“Whiles He is—h’m—injudicious,” said the Doctor. “But what about Aunt Bell?”
“There’s no buts about it, though I admit I’m worried to think of Auntie Bell. She considers acting is almost as bad as lying, and talks about the theatre as Satan’s abode. If it wasn’t that she was from home to-night, I daren’t have been here. I wish—I wish I didn’t love her so—almost—for I feel I’ve got to vex her pretty bad.”
“Indeed you have!” said Dr Brash. “And you’ve spoiled my dancing, for I’ve a great respect for that devoted little woman.”
Back in the alcove The Macintosh found more to surround her than ever, though it was the penalty of her apparent age that they were readier to joke than dance with her. Captain Consequence, wanting a wife with money, if and when his mother should be taken from him, never lost a chance to see how a pompous manner and his medals would affect strange ladies. He was so marked in his attention, and created such amusement to the company, that, pitying him, and fearful of her own deception, she proposed to tell fortunes. The ladies brought her their emptied teacups; the men solemnly laid their palms before her; she divined, for all, their past and future in a practised way that astonished her uncle and aunt, who, afraid of some awkward sally, had kept aloof at first from her levee, but now were the most interested of her audience.
Over the leaves in Miss Minto’s cup she frowned through her clouded glasses. “There’s lots o’ money,” said she, “and a braw house, and a muckle garden wi’ bees and trees in’t, and a wheen boys speilin’ the wa’s—you may be aye assured o’ bien circumstances, Miss Minto.”
Miss Minto, warmly conscious of the lawyer at her back, could have wished for a fortune less prosaic.
“Look again; is there no’ a man to keep the laddies awa’?” suggested the Provost, pawky body!
“I declare there is!” cried The Macintosh, taking the hint. “See; there! he’s under this tree, a’ huddled up in an awfu’ passion.”
“I can’t make out his head,” said the Provost’s lady.
“Some men hae nane,” retorted the spaewife; “but what’s to hinder ye imaginin’ it like me?”