And up-stairs, resplendent in Jenny’s gown, Menie Laurie stands before the glass, fastening on one or two simple ornaments, and admiring, with innocent enjoyment, her unusually elegant dress. You may guess by this glimpse of these well-known striped skirts, full and round, revealing themselves under cover of the curtains, that Jenny too has been admiring her own magnificent purchase. But Jenny by this time has grown impatient, and jealous that Menie’s admiration prolongs itself only to please her, Jenny; so, giving premonition by sundry restless gestures of the advent of a “fuff,” she has turned to look out from the window upon the sandy road which leads to ’Eathbank.
“Eh, Miss Menie! that brockit ane’s a bonnie cow,” said Jenny; “I never see onything else in this outlandish place that minds me of hame, if it binna the mistress and yoursel. I’ll just bide and look out for the young lads, Miss Menie. Ye needna clap your hands, as if Jenny was turning glaikit; if they werena lads frae our ain countryside, they micht come and gang a twelvemonth for me.”
“But the ladies and the gentlemen will see you from the window, Jenny,” said Menie Laurie.
“Ise warrant they’ve seen waur sichts,” said Jenny briskly; “I’m no gaun to let down my ainsel, for a’ I have a thraw; and I would just like to ken, if folk wanted to see a purposelike lass, fit for her wark, wha they could come to in this house but me? There’s my lady’s maid—set her up!—in her grand gown, as braw as my lady; and there’s the tither slaving creature put off a’ this morning clavering to somebody, and no fit to be seen now; for a’ they scoff at my short-gown and good linsey coats. But they may scoff till they’re tired, for Jenny; I’m no gaun to change, at my time of life, for a’ the giggling in London town.”
“But you’ll put on your gown to-night, Jenny,” said Menie persuasively, patting her shoulder. “There’s Randall did not see you last time he was here; and Johnnie Lithgow, you would like to see him. Come, Jenny, and put on your gown.”
“It’s no muckle Randall Home heeds about me, and you ken that,” said Jenny; “and for a’ he didna see me, I saw him the last time he was here. I’ll just tell you, Miss Menie, yon lad, to be a richt lad, is owre heeding about himsel.”
“You’re not to say that, Jenny; it vexes me,” said Menie, with simple gravity; “besides, it is not true. You mistake Randall—and then Johnnie Lithgow.”
“I wadna say but what I micht be pleased to get a glint of him,” said Jenny. “Eh, my patience! to think of Betty Armstrong’s son sitting down with our mistress. But I’ll be sure to ca’ them by their richt names afore the folk. I canna get my tongue about thae maisters. Maister Lithgow! and me minds him a wee white-headed laddie, hauding up his peeny for cakes on the Hogmanay, and pu’ing John Glendinning’s kailstocks at Hallowe’en. What would I put on my gown for, bairn? As sure as I gang into the room, I’ll ca’ him Johnnie.”
But Jenny’s scruples at last yielded, and Jenny came forth from her chamber glorious in a blue-and-yellow gown, printed in great stripes and figures, and made after an antediluvian fashion, which utterly shocked and horrified the pretty Maria, Miss Annie Laurie’s favourite maid. Nor was Miss Annie Laurie herself less disconcerted, when honest Jenny, the high shoulder largely developed by her tight-fitting gown, and carrying a cake-basket in her brown hands, made her appearance in the partially filled drawing-room, threading her way leisurely through the guests, and examining, with keen glances and much attention, the faces of the masculine portion of them. Miss Annie made a pause in her own lively and juvenile talk, to watch the strange figure and the keen inquiring face, over which a shade of bewilderment gradually crept. But Miss Annie no longer thought it amusing, when Jenny made an abrupt pause before her young mistress, then shyly endeavouring to make acquaintance with some very fine young ladies, daughters of Miss Annie’s loftiest and most aristocratic friends, and said in a startling whisper, which all the room could hear, “Miss Menie! ye micht tell folk which is him, if he’s here; but I canna see a creature that’s like Johnnie Lithgow of Kirklands, nor ony belanging to him, in the haill room.”
Miss Annie Laurie, much horrified, rose from her seat somewhat hastily; but at the same moment up sprang by her side the guest to whom her most particular attentions had been devoted—“And Burnside Jenny has forgotten me!”