“Oh, papa!” Marion’s eyes shone; but presently a little cloud came over her. “I have not had much chance of learning tennis. The MacColls can play, they’ve got a nice ground of their own—they have just everything! But there’s no club you can get into out of the Sauchiehall Road, and you want shoes and things. I never was in the way of learning.” A little furtive moisture glistened in Marion’s eyes.
“I could let you see the way,” said Archie.
“Oh yes, laddies learn everything,” said his sister with an offended air; and then she perceived that she had been guilty of an unauthorised word. “I mean young gentlemen,” she cried.
“For heaven’s sake, whatever you mean, don’t say that,” said Rowland hastily. “However it is not a desert, as you thought: there is balm in Gilead. When you come back and settle down, you must make friends with Miss Eliza.”
“Is she a lady, papa? I would not, not for anything, make friends out of our own sphere.”
Rowland laughed loud and long. He said, “I am glad you have such an exalted idea of your sphere; but how about the MacColls?”
“I am not meaning,” said Marion, with dignity, “to keep up with the MacColls. They’re just acquaintances, not to call friends. They never even ask me to their grandest parties. If they were friends, they would have let me learn tennies and all that. I have always meant to let them know that when my papa came home, they were not good enough for me.”
“Well—perhaps it’s legitimate—if they thought you not good enough for their grand parties, and no question of friendship in the matter. But you, Archie, you’ve got some friends?”
“Yes,” said the lad with hesitation. He had no friend whom he would not have sacrificed on the altar of the puppies. “There are some of the students—but I perhaps will have little chance of seeing them after——”
“If you please,” said Sandy, the groom, who had been loitering near, “will I put in the horse? for yonder’s the steamer leaving the loch head, and she’ll sune be here.”