“Now, Sheila,” he said, “shall we go the theatre?”
“I do not care to go unless you wish,” was the answer.
“She does not care to go anywhere now,” her father said; and then the girl, seeing that he was rather distressed about her apparent want of interest, pulled herself together and said cheerfully, “Is it not too late to go to a theatre? And I am sure we could be very comfortable at home. Mairi, she will think it unkind if we go to the theatre by ourselves.”
“Mairi!” said her father, impatiently, for he never lost an opportunity of indirectly justifying Lavender, “Mairi has more sense than you, Sheila, and she knows that a servant-lass has to stay at home, and she knows that she is ferry different from you; and she is a ferry good girl whatever, and hass no pride, and she does not expect nonsense in going about and such things.”
“I am quite sure, papa, you would rather go home and sit down and have a talk with Mr. Ingram, and a pipe and a little whisky, than go to any theatre.”
“What I would do! And what I would like!” said her father, in a vexed way. “Sheila, you have no more sense as a lass that wass still at the school. I want you to go to the theatre and amuse youself, instead of sitting in the house and thinking, thinking, thinking. And all for what?”
“But if one has something to be sorry for, is it not better to think of it?”
“And what hef you to be sorry for?” said her father, in amazement, and forgetting that, in his diplomatic fashion, he had been accustoming Sheila to the notion that she, too, might have erred grievously and been in part responsible for all that had occurred.
“I have a great deal to be sorry for, papa,” she said; and then she renewed her entreaties that her two companions should abandon their notion of going to a theatre, and resolve to spend the rest of the evening in what she consented to call her home.
After all, they formed a comfortable little company when they sat around the fire, which had been lit for cheerfulness rather than warmth, and Ingram at least was in a particularly pleasant mood. For Sheila had seized the opportunity, when her father had gone out of the room for a few minutes, to say suddenly, “Oh, my dear friend, if you care for her, you have a great happiness before you.”