Here some feeling of consciousness stopped her short, and her sister replied, with a smile, “Until when, Brenda? Methinks, your love of truth seems choked with the sentence you were bringing out.”
“Until you ceased to do him the justice he deserves,” said Brenda, firmly, “since I must speak out. I have little doubt that he will not long throw away his friendship on you, who hold it so lightly.”
“Be it so,” said Minna; “you are secure from my rivalry, either in his friendship or love. But bethink you better, Brenda—this is no scandal of Cleveland’s—Cleveland is incapable of slander—no falsehood of Bryce Snailsfoot—not one of our friends or acquaintance but says it has been the common talk of the island, that the daughters of Magnus Troil were patiently awaiting the choice of the nameless and birthless stranger, Mordaunt Mertoun. Is it fitting that this should be said of us, the descendants of a Norwegian Jarl, and the daughters of the first Udaller in Zetland? or, would it be modest or maidenly to submit to it unresented, were we the meanest lasses that ever lifted a milk-pail?”
“The tongues of fools are no reproach,” replied Brenda, warmly; “I will never quit my own thoughts of an innocent friend for the gossip of the island, which can put the worst meaning on the most innocent actions.”
“Hear but what our friends say,” repeated Minna; “hear but the Lady Glowrowrum; hear but Maddie and Clara Groatsettar.”
“If I were to hear Lady Glowrowrum,” said Brenda, steadily, “I should listen to the worst tongue in Zetland; and as for Maddie and Clara Groatsettar, they were both blithe enough to get Mordaunt to sit betwixt them at dinner the day before yesterday, as you might have observed yourself, but that your ear was better engaged.”
“Your eyes, at least, have been but indifferently engaged, Brenda,” retorted the elder sister, “since they were fixed on a young man, whom all the world but yourself believes to have talked of us with the most insolent presumption; and even if he be innocently charged, Lady Glowrowrum says it is unmaidenly and bold of you even to look in the direction where he sits, knowing it must confirm such reports.”
“I will look which way I please,” said Brenda, growing still warmer; “Lady Glowrowrum shall neither rule my thoughts, nor my words, nor my eyes. I hold Mordaunt Mertoun to be innocent,—I will look at him as such,—I will speak of him as such; and if I did not speak to him also, and behave to him as usual, it is in obedience to my father, and not for what Lady Glowrowrum, and all her nieces, had she twenty instead of two, could think, wink, nod, or tattle, about the matter that concerns them not.”
“Alas! Brenda,” answered Minna, with calmness, “this vivacity is more than is required for the defence of the character of a mere friend!—Beware—He who ruined Norna’s peace for ever, was a stranger, admitted to her affections against the will of her family.”
“He was a stranger,” replied Brenda, with emphasis, “not only in birth, but in manners. She had not been bred up with him from her youth,—she had not known the gentleness, the frankness, of his disposition, by an intimacy of many years. He was indeed a stranger, in character, temper, birth, manners, and morals,—some wandering adventurer, perhaps, whom chance or tempest had thrown upon the islands, and who knew how to mask a false heart with a frank brow. My good sister, take home your own warning. There are other strangers at Burgh-Westra besides this poor Mordaunt Mertoun.”