“Neither of them would have wished to come.”
“That is not honest, Jean. You know that they would; but you would never ask them, except to one of your camp dances. You would not if they had saved your life twenty times.”
“I should try to do something for them, something that they would like; but if people are not of your kind there is no use in inviting them. There is no kindness in it in the end.”
“Perhaps,” said her father, “there would prove to be no kindness in the end in what you wish to do for Loring.”
“Very well. There is no use in arguing with a Scotchman; but I warn you that I shall make it up to him in friendliness. The other men can scarcely object to that.”
With these words Jean rose from the steps and, passing through the door, entered the little living-room where she picked up a guitar from the window-seat, and to its accompaniment began to sing in a low voice. What was the song she chose? Why, it was “Jock o’ Hazeldean.” If ever a song expressed flat mutiny it is that one, and it lost nothing in expression from Jean Cameron’s rendering, from the beginning where the heroine refuses to be commanded or cajoled, to the last line where “She’s o’er the border and awa’ wi’ Jock o’ Hazeldean.”
Mr. Cameron was justified in being angry; but who could resist a voice like Jean Cameron’s? Evidently not Jean’s father, for when the girl came out again and smiling laid her hand upon his shoulder, Mr. Cameron relaxed the grimness of his expression.
“Well, well, lassie, we will see what can be done for your gentleman engineer,” he said encouragingly; “but don’t be ‘o’er the border and awa’’ with Jock, till we know a little more about him, and about what is thought of him in Hazeldean.”