“To take Katie home?—away from me? Oh, Mrs Stewart, dinna!” said Lady Anne, forgetting that she was no longer a child.
“Ye see, my lady, our Isabell is to be married. The young man is Philip Landale of Kilbrachmont. Ye may have heard tell of him even in the Castle;—a lad with a guid house and plenty substance to take hame a wife to; and a guid wife he’ll get to them, though maybe I shouldna say it. And so you see, Lady Anne, I’ll be left with only Janet at hame.”
“But, Mrs Stewart, Katie has not been accustomed to it; she could not do you any good,” said the eager, injudicious Lady Anne.
“The very words, my lady—the very thing I said to our guidman and the bairns at hame. ‘It’s time,’ says I, ‘that Katie was learnin’ something fit for her natural place and lot. What kind of a wife will she ever make to a puir man, coming straight out of Kellie Castle, and Lady Anne’s very cha’mer?’ No that I’m meaning it’s needful that she should get a puir man, Lady Anne; but a bien man in the parish is no like ane of your grand lords and earls; and if Katie does as weel as her mother before her, she’ll hae a better portion than she deserves.”
Indignantly Katie tossed her curls from her forehead, bent her little flushed face over the frame, and began to ply her needle as if for a wager.
“But, Mrs Stewart,” urged Lady Anne, “Katie’s birthday is not till May, and she’s only fifteen then. Never mind the man—there’s plenty time; but as long as we’re at Kellie, and not far away from you, Mrs Stewart, why should not Katie live all her life with me?”
Katie glanced up archly, saucily, but said nothing.
“It wouldna be right, my lady. In the first place, you’ll no be aye at Kellie; you’ll get folk you like better than Katie Stewart; and Katie must depend on naebody’s will and pleasure. I’ll have it said of nae bairn of mine that she sorned on a stranger. Na, she must come hame.”
Lady Anne’s eyes filled with tears. The little proud belligerent mother stood triumphant and imperious before the fire. The petulant wilful favourite pouted over her frame; and Lady Anne looked from one to the other with overflowing eyes.
“My sister Betty’s away, and my sister Janet’s away,” said Anne Erskine sadly; “I’ve nobody but Katie now. If you take Katie away, Mrs Stewart, I’ll break my heart.”