a great man; and then you could come home and visit the place where you used to live, and see your old friends; but just now I would go away. I would go to London, into the world. I would let people see what I could do—only first I would learn Margaret Leslie to draw,” she said, with a little laugh; “that would be kind—for she never could find any one else to learn her about here.”
“That would be the finest office of all,” said Rob, inspired. “To go to London, every adventurer can do that; but to teach Miss Leslie is for few. I would rather have that privilege than—”
“Oh,” cried Margaret, careless of the compliment, “and will you paint a picture, a great picture of Earl’s-hall? I know we are poor. We are not great people, like the Bruces, or the Lindsays, or Sir Claude. We have not grand horses and carriages, and men in livery. That is just why I should like poor old mossy Earl’s-hall to be in a bonnie picture, to make folks ask where is that? what beautiful old house is that? You see,” she added, laughing, “it is not just a beautiful house. It is not what you would call comfortable, perhaps. Jean and Grace, that is, my old sisters, Miss Leslie and Mrs. Bellingham, are never tired of abusing it. It is quite true that we have not got a thing that can be called a drawing-room—not a real drawing-room,” she said, shaking her head. “You will wonder, but it is true. There is the long room, and there is the high room; the one papa sits in; and we dine in it, and he lives in it; and the other is empty, and full of—oh, everything you can think of! But there is no drawing-room, only the little West Chamber, such a little place. They say it was Lady Jean’s room, and Lady Jean—is the only ghost we have.”
“Is she the lady with the silk gown?”
“She is the Rustle,” said Margaret, not disposed to treat the family ghost lightly. “You never see her, you only hear as if a grand lady walked by with her train sweeping. I think there is that very train in the old aumrie, as Bell calls it. But what I was saying was, because it is so old, Mr. Glen, because it’s not grand, nor even comfortable—oh, I would like a bonnie picture, a real beautiful picture, of poor old Earl’s-hall!”
“You must make one,” he said.
“Yes, if I can; but you must make one first. You must take a big sheet of paper and draw it all out; I will show you the best view; and you must paint in every bit of it, the tower and the view from the tower (but, perhaps, after all, it would be difficult to put in the view, you must make another picture of that); and you must put it up in a beautiful frame, and write upon it ‘Old Earl’s-hall.’ Oh! that will make Jean and Grace jump. They will say, ‘Who can have done it? Earl’s-hall—papa’s place—that horrid, tumble-down old Scotch crow’s-nest!’” Margaret was a mimic, without knowing it, and mouthed this forth with the warmest relish in Mrs. Bellingham’s very tone. But her own acting of her elder sister called forth lively indignation in the girl’s warlike soul. “That’s what they dare to call it,” she cried, stopping to stamp her foot. “My Earl’s-hall! But this is what you will do, Mr. Glen, if you want to please me. You will make a picture—not a common thing—a beautiful picture, that everybody will talk about; and send it to the biggest place in London, in the season when everybody is there, and hang it up for everybody to see.”
“To please you,” said Rob, “I would do a great deal—I would do—” he went on, sinking his voice, “as much as man can do.” Margaret scarcely turned to him as he began to speak; but when his voice sank lower, her attention was caught. She raised her head with a little surprise, and, catching his eye, blushed: and paused, arrested, and wondering— What did he mean? Her frank girlish astonishment was very discomposing; he himself blushed and faltered, and stopped in the middle of his pretty speech—“as much as man can do!” but it was not so very much she asked him for. It seemed necessary to Margaret to say this to make things clear.
“Oh no,” she said, with a shake of her head, “not that; though there are many men could not do what I want you to do, Mr. Glen; but you can do it easy—quite easy. What will I want to begin with?” she added, changing the subject abruptly, and with true Scotch disregard for the difference between shall and will. This gentle indifference to his protestations chilled Rob a little. She had been so sweet and gracious to him that her demand upon his services only as something that he could do “easy, quite easy,” brought him to a sudden stand-still. He did not know how to reply.
“It may not be much,” he said; “but it will be all I can do. Miss Margaret, I will begin to-morrow, to show that I want to please you; and if it is not a good drawing it will not be my fault, nor for want of trying.”