“I hope and trust,” said Bell, still nervous, “that he is a wiselike boy with a proper upbringing, who will not be frightened at travelling and make no mistakes about the train. If he was a Scotch laddie, with the fear of God in him, I would not be a bit put about for him, for he would be sure to be asking, asking, and if he felt frightened he would just start and eat something, like a Christian. But this poor child has no advantages—just American!”
Ailie sat back in her chair, with her teacup in her hand, and laughed, and Kate laughed quietly—though it beat her to see where the fun was; and the dog laughed likewise—at least it wagged its tail and twisted its body and made such extraordinary sounds in its throat that you could say it was laughing.
“Tuts! you are the droll woman, Bell,” said Mr. Dyce, blinking at her. “You have the daftest ideas of Some things. For a woman who spent so long a time in Miss Mushet's seminary, and reads so much at the newspapers, I wonder at you.”
“Of course his father was Scotch, that's one mercy,” added Bell, not a bit annoyed at the reception of her pious opinions.
“That, is always something to be going on with,” said Mr. Dyce, mockingly. “I hope he'll make the most of that great start in life and fortune. It's as good as money in his pocket.”
Bell put up a tiny hand and pushed a stray curl (for she had a rebel chevelure) behind her ear, and smiled in spite of her anxiety about the coming nephew. “You may laugh if you like, Dan,” she said, emphatically, perking with her head across the table at him, “but I'm proud, I'm proud, I'm PROUD I'm Scotch.” (“Not apologizing for it myself,” said her brother, softly.) “And you know what these Americans are! Useless bodies, who make their men brush their own boots, and have to pay wages that's a sin to housemaids, and eat pie even-on.”
“Dear me! is that true, or did you see it in a newspaper?” said her brother. “I begin to be alarmed myself at the possibilities of this small gentleman now on his way to the north, in the complete confidence of Mr. Molyneux, who must think him very clever. It's a land of infant prodigies he comes from; even at the age of ten he may have more of the stars and stripes in him than we can eradicate by a diet of porridge and a curriculum of Shorter Catechism and Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs. Faith, I was fond of Jane myself when I read her first: she was nice and bloody. A big soft hat with a bash in it, perhaps; a rhetorical delivery at the nose, 'I guess and calculate' every now and then; a habit of chewing tobacco” (“We'll need a cuspidor,” said Ailie, sotto voce); “and a revolver in his wee hip-pocket. Oh, the darling! I can see him quite plainly.”
“Mercy on us!” cried the maid, Kate, and fled the room all in a tremor at the idea of the revolver.
“You may say what you like, but I cannot get over his being an American,” said Bell, solemnly. “The dollar's everything in America, and they're so independent!”
“Terrible! terrible!” said her brother, ironically, breaking into another egg fiercely with his knife, as if he were decapitating the President of the United States.