“But can you tell me, Mr. D-D-Dyce,” said Wanton Wully, with as much assurance as if he was prepared to pay by the Table of Fees, “what's the difference between the U.F.'s and the Frees? I've looked at it from every point, and I canna see it.”
“Come and ask me some day when you're sober,” said the lawyer, and Wanton Wully snorted.
“If I was sober,” said he, “I wouldna want to ken—I wouldna give a curse.”
Yet each time Bud came home she seemed, to the mind of her auntie Bell, a little further off from them—a great deal older, a great deal less dependent, making for womanhood in a manner that sometimes was astounding, as when sober issues touched her, set her thinking, made her talk in fiery ardors. Aunt Ailie gloried in that rapid growth; Aunt Bell lamented, and spoke of brains overtaxed and fevered, and studies that were dangerous. She made up her mind a score of times to go herself to Edinburgh and give a warning to the teachers; but the weeks passed, and the months, and by-and-by the years, till almost three were gone, and the Edinburgh part of Lennox's education was drawing to a close, and the warning visit was still to pay.
It was then, one Easter came. The Macintosh.
Bell and Ailie were out that afternoon for their daily walk in the woods or along the shore, when Mr. Dyce returned from the sheriff's court alert and buoyant, feeling much refreshed at the close of an encounter with a lawyer who, he used to say, was better at debating than himself, having more law-books in his possession and a louder voice. Letting himself in with his pass-key, he entered the parlor, and was astonished to find a stranger, who rose at his approach and revealed a figure singular though not unpleasing. There was something ludicrous in her manner as she moved a step or two from the chair in which she had been sitting. Small, and silver-gray in the hair, with a cheek that burned—it must be with embarrassment—between a rather sallow neck and sunken temples, and wearing smoked spectacles with rims of tortoiseshell, she would have attracted attention anywhere even if her dress had been less queer. Queer it was, but in what manner Daniel Dyce was not the person to distinguish. To him there was about it nothing definitely peculiar, except that the woman wore a crinoline, a Paisley shawl of silken white, and such a bonnet as he had not seen since Grandma Buntain's time.
“Be seated, ma'am,” said he. “I did not know I had the honor of a visitor,” and he gave a second, keener glance that swept the baffling figure from the flounced green poplin to the snow-white lappet of her bonnet. A lady certainly—that was in the atmosphere, however odd might be her dress. “Where, in the world has this one dropped from?” he asked himself and waited an explanation.
“Oh, Mr. Dyce!” said the lady, in a high, shrill voice that plainly told she never came from south of the border, and with a certain trepidation in her manner, “I'm feared I come at an inconvenient time to ye, and I maybe should hae bided at your office; but they tell't me ye were out at what they ca'd a Pleading Diet. I've come about my mairrage.”
“Your marriage!” said the lawyer, scarcely hiding his surprise.
“Yes, my mairrage!” she repeated, sharply, drawing the silken shawl about her shoulders, bridling. “There's naething droll, I hope and trust, in a maiden lady ca'in' on a writer for his help about her settlements!” “Not at all—not at all, ma'am,” said Daniel Dyce. “I'm honored in your confidence.” And he pushed his spectacles up on his brow that he might see her less distinctly and have the less inclination to laugh at such an eccentric figure.