“My laddie,” she said in her tears; “it’s no only that you’ll be taken from me, but I’ll have to think of mysel’ too. I canna keep up a house like this over my head, nor a servant to do my work. I will have to get lodgers, or take a place, or do something for my bread. I will maybe leave Gleska a’ thegither,” she added in a tone of despair as who should have said leave paradise; “for I have my little pride like other folk, and I wouldna like them that have kent me here, with every comfort about me, to see me taiglin’ after a wheen lodgers, or standing about the register office looking for a place.”
“Aunty Jane, ye cannot for a moment think that my father would leave you like that without a provision. If he does, I will leave him.”
“Oh, Archie, hold your peace; it’s not your part to speak.”
“I will!” cried the boy, flushing red. “I will never go near his grand house. He may do what he likes, he will get nothing out of me. I was just in an awful state of delight when he was coming home,” said Archie; “you know I was. It was the king enjoying his ain again, like the songs. I thought everything in the world was coming right” He turned a little aside and dashed something out of the corner of his eye. “Aunty,” he said in an altered voice, “I will confess to you that I am real disappointed in my father. He’s no the man I expected. He’s like other men, crabbed and thinking of himself. Even when he does a kind thing, as he did about that money, it’s in such a way that you just want to fling it back in his face!”
“Oh dinna say that,” cried Mrs. Brown alarmed; “you mustna say that. He has his ain ways of thinking, but he’s a good father, Archie. Look how he has kept you all your lives with every luxury; he’s grudged you nothing. It was just for me to say what you wanted, and as much as you wanted it was aye ready; never an objection in his mind. Oh, no, no! you must never say that! To turn you against your papaw is the last thing in the world that would please me. Look what he’s done for us a’ for years and years. I always kent it had to stop some time or other. At first I thought when he came hame, we would just all go to him and keep thegither. I didna realise what a grand wealthy gentleman he had grown. I thought of the siller and nothing else. I expected he would be just like what he was in the foundry, but rich, and that’s what I brought you up to expect. It was just a dreadful mistake. I saw it all the moment I set eyes upon him. I just divined it before that when I heard of his new wife. It’s my fault: you’ve not been brought up as ye ought to have been, for I didna understand things, Archie. Now I understand. But oh, my bonnie man, dinna take up a grudge against your papaw! He’s been as kind to me as ever he could be. Now he’s done wi’ me, and I’m no more wanted. I’ve nae claim upon him that he should provide for me, a great, muckle, strong woman, no fifty, quite able to work. But for the Lord’s sake, Archie, whatever you do, dinna you turn on your papaw!”
“Aunty Jane,” said the lad who was half sobbing too, “I think he’s a just man, and, as you say, he has never grudged money. If he provides for you, I’ll give you my word I’ll do justice to him. I’ll listen to no prejudice. I’ll just give him my best attention, and maybe we’ll come to understand one another. But if he doesn’t, God forgive him for it, for I’ll not. I’ll come back here, and I’ll take a situation, and we’ll fend together. You shall have no lodger but me; you’ll be housekeeper to nobody but me. This shall just be the test for him, if he’s the man I thought him or no. And if it’s no, he may search the world for a son: he’ll get none of me!”
“Oh, my ain laddie!” said Mrs. Brown, choked by tears and emotion. She could say nothing more, for at this moment the door opened and Marion entered, wearing the skirt of the pretty dress which her father had allowed her to buy at Mr. MacColl’s splendid shop. The stuff intended to make the “body” was wound round her shoulders. She resembled exceedingly one of the figures which make so fine an appearance in the shops. It was an ideal which would certainly have satisfied her highest desires. She was too much absorbed to notice the emotion of the others. “You see,” she said as she came in, “the skirt is very nice and wants no altering. It is just my length, which is a providence. I think this is far better than my silk.”
Mrs. Brown awakening to a new interest, got up and walked round her, inspecting the garment closely. Perhaps she was glad of the occasion of concluding an interview which was agitating to both; but the attraction of the half-made dress would have been a great one in any circumstances. Archie took the opportunity to escape, neither having nor pretending to have any interest in the matter, while a very keen and close discussion went on about the manner of “making up the body.” In respect to this these ladies were not of the same mind, Mrs. Brown being reluctant to accept Marion’s new theory of simplicity, which the sharp little girl had picked up somehow since the change which had come in her fortunes. Aunty Jane wanted bright ribbons, a sash, a bow at the throat “to brighten it up,” as she said. But Marion held her own. It was only at the close of the controversy that she found out that anything had been amiss. She turned upon her aunt as if she were making an accusation. “Your eyes are red,” she said; “you’ve been crying!” with a tone in which there was a certain sense of injury, as of one who had been left out.
“Weel if I have been crying, it’s naething extraordinary,” said Mrs. Brown; “naething to call for your notice.”
“What is it that’s the matter now?”