As for Mr. Wallowby, he thought nothing about it. He was rich and good-looking, or at least his whiskers were cut according to the most approved pattern of the time, and he was accustomed to have ladies make themselves agreeable to him. He speedily decided that Sophia was rather heavy, and he imagined from the first moment he saw her, that Mary would be more amusing, and therefore strove to improve the acquaintance. It is probable that would have been all but for Peter's airs of proprietorship in the girl and his too obvious endeavours to make him (Wallowby) interest himself in the young lady of the house as her due. This was more than man or lady-killer could stand, and the result was keen rivalry and strained diplomatic relations, which did not promise increased cordiality for the morrow, when they were to shoot in each other's company.
As for Mary, being indifferent to both, she probably preferred taking them together. Each kept the other on his mettle, which prevented dulness, and she could not but be amused with the cross looks she detected now and then passing between them. Still one may have too much of anything, and she was not sorry when a clatter of plates and dishes in Eppie's part of the house was accepted by the visitors as a warning to depart.
Roderick came in very shortly after. Mary met him with slippers and dressing-gown, and drew forward his father's old leather chair from its corner, to receive his weary frame, and recruit his strength for the Bible-class and other activities still to be gone through. She then brought the baby, and seated herself with it in a low chair near him.
'Did you ever see such lovely eyes, Roderick?'
Of course Roderick never had.
'Or such a dainty little mouth?'
Again such a mouth was never seen before, nor such intelligence, nor such a dear divine little image ever before. It was the first revelation of babyhood that had appeared in their lives, and they worshipped and wondered and reverently served, as every good soul must, before the mystery of a dawning spirit.
'It is strange,' said Roderick, after a while, 'that no enquiry should have come from any one about this little Mary of ours. I shall certainly not be sorry if no one comes to claim her. She is more than welcome to all that I can give her; but those she belongs to can have no idea what a precious little darling she is, or they would have reclaimed her ere now. My letter was printed conspicuously enough in the Witness, but it has led to nothing, not one enquiry. You will have noticed in the paper that Lord Briarhill and Mrs. Steele went to Inverlyon and identified a daughter-in-law, the wife of their son, Major Steele in India, in one of the bodies washed ashore from the wreck of the 'Maid of Cashmere,' which must be the ship I saw perish that fearful night. To tell you the truth I have been expecting a letter from his Lordship ever since, claiming the baby; for the drowned lady I saw, and who I make no doubt was baby's mother, was just what one might suppose Major Steele's wife to be like. When you write to our uncle you might mention the circumstance, and also ask him if there is any other step I should take to find relations for the little one. I am sure I had better not write him myself, till he cools down upon the church question, and that will take years, I fear. So pray write, dear, during the week.'
News was not diffused so freely five and thirty years ago as it is now. The mails, excepting between Edinburgh and Glasgow, were still carried by mail coaches, but people having never known anything better, were quite satisfied, nay proud of the free intercommunication between different parts of the kingdom, and newspapers were issued only once or twice a week. Further, Roderick's newspaper was one addressed to an ecclesiastical rather than a commercial or sea-faring public, and therefore his communication about the child was less likely to be noticed than it would have been in some other journal. However, in this instance a different mode of advertising would have mattered little. Lord Briarhill was not aware that a child accompanied his daughter-in-law, and it was not till many weeks later, that he learned from a letter received by a mail long overdue that a baby had been born a fortnight before she sailed, and had been carried with her. By that time the circumstance of a child having been picked up alive, had quite escaped his lordship's memory, if indeed he had ever been informed of it. Mrs. Major Steele, too, belonged to a family in the Indian Civil Service, she had been born in India herself, and there her father and near relatives resided, so that, excepting the old judge, there was no one in Scotland interested in the matter.
Mary's letter was not written, owing to an invitation from Mrs. Sangster to spend the week at Auchlippie, and help to entertain the visitors. The conversation was forgotten by brother and sister alike, and affairs drifted on in their own way.