“It is little you know, my happy Flora, of artificial life here in London,” said Kate, mournfully. “As for dress, I cannot even order one but as my sister-in-law chooses; and as for happiness, I have left it behind me on the beautiful banks of the Clyde. O that I were there again!”
“Poor little Kate!” said Flora, wistfully looking again in her sister’s face; “and is that the end of all your grand marriage, that has set a’ the lasses crazy, from the Fairlie Roads to Gourock Point? I think I’ll gang back and marry Bryce Cameron after a’.”
“Is Allan Cameron married yet?” said Kate, sadly. “When did you see blithe and bonnie Allan Cameron?—Alas the day!”
“He gave me this brooch to return to you, Kate,” said Flora, taking the brooch out of her bosom. “I wish he had not gien it to me for you, for you’re vexed enough already.”
“Ah! well you may say I am vexed enough,” said she, weeping and contemplating the brooch. “Tell Allan Cameron that I am sensible I did not use him well—that my vain heart was lifted up; but I have suffered for it; many a sad and sleepless night I have lain in my bed, and thought of the delightful days I spent near my father’s happy cottage in Scotland, and about you, and about Allan. Alas! just tell him not to think more of me; for I am a sad and sorry married woman, out of my own sphere, and afraid to speak to my own people, panting my heart out and dying by inches, like the pretty silver fish that floundered on the hard stones, after my father had taken them out of their own clear water.”
“God help you, Kate!” said Flora, rising; “you will break my heart with grief about you. Let me out of this miserable house! Let me leave you and all your grandeur, since I cannot help you; and I will pray for you, my poor Kate, every night at my bedside, when I get back to the bonnie shore of Argyleshire.”
Sad was the parting of the two weeping sisters, and many a kiss of fraternal affection embittered, yet sweetened, the hour; and anxious was Flora M‘Leod to turn her back upon the great city of London, and to journey northwards to her own home in Scotland.
It was a little before sundown, on a Saturday evening, shortly after this, that a buzz of steam let off at the Mid Quay of Greenock, indicated that a steamboat had come in; and it proved to be from the fair seaport of Liverpool, having on board Flora M‘Leod, just down from London. The boat as it passed had been watched by the cottagers where she lived up the Firth; and several of them, their day’s work being over, set out towards the Clough to see if there was any chance of meeting Flora.
Many were the congratulations, and more the inquiries, when they met Flora, lumbering homewards with her bundle and her umbrella, weary and looking anxiously out for her own sweet cottage by Clyde side. “Ah, Flora! is this you!” cried the whole at once; “and are you really here again! And how is your sister, and all the great people in London? And, indeed, it is very good of you not to look the least proud, after coming from such a grand place!”
With such congratulations was Flora welcomed again among the light-hearted fisher people in the West of Scotland. But it was observed that her tone was now quite altered, and her own humble contentment had completely returned. In short, to bring our story to a close, she was shortly after married to Bryce Cameron, and various other marriages soon followed; for she gave such an account of what she had seen with her eyes, that a complete revolution took place in the sentiments of the whole young people of the neighbourhood.