“Eh, puir laddie!” exclaimed Miss Janet, with glistening eye. “I could find it in my heart to be glad too, Miss Menie, though we are to lose you, for his sake. I think I see the glint in his eye when he hears the good news.”
And Miss Janet’s own eyes shone with loving, unselfish sympathy, as she repeated, “Randy, puir callant! and no a creature heeding about him, mair than he was a common young man, in a’ yon muckle toun!”
“We’ll let Randall say his pleasure himsel,” said his father, who was more delicately careful of embarrassing Menie than either sister or daughter—perhaps more, indeed, than the occasion required. “For my part, I’m no glad, and never would pretend to be; and if Mrs Laurie makes up her mind to stay”——
“What then?” said Menie, looking up quickly, with a flush of displeasure.
“I’ll say she’s a very sensible woman,” said the farmer. “Ay, May, my lassie, truly will I, for a’ that bonnie gloom of yours—or whatever my son Randall may have to say.”
CHAPTER IV.
“I’ve been hearing something from Miss Menie, mem,” said Jenny, entering the parlour of Burnside with a determined air, and planting herself firmly behind the door. Jenny was very short, very much of one thickness from the shoulders to the edge of the full round skirts under which pattered her hasty feet—and had a slight deformity, variously estimated by herself and her rustic equals according to the humour of the moment—being no more than “a high shouther” in Jenny’s sunshiny weather, but reaching the length of a desperate “thraw” when Jenny’s temper had come to be as “thrawn” as her frame. A full circle, bunchy, substantial, and comfortable, were Jenny’s woollen skirts, striped in cheerful colours; and you had no warrant for supposing that any slovenly superfluous bulk increased the natural dimensions of the round, considerable waist, or stiff, well-tightened boddice, of which Jenny’s clean short gown and firmly tied apron-strings defined the shape so well. Very scanty was Jenny’s hair, and very little of it appeared under her white muslin cap; and Jenny’s complexion was nothing to boast of, though some withered bloom remained upon her cheeks. Her lips closed upon each other firmly; her brow was marked with sundry horizontal lines, which it was by no means difficult to deepen into a frown; and Jenny’s eyes, grey, keen, and active, were at this present moment set in fierce steadiness and gravity; while the little snort of her “fuff,” and the little nod of her cap, with its full, well-ironed borders, gave timely intimation of the mood in which Jenny came.
“Yes, Jenny,” said Mrs Laurie, laying down her work on her knee, and sitting back into her chair. Mrs Laurie knew the signs and premonitions well, and lost no time in setting her back against the rock, and taking up her weapons of defence.
“I say I’ve been hearing something from Miss Menie, mem,” repeated Jenny still more emphatically; “things are come a gey length, to my puir thought, when it’s the youngest of the house that brings word of a great change to me!—and I’m thinking the best thing we can do is to part friends as lang as we can keep up decent appearances; so maybe ye’ll take the trouble, mem, if it’s no owre muckle freedom of me asking you, to look out for a new lass afore the term.”
“Indeed, Jenny, I’ll do no such thing,” said Mrs Laurie quietly. Jenny heeded not, but went on with a little nervous motion of her head, half shake, half nod, and many a snort and half-drawn breath interposed between.