“Once it was the cause with me, now I would sooner have it Scotland,” she went on, heedless of my interruption. “Scotland! Scotland! Oh, how the name of her is like a dirge to me, and my heart is sore for her! Where is your heart, Mr. Greig, that it does not feel alarm at the prospect of these crapauds making a single night's sleep uneasy for the folks you know? Where is your heart, I'm asking?”
“I wish I knew,” said I impulsively, staring at her, completely bewitched by her manner so variable and intense, and the straying tendrils of her hair.
“Do you not?” said she. “Then I will tell you. It is where it ought to be—with a girl of the name of Isobel Fortune. Oh, the dear name! oh, the sweet name! And when you are on your travels with this priest do not be forgetting her. Oh, yes! I know you will tell me again that all is over between the pair of you, and that she loved another—but I am not believing a word of that, Mr. Greig, when I look at you—(and will ye say 'thank ye' for the compliment that's there?)—you will just go on thinking her the same, and you will be the better man for it. There's something tells me she is thinking of you though I never saw her, the dear! Let me see, this is what sort of girl she will be.”
She drew her chair closer to the settee and leaned forward in front of me, and, fixing her eyes on mine, drew a picture of the girl of Kirkillstane as she imagined her.
“She will be about my own height, and with the same colour of hair-”
“How do you know that? I never said a word of that to you,” I cried, astonished at the nearness of her first guess.
“Oh, I'm a witch,” she cried triumphantly, “a fair witch. Hoots! do I no' ken ye wadna hae looked the side o' the street I was on if I hadna put ye in mind o' her? Well, she's my height and colour—but, alack-a-day, no' my years. She 'll have a voice like the mavis for sweetness, and 'll sing to perfection. She'll be shy and forward in turns, accordin' as you are forward and shy; she 'll can break your heart in ten minutes wi' a pout o' her lips or mak' ye fair dizzy with delight at a smile. And then”—here Miss Walkinshaw seemed carried away herself by her fancy portrait, for she bent her brows studiously as she thought, and seemed to speak in an abstraction—“and then she'll be a managing woman. She'll be the sort of woman that the Bible tells of whose value is over rubies; knowing your needs as you battle with the world, and cheerful when you come in to the hearthstone from the turmoil outside. A witty woman and a judge of things, calm but full of fire in your interests. A household where the wife's a doll is a cart with one wheel, and your Isobel will be the perfect woman. I think she must have travelled some, too, and seen how poor is the wide world compared with what is to be found at your own fire-end; I think she must have had trials and learned to be brave.”
She stopped suddenly, looked at me and got very red in the face.
“A fine picture, Miss Walkinshaw!” said I, with something drumming at my heart. “It is not just altogether like Isobel Fortune, who has long syne forgot but to detest me, but I fancy I know who it is like.”
“And who might that be?” she asked in a low voice and with a somewhat guilty look.