“Papa-w!” with about half of a W at the end of the last syllable, said Archie.
“Papa!” said Marion. They were both discomfited, but the girl least. She fell back a little upon the bodyguard as it were of her brother. “It was you that said that about the new family,” she whispered in Archie’s ear.
“I am not denying it,” said Archie. “He had no business to come in like this and take us unawares.”
Mrs. Brown gave Rowland a fat hand to shake and then she subsided into a chair and began to cry: “Eh, to think it should be you! and sae mony years come and gane since ye parted with us a’—and such things as have happened. Ye was but young then and your heart was running on many a thing out of common folks’ way—and to see ye back again looking little the worse, and a’ your fancies fulfilled! It’s just the maist wonderful thing I ever heard of. But eh! Jims Rowland, you’re an awfu’ changed man from what ye were when ye went away.”
“I am seventeen years older,” Rowland said.
“It’s no that—but you’re far different. You were a heartbroken lad then. ‘Twas for the loss of your wife, my bonnie sister Mary—and now you’re back with a new lady to put out her very name from the airth.”
“I think,” said Rowland in his own defence, “that not to marry again for more than sixteen years was surely enough to show my respect for her memory.”
“I never thought you would have married again,” said Mrs. Brown. “Mony a time it’s been said to me, ‘He’ll get another wife out yonder’—but I would never believe it. I just could not think it true. Eh man, when ye had a bonny dochter o’ your ain grown up, and just real well qualified to be the mistress of her faither’s house——”
“Jane,” said Mr. Rowland, with seriousness, “I have a great regard for you. You’ve been, no doubt, a careful guardian of the children—but I cannot answer to you for what I do.”
“Na, na, I never imagined it. Ye just acted to please your ain sel’, considering nobody. I’m no finding fault—I’m just wondering. And there’s the bairns. What think ye of them? Are they no a credit to any house? and a pleasure to the eyes, and a comfort to the heart?”