“Ah,” she said, “an all Scotchwomen were sic as thou but it was our luck to get born devils of thy country, I think—every one worse than t’other. If thou knowest of any tidy lass like thysell that wanted a place, and could bring a good character, and would not go laiking about to wakes and fairs, and wore shoes and stockings all the day round—why, I’ll not say but we might find room for her at the Rectory. Hast no cousin or sister, lass, that such an offer would suit?”
This was touching upon a sore point, but Jeanie was spared the pain of replying by the entrance of the same man-servant she had seen before.
“Measter wishes to see the young woman from Scotland,” was Tummas’s address.
“Go to his Reverence, my dear, as fast as you can, and tell him all your story—his Reverence is a kind man,” said Mrs. Dalton. “I will fold down the leaf, and wake you a cup of tea, with some nice muffin, against you come down, and that’s what you seldom see in Scotland, girl.”
“Measter’s waiting for the young woman,” said Tummas impatiently.
“Well, Mr. Jack-Sauce, and what is your business to put in your oar?—And how often must I tell you to call Mr. Staunton his Reverence, seeing as he is a dignified clergyman, and not be meastering, meastering him, as if he were a little petty squire?”
As Jeanie was now at the door, and ready to accompany Tummas, the footman said nothing till he got into the passage, when he muttered, “There are moe masters than one in this house, and I think we shall have a mistress too, an Dame Dalton carries it thus.”
Tummas led the way through a more intricate range of passages than Jeanie had yet threaded, and ushered her into an apartment which was darkened by the closing of most of the window-shutters, and in which was a bed with the curtains partly drawn.
“Here is the young woman, sir,” said Tummas.
“Very well,” said a voice from the bed, but not that of his Reverence; “be ready to answer the bell, and leave the room.”