Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Saughleas.Saughleas with the June sunshine felling on it was a very different place from Saughleas under the “drip, drip” of winter rain and sleet, with the wind moaning or roaring through the bare boughs of its sheltering beeches.The house was plain and heavy looking. It stood too near the road for so large a house, it was said, and it was so high that it made all the trees—except the few great beeches—look smaller than they would have looked elsewhere. But it was built of the cheerful looking reddish granite of the neighbourhood, and with its green adornment of honeysuckle and climbing roses and its low French windows opening on the little terrace above the lawn, it looked in summer-time a handsome and homelike dwelling.There were many trees about it—fruit trees, elms, and poplars, Norway spruces, and Scotch firs; but most of them had been planted within the last fifteen years, and trees on this east coast—like the children in the song—“take long to grow.” The beeches, seven in number, were both old and beautiful—so beautiful and so stately amid the dwarfs around them that they, and not the wavering line of Saughs or willows that followed the margin of the burn running through the long low fields, it was sometimes said, should have given a name to the place.There was a narrow belt of wood behind the house which had been planted long ago, and even in it the trees were not very large. But it was a very pretty spot, a real wood, where up through the undisturbed dead leaves of autumn came snowdrops and violets and primroses in the spring. Between this wood and the house was a field of grass, which was not cut smoothly every day or two like the lawn in front, but was allowed to grow tall and strong till the right time came to cut it down for hay. Through this field a gravelled walk led down to “The Well”; a clear, unfailing spring at the edge of the wood, and to a moss-covered stone seat beside it.Beyond this a narrower path led through the grass and the last year’s dead leaves into the heart of the wood, where, in a circular space, large enough to let the sunlight in though the trees had been higher, lay “Mary Keith, beloved and honoured wife of George Dawson,” with her little children at her side. Here the turf was soft and green, but there was no adornment of shrub or flower on the grave or near it, only a simple headstone of grey granite and near it a turf seat, over which the slender boughs of a “weeping birch” hung sadly down.Beyond the wood were the low fields through which the Saugh burn ran. Parks they were called, but they were just long grassy fields, with rough stone walls round them, and cows and sheep feeding in them. There was no “Park,” in the grand sense of the term, about Saughleas as yet. There was no space for one without appropriating some of the best fields from the leased farms, and if things had gone right with him, that might have been done in time, Mr Dawson sometimes said to himself with a sigh.But things had not gone right with him of late. Any thing but that—if one might judge from the look of care and pain, that had become almost habitual to him now.“George, man, is it worth your while to wear your life away gathering gear that ye dinna need, when ye might be enjoying what ye have in this bonny place?”“Itisa bonny place,” was all he said in reply.They were sitting, not on the lawn, but on the other side of the drive, where the sunshine was softened by the fluttering beech leaves overhead. At least, Miss Jean was sitting there. Her brother was “daundering” up and down the walk with his hands clasped behind him, as his way was, lingering a little, now at the gate and now at his sister’s side. He had forgotten her for the moment, as he stood looking out toward the distant sea, and the look which his daughter had come to know well, but which his sister was seldom suffered to see, came to his face and rested on it still when he turned along the walk again. And so he spoke.“Itisa bonny place,” he answered, and then he walked away. But though he let his eyes wander over the gardens and the wood, and the fields beyond, there came to his face no glad look of possession or self-gratulation, and his head drooped lower and his step lagged as he drew near her again. He stood silent at her side, as though he expected her to say more, but she said nothing.“Itisa bonny place,” said he again, “though it has given me but little pleasure as yet, and whiles I think that I am near done with it—and—there’s none to come after me.”“George, man! that’s an ill thing to say.”“But it’s true for a’ that God knows I was thinking little of myself when I put the winnings of my whole life into the land. And what is likely to come of it? Ye might weel say, Jean, that God’s blessing hasna been upon it.”“No, I would never say that.”He took his way down the walk again, and went quite round the broad lawn, and she had time for a good many troubled thoughts before he came back.“I doubt ye’re overworking yourself, George,” said she. She put out her hand to draw forward a garden chair that stood beyond her, and he did not refuse it, as she was afraid he might, but sat down beside her. “Where are the girls?” asked he. “They are busy up the stair—about May’s dress, I think. But there is nothing to hinder them coming, if ye’re wanting them.”“No. I’m no’ wanting them. I have something to say to you, and I shall find no better time. I am going to make a new will.”“Well?”“I have waited long, but if any thing were to happen to me, there would be endless trouble—if—unless—” He paused a moment and then added, “I know not well what to do.”“Need ye do any thing at once?”“I think I should. Life is uncertain, though mine may be no more so than that of other men. But no man should put off settling his affairs, for the sake of those that are to come after him. I wish to do justly, but I will not divide the land, and I will not burden it.”“No, it wouldna be weel to divide the land nor to burden it,” said Miss Jean.There was a long silence and then Mr Dawson said gravely, felling into the Scottish tongue as he and the rest of them were apt to do when much moved.“Gin ony stranger were to go through Portie the day and speir at ane and anither up and doon the street, as to who had been the successful man o’ these pairts for the last five and twenty years or mair, there’s little doubt whose name would be given them. And yet—my life looks and feels to me the day—awfully like a failure.”The shock which his unexpected words gave his sister was not all pain. She had thought him only too well content with his life and with what he had done in it. He was going down the hill now. It was well that he should acknowledge—that he should even be made sharply to feel, that all that he had—though it were ten times more—was not enough for a portion. But the bitter sadness of his look smote her painfully.“God help him!” she said in her heart, but to him she said nothing. He did not take her silence for want of sympathy. He was too well acquainted with her ways for that, and in a little he added,—“Like other folk I have heard o’, I have gotten my wish, but all that made it worth the having has been taken from me. Gin she had lived—”His sister did not speak. She just laid her hand on his for a moment, and looked at him with grave, wet eyes.“If she had lived,” he went on, not yielding to the weakness that had come upon, him, “if she had lived, the rest might have been hindered.”“God knows,” said Miss Jean softly, taking up her knitting again.“Ay, He knows, but I dinna seem to be able to tak’ the good o’ that that some folk do. But good or no good, I man submit—like the lave.”“Here are the bairns,” said Miss Jean softly as the two sisters came through one of the open windows to the terrace about the lawn—“a sight worth seeing” the father in the midst of his painful thoughts acknowledged. They lingered a moment in the terrace raised a little above the lawn, the one stooping over a bonny bush of wee Scotch roses at her feet, the other standing on tiptoe trying to entangle a wandering spray of honeysuckle that it might find support. The eyes of father and aunt could not but rest on them with pleasure.“I wonder that I ever could have thought them so much alike,” said their father, in a little.“They’re like and they’re no’ like,” said Miss Jean.They were even less alike than they had been that day when they had startled her coming in on her out of the storm. Their dress had something to do with it doubtless. May wore something white and fluffy, with frills and flounces and blue ribbons, and her brown curls were bound back by a snood of blue. She was in her simple finery as fair and sweet a picture of a young maiden as one could wish to see.Jean was different. Her dress was made of some dim stuff that looked in the distance like brown holland. A seafaring friend of her father’s had brought it to her from India, her aunt remembered, and it came into her mind that perhaps there had not been enough of it, to make the frills and flounces, that young people were so pleased with nowadays. It was severely simple in contrast with her sister’s, and her hair was gathered in one heavy braid at the back of her head. She had not her sister’s fair and smiling loveliness, but there was something in her face that went far beyond it, her aunt thought, as she watched them standing there looking over the lawn to some one approaching along the road. Her face was bright and her air cheerful enough at the moment, but for all that there was a look of thoughtfulness and gravity upon it—a silent look—which reminded her father of his sister’s look at her age. Only she was more beautiful. She was like a young princess, he thought, in his pride in her.“Is it her gown?” asked he; “or is it the way that Jean puts her hair? What has ’come o’ a’ her curls this while back?”The question was not to be answered. The opening of a little gate at the side of the lawn made them turn, and then Mr Dawson rose to greet a stranger who was coming up the walk. He was not quite a stranger to him. He knew his name and that he was a visitor at Blackford House, a gentleman’s seat seven miles away. It was at this gentleman the girls had been looking, and at the lady who was in the carriage with him, as they passed slowly along the highway.He was a tall fair man—young and good looking—very handsome indeed. He was a little too much inclined to stoutness perhaps, and rather languid in his movements, it might have been thought, as he came up the walk; but no fault could be found with his graceful and friendly greeting.It was Miss Jean Dawson that he wished to see. It had been suggested to his sister, Mrs Eastwood, that Miss Dawson would be able to tell her what she wished to hear of a poor woman in whom she took an interest. She had been at Miss Dawson’s house in Portie, and hearing she was at Saughleas, had called on her way to Blackford, to save another journey. She was in her carriage at the gate, and could Miss Dawson send her a message? Or perhaps—The gate was hidden by a clump of firs. Miss Jean gave a glance in that direction and then laid her hand on her staff. Then she beckoned to her nieces who were still on the terrace. Jean came quickly toward her, and May followed more slowly. It was worth a body’s while, Phemie told her fellow servants afterwards, just to see the way the gentleman took off his hat and bowed as Miss Dawson came near. Phemie saw it all from her young lady’s window upstairs, and she would have liked well to hear also.“It is about Mrs Cairnie, Jean, my dear. Ye ken her daughter Annie went south last year, and her mistress promised to see her mother, when she came north, and would like to hear o’ her. I might maybe get to the gate with your help?”“Certainly not. You are not able to walk so far. If a message will not do, it must wait.”Miss Jean shook her head with a slight smile. She had seen “Miss Dawson’s grand air” before, and so had May, but her father looked at her amazed. It was not her words that startled him so much as her manner. She looked at the stranger who stood with his hat in his hand, as though he were at an immense distance from her. But in a minute she added more gently:“I will take a message, aunt, if you wish. Or, I could—”“Pray do not think of such a thing. I could not think of troubling you,” said the young man confusedly.“Or I could write a note,” said the young lady taking no notice.“Or the lady might drive into the place. She need not leave her carriage,” said Mr Dawson, not quite pleased at his daughter’s manner.“Certainly that will be much the best way,” said the stranger, bowing to Miss Jean and the young ladies.Miss Jean the elder was generally sparing of words of reproof, and even of words of advice, unless advice was asked, and she said nothing. But May exclaimed,—“You might have been civil to him at least, Jeannie. We have not so many gentlemen coming to see us.”“To see us! It was Auntie Jean he came to see—on an errand from his sister. And I think it was a piece of impertinence on his part to expect Miss Jean Dawson to go at his bidding—and you so lame, auntie,” added Jean as she saw her aunt’s face.“He couldna ken that, and I’m no’ sure that he did expect me to go to the gate. And I’m no’ feared for my ain dignity, Jean lassie, and I dinna think ye need be feared for it either.”“Dignity!” exclaimed May. “Why, he is one of the fine folk that are staying at Blackford House.”“And that is the very reason,” said Jean hotly—“the very reason that I—”“It’s but a poor reason,” said Miss Jean.But no more could be added, for the carriage was passing round the drive toward the spot where Miss Jean was sitting. The lady was driving her own ponies, and very nice she looked in her fresh muslins and simple straw hat. She was not very young, judging from her lace, which was thin and rather dark, but she had a youthful air, and a sweet smile, and seemed altogether a pleasing person. Even Jean could find no fault with her manner, as she addressed her aunt. There was respect, even deference, in every tone of her voice, and in every bend of her graceful head.There was not very much to be said between them however. Miss Jean told the lady where Mrs Cairnie lived. Any body in Portie could have told her that. Then there was something said about the poor old lady’s wants and ways, and the chief thing was that the daughter had sent some money and other things, which were to be left in Miss Jean Dawson’s hands, for a reason which the lady could not explain. But explanation was unnecessary, for Miss Jean knew more of poor Tibby Cairnie’s troubles and temptations than even her own daughter did.It was all arranged easily enough, but still the lady seemed in no hurry to go. She could hardly have gone at once, for Mr Dawson had taken Captain Harefield round among the trees, and they were out of sight at the moment May admired the ponies, and Jean stood with her hand on her aunt’s chair looking straight before her.“A striking face and graceful figure, and a wonderfully intelligent look as well,” thought Mrs Eastwood, and then in a pretty friendly way she seemed to include the silent girl in the talk she had been making with Miss Jean about the trees, and the views, and the fine weather they had had of late; and when Miss Jean became silent, as she generally did unless she had something to say that needed to be heard, Jean took her part in the conversation and did it well.When the gentlemen returned, Mrs Eastwood still seemed in no haste to go. A new idea had seized her. Would Miss Dawson kindly go with her some morning soon to see Mrs Cairnie? It would be a pleasure to a faithful servant, if she could tell her on her return that she had seen her old mother; and if Miss Dawson could make it convenient to go with her, she would call some morning soon, and drive her to Portie.No serious objection could be made to this, though in her heart Miss Jean doubted whether the absent Annie would care much to have the lady see her old mother, who was not always in a state fit for the eyes of “gentlefolk.” However a day was set, and other little matters agreed upon, and then with many pleased looks and polite hopes that they might meet again, their visitors went away.That night when they were sitting alone in the long gloaming, the sisters being not at home, Mr Dawson suddenly returned to the discussion of the subject which had been touched on in the garden.“I couldna divide the land, but there is enough of money and other property to do fair justice to the other, and I think the land should go to Jean.”His sister said nothing.“She is the eldest, and the strongest in every way. If she were to give her mind to it, she might, in time, hold her own in the countryside with the best of them.”He was silent for a minute.“And she might many, and get help in that way. And her son would have the place. And he might take my name, which is an honest one at least.”“Ye’re takin’ a lang look,” said Miss Jean at last.He gave an uncertain laugh.“Oh! weel! That’s atween you and me, ye ken. It might be. A lad like him that was here the day, for instance—a gentleman by birth and breeding. He is a poor man, as poverty looks to the like of him, a two or three hunder pounds or so a year. It would be wealth to most folk, but it’s poverty to the like o’ him. But if it should so happen—and I were to live another ten years—I might satisfy even the like o’ him.”There was much which Miss Jean might have said to all this, which fell like the vainest folly on her ears, but she said nothing.“And as for my Jean!—she needs to see the world and society, and all that, doubtless, but if there’s many o’ the fine London ladies that will hold a candle to her as far as looks go—it’s mair than I think. She might stand before the queen herself with any of them.”And still Miss Jean said never a word.“It might very well be, and I might live to see it. There’s more land to be had too, if I’m willing to pay the price for it—and with this in view I might care to do it. I’ll do nothing in haste.”He seemed to be speaking to himself, rather than to her.“I’ll do nothing in haste,” he repeated. “But I could do it, and there would be some good in life—if this thing could be.”“Are ye forgetting that ye ha’e a son somewhere in the world?” said his sister gravely.Mr Dawson uttered a sound in which pain and impatience seemed to mingle.“Have I? It is hardly to be hoped. And if he is—living—it is hardly such a life as would fit him to take his place where—he might have been. I think, Jean, it might be as weel to act as if I had no living son.”“But yet he may be living, and he may come home.” Mr Dawson rose suddenly and went and leaned against the darkening window.“No, Jean, if he had ever been coming home, he would have come ere now. He was seen in Portie not three months since, and he never came near me. Ye think I was hard on him; but I wasna so hard as all that.”“Who saw him?” asked his sister greatly startled. “He was seen by more than one, though he was little like himself, if I can judge from what I heard.”“But he is living, George. There’s comfort in that.”“If I had heard that he was living on the other side of the world, I might have taken comfort from it. But that he should have been here, and never came home—there is little comfort in that.”“But he is living and he’ll come home to you yet. Do you think his mother’s son will be left to go astray beyond homecoming? He’ll come home again.”“Many a son of a good mother has gone down to death—And that he should have come so near her grave, without coming nearer! I would almost sooner know him to be dead than to know that of him. And when I mind—”That was the last word spoken. Mr Dawson rose and went out into the faint light of the summer night, and though his sister sat long waiting for him after the girls had come in and had gone to bed, she saw no more of him that night.

Saughleas with the June sunshine felling on it was a very different place from Saughleas under the “drip, drip” of winter rain and sleet, with the wind moaning or roaring through the bare boughs of its sheltering beeches.

The house was plain and heavy looking. It stood too near the road for so large a house, it was said, and it was so high that it made all the trees—except the few great beeches—look smaller than they would have looked elsewhere. But it was built of the cheerful looking reddish granite of the neighbourhood, and with its green adornment of honeysuckle and climbing roses and its low French windows opening on the little terrace above the lawn, it looked in summer-time a handsome and homelike dwelling.

There were many trees about it—fruit trees, elms, and poplars, Norway spruces, and Scotch firs; but most of them had been planted within the last fifteen years, and trees on this east coast—like the children in the song—“take long to grow.” The beeches, seven in number, were both old and beautiful—so beautiful and so stately amid the dwarfs around them that they, and not the wavering line of Saughs or willows that followed the margin of the burn running through the long low fields, it was sometimes said, should have given a name to the place.

There was a narrow belt of wood behind the house which had been planted long ago, and even in it the trees were not very large. But it was a very pretty spot, a real wood, where up through the undisturbed dead leaves of autumn came snowdrops and violets and primroses in the spring. Between this wood and the house was a field of grass, which was not cut smoothly every day or two like the lawn in front, but was allowed to grow tall and strong till the right time came to cut it down for hay. Through this field a gravelled walk led down to “The Well”; a clear, unfailing spring at the edge of the wood, and to a moss-covered stone seat beside it.

Beyond this a narrower path led through the grass and the last year’s dead leaves into the heart of the wood, where, in a circular space, large enough to let the sunlight in though the trees had been higher, lay “Mary Keith, beloved and honoured wife of George Dawson,” with her little children at her side. Here the turf was soft and green, but there was no adornment of shrub or flower on the grave or near it, only a simple headstone of grey granite and near it a turf seat, over which the slender boughs of a “weeping birch” hung sadly down.

Beyond the wood were the low fields through which the Saugh burn ran. Parks they were called, but they were just long grassy fields, with rough stone walls round them, and cows and sheep feeding in them. There was no “Park,” in the grand sense of the term, about Saughleas as yet. There was no space for one without appropriating some of the best fields from the leased farms, and if things had gone right with him, that might have been done in time, Mr Dawson sometimes said to himself with a sigh.

But things had not gone right with him of late. Any thing but that—if one might judge from the look of care and pain, that had become almost habitual to him now.

“George, man, is it worth your while to wear your life away gathering gear that ye dinna need, when ye might be enjoying what ye have in this bonny place?”

“Itisa bonny place,” was all he said in reply.

They were sitting, not on the lawn, but on the other side of the drive, where the sunshine was softened by the fluttering beech leaves overhead. At least, Miss Jean was sitting there. Her brother was “daundering” up and down the walk with his hands clasped behind him, as his way was, lingering a little, now at the gate and now at his sister’s side. He had forgotten her for the moment, as he stood looking out toward the distant sea, and the look which his daughter had come to know well, but which his sister was seldom suffered to see, came to his face and rested on it still when he turned along the walk again. And so he spoke.

“Itisa bonny place,” he answered, and then he walked away. But though he let his eyes wander over the gardens and the wood, and the fields beyond, there came to his face no glad look of possession or self-gratulation, and his head drooped lower and his step lagged as he drew near her again. He stood silent at her side, as though he expected her to say more, but she said nothing.

“Itisa bonny place,” said he again, “though it has given me but little pleasure as yet, and whiles I think that I am near done with it—and—there’s none to come after me.”

“George, man! that’s an ill thing to say.”

“But it’s true for a’ that God knows I was thinking little of myself when I put the winnings of my whole life into the land. And what is likely to come of it? Ye might weel say, Jean, that God’s blessing hasna been upon it.”

“No, I would never say that.”

He took his way down the walk again, and went quite round the broad lawn, and she had time for a good many troubled thoughts before he came back.

“I doubt ye’re overworking yourself, George,” said she. She put out her hand to draw forward a garden chair that stood beyond her, and he did not refuse it, as she was afraid he might, but sat down beside her. “Where are the girls?” asked he. “They are busy up the stair—about May’s dress, I think. But there is nothing to hinder them coming, if ye’re wanting them.”

“No. I’m no’ wanting them. I have something to say to you, and I shall find no better time. I am going to make a new will.”

“Well?”

“I have waited long, but if any thing were to happen to me, there would be endless trouble—if—unless—” He paused a moment and then added, “I know not well what to do.”

“Need ye do any thing at once?”

“I think I should. Life is uncertain, though mine may be no more so than that of other men. But no man should put off settling his affairs, for the sake of those that are to come after him. I wish to do justly, but I will not divide the land, and I will not burden it.”

“No, it wouldna be weel to divide the land nor to burden it,” said Miss Jean.

There was a long silence and then Mr Dawson said gravely, felling into the Scottish tongue as he and the rest of them were apt to do when much moved.

“Gin ony stranger were to go through Portie the day and speir at ane and anither up and doon the street, as to who had been the successful man o’ these pairts for the last five and twenty years or mair, there’s little doubt whose name would be given them. And yet—my life looks and feels to me the day—awfully like a failure.”

The shock which his unexpected words gave his sister was not all pain. She had thought him only too well content with his life and with what he had done in it. He was going down the hill now. It was well that he should acknowledge—that he should even be made sharply to feel, that all that he had—though it were ten times more—was not enough for a portion. But the bitter sadness of his look smote her painfully.

“God help him!” she said in her heart, but to him she said nothing. He did not take her silence for want of sympathy. He was too well acquainted with her ways for that, and in a little he added,—

“Like other folk I have heard o’, I have gotten my wish, but all that made it worth the having has been taken from me. Gin she had lived—”

His sister did not speak. She just laid her hand on his for a moment, and looked at him with grave, wet eyes.

“If she had lived,” he went on, not yielding to the weakness that had come upon, him, “if she had lived, the rest might have been hindered.”

“God knows,” said Miss Jean softly, taking up her knitting again.

“Ay, He knows, but I dinna seem to be able to tak’ the good o’ that that some folk do. But good or no good, I man submit—like the lave.”

“Here are the bairns,” said Miss Jean softly as the two sisters came through one of the open windows to the terrace about the lawn—“a sight worth seeing” the father in the midst of his painful thoughts acknowledged. They lingered a moment in the terrace raised a little above the lawn, the one stooping over a bonny bush of wee Scotch roses at her feet, the other standing on tiptoe trying to entangle a wandering spray of honeysuckle that it might find support. The eyes of father and aunt could not but rest on them with pleasure.

“I wonder that I ever could have thought them so much alike,” said their father, in a little.

“They’re like and they’re no’ like,” said Miss Jean.

They were even less alike than they had been that day when they had startled her coming in on her out of the storm. Their dress had something to do with it doubtless. May wore something white and fluffy, with frills and flounces and blue ribbons, and her brown curls were bound back by a snood of blue. She was in her simple finery as fair and sweet a picture of a young maiden as one could wish to see.

Jean was different. Her dress was made of some dim stuff that looked in the distance like brown holland. A seafaring friend of her father’s had brought it to her from India, her aunt remembered, and it came into her mind that perhaps there had not been enough of it, to make the frills and flounces, that young people were so pleased with nowadays. It was severely simple in contrast with her sister’s, and her hair was gathered in one heavy braid at the back of her head. She had not her sister’s fair and smiling loveliness, but there was something in her face that went far beyond it, her aunt thought, as she watched them standing there looking over the lawn to some one approaching along the road. Her face was bright and her air cheerful enough at the moment, but for all that there was a look of thoughtfulness and gravity upon it—a silent look—which reminded her father of his sister’s look at her age. Only she was more beautiful. She was like a young princess, he thought, in his pride in her.

“Is it her gown?” asked he; “or is it the way that Jean puts her hair? What has ’come o’ a’ her curls this while back?”

The question was not to be answered. The opening of a little gate at the side of the lawn made them turn, and then Mr Dawson rose to greet a stranger who was coming up the walk. He was not quite a stranger to him. He knew his name and that he was a visitor at Blackford House, a gentleman’s seat seven miles away. It was at this gentleman the girls had been looking, and at the lady who was in the carriage with him, as they passed slowly along the highway.

He was a tall fair man—young and good looking—very handsome indeed. He was a little too much inclined to stoutness perhaps, and rather languid in his movements, it might have been thought, as he came up the walk; but no fault could be found with his graceful and friendly greeting.

It was Miss Jean Dawson that he wished to see. It had been suggested to his sister, Mrs Eastwood, that Miss Dawson would be able to tell her what she wished to hear of a poor woman in whom she took an interest. She had been at Miss Dawson’s house in Portie, and hearing she was at Saughleas, had called on her way to Blackford, to save another journey. She was in her carriage at the gate, and could Miss Dawson send her a message? Or perhaps—

The gate was hidden by a clump of firs. Miss Jean gave a glance in that direction and then laid her hand on her staff. Then she beckoned to her nieces who were still on the terrace. Jean came quickly toward her, and May followed more slowly. It was worth a body’s while, Phemie told her fellow servants afterwards, just to see the way the gentleman took off his hat and bowed as Miss Dawson came near. Phemie saw it all from her young lady’s window upstairs, and she would have liked well to hear also.

“It is about Mrs Cairnie, Jean, my dear. Ye ken her daughter Annie went south last year, and her mistress promised to see her mother, when she came north, and would like to hear o’ her. I might maybe get to the gate with your help?”

“Certainly not. You are not able to walk so far. If a message will not do, it must wait.”

Miss Jean shook her head with a slight smile. She had seen “Miss Dawson’s grand air” before, and so had May, but her father looked at her amazed. It was not her words that startled him so much as her manner. She looked at the stranger who stood with his hat in his hand, as though he were at an immense distance from her. But in a minute she added more gently:

“I will take a message, aunt, if you wish. Or, I could—”

“Pray do not think of such a thing. I could not think of troubling you,” said the young man confusedly.

“Or I could write a note,” said the young lady taking no notice.

“Or the lady might drive into the place. She need not leave her carriage,” said Mr Dawson, not quite pleased at his daughter’s manner.

“Certainly that will be much the best way,” said the stranger, bowing to Miss Jean and the young ladies.

Miss Jean the elder was generally sparing of words of reproof, and even of words of advice, unless advice was asked, and she said nothing. But May exclaimed,—

“You might have been civil to him at least, Jeannie. We have not so many gentlemen coming to see us.”

“To see us! It was Auntie Jean he came to see—on an errand from his sister. And I think it was a piece of impertinence on his part to expect Miss Jean Dawson to go at his bidding—and you so lame, auntie,” added Jean as she saw her aunt’s face.

“He couldna ken that, and I’m no’ sure that he did expect me to go to the gate. And I’m no’ feared for my ain dignity, Jean lassie, and I dinna think ye need be feared for it either.”

“Dignity!” exclaimed May. “Why, he is one of the fine folk that are staying at Blackford House.”

“And that is the very reason,” said Jean hotly—“the very reason that I—”

“It’s but a poor reason,” said Miss Jean.

But no more could be added, for the carriage was passing round the drive toward the spot where Miss Jean was sitting. The lady was driving her own ponies, and very nice she looked in her fresh muslins and simple straw hat. She was not very young, judging from her lace, which was thin and rather dark, but she had a youthful air, and a sweet smile, and seemed altogether a pleasing person. Even Jean could find no fault with her manner, as she addressed her aunt. There was respect, even deference, in every tone of her voice, and in every bend of her graceful head.

There was not very much to be said between them however. Miss Jean told the lady where Mrs Cairnie lived. Any body in Portie could have told her that. Then there was something said about the poor old lady’s wants and ways, and the chief thing was that the daughter had sent some money and other things, which were to be left in Miss Jean Dawson’s hands, for a reason which the lady could not explain. But explanation was unnecessary, for Miss Jean knew more of poor Tibby Cairnie’s troubles and temptations than even her own daughter did.

It was all arranged easily enough, but still the lady seemed in no hurry to go. She could hardly have gone at once, for Mr Dawson had taken Captain Harefield round among the trees, and they were out of sight at the moment May admired the ponies, and Jean stood with her hand on her aunt’s chair looking straight before her.

“A striking face and graceful figure, and a wonderfully intelligent look as well,” thought Mrs Eastwood, and then in a pretty friendly way she seemed to include the silent girl in the talk she had been making with Miss Jean about the trees, and the views, and the fine weather they had had of late; and when Miss Jean became silent, as she generally did unless she had something to say that needed to be heard, Jean took her part in the conversation and did it well.

When the gentlemen returned, Mrs Eastwood still seemed in no haste to go. A new idea had seized her. Would Miss Dawson kindly go with her some morning soon to see Mrs Cairnie? It would be a pleasure to a faithful servant, if she could tell her on her return that she had seen her old mother; and if Miss Dawson could make it convenient to go with her, she would call some morning soon, and drive her to Portie.

No serious objection could be made to this, though in her heart Miss Jean doubted whether the absent Annie would care much to have the lady see her old mother, who was not always in a state fit for the eyes of “gentlefolk.” However a day was set, and other little matters agreed upon, and then with many pleased looks and polite hopes that they might meet again, their visitors went away.

That night when they were sitting alone in the long gloaming, the sisters being not at home, Mr Dawson suddenly returned to the discussion of the subject which had been touched on in the garden.

“I couldna divide the land, but there is enough of money and other property to do fair justice to the other, and I think the land should go to Jean.”

His sister said nothing.

“She is the eldest, and the strongest in every way. If she were to give her mind to it, she might, in time, hold her own in the countryside with the best of them.”

He was silent for a minute.

“And she might many, and get help in that way. And her son would have the place. And he might take my name, which is an honest one at least.”

“Ye’re takin’ a lang look,” said Miss Jean at last.

He gave an uncertain laugh.

“Oh! weel! That’s atween you and me, ye ken. It might be. A lad like him that was here the day, for instance—a gentleman by birth and breeding. He is a poor man, as poverty looks to the like of him, a two or three hunder pounds or so a year. It would be wealth to most folk, but it’s poverty to the like o’ him. But if it should so happen—and I were to live another ten years—I might satisfy even the like o’ him.”

There was much which Miss Jean might have said to all this, which fell like the vainest folly on her ears, but she said nothing.

“And as for my Jean!—she needs to see the world and society, and all that, doubtless, but if there’s many o’ the fine London ladies that will hold a candle to her as far as looks go—it’s mair than I think. She might stand before the queen herself with any of them.”

And still Miss Jean said never a word.

“It might very well be, and I might live to see it. There’s more land to be had too, if I’m willing to pay the price for it—and with this in view I might care to do it. I’ll do nothing in haste.”

He seemed to be speaking to himself, rather than to her.

“I’ll do nothing in haste,” he repeated. “But I could do it, and there would be some good in life—if this thing could be.”

“Are ye forgetting that ye ha’e a son somewhere in the world?” said his sister gravely.

Mr Dawson uttered a sound in which pain and impatience seemed to mingle.

“Have I? It is hardly to be hoped. And if he is—living—it is hardly such a life as would fit him to take his place where—he might have been. I think, Jean, it might be as weel to act as if I had no living son.”

“But yet he may be living, and he may come home.” Mr Dawson rose suddenly and went and leaned against the darkening window.

“No, Jean, if he had ever been coming home, he would have come ere now. He was seen in Portie not three months since, and he never came near me. Ye think I was hard on him; but I wasna so hard as all that.”

“Who saw him?” asked his sister greatly startled. “He was seen by more than one, though he was little like himself, if I can judge from what I heard.”

“But he is living, George. There’s comfort in that.”

“If I had heard that he was living on the other side of the world, I might have taken comfort from it. But that he should have been here, and never came home—there is little comfort in that.”

“But he is living and he’ll come home to you yet. Do you think his mother’s son will be left to go astray beyond homecoming? He’ll come home again.”

“Many a son of a good mother has gone down to death—And that he should have come so near her grave, without coming nearer! I would almost sooner know him to be dead than to know that of him. And when I mind—”

That was the last word spoken. Mr Dawson rose and went out into the faint light of the summer night, and though his sister sat long waiting for him after the girls had come in and had gone to bed, she saw no more of him that night.

Chapter Five.A New Acquaintance.Mr Dawson was just as usual the next morning. He was never so silent, nor in such haste to get through breakfast and away to the town when his sister was in the house, for he took pleasure in her company, and never failed in the most respectful courtesy toward her when she was under his roof—or indeed elsewhere. She saw traces of last night’s trouble in his face, but it was not so evident as to be noticed by his daughters.Indeed he seemed to them to be more interested than usual in the amusing discussion into which they fell concerning their yesterday’s pleasure. They had been at a garden party given by Mrs Petrie, the wife of their father’s partner in the bank, and had enjoyed it, and May especially had much to say about it.“And who do you think was there, papa? Captain Harefield?”“Captain Harefield! How came that about?”“James Petrie asked him, it seems. But he said he came because he thought we might be there.”“But he acknowledged that it was his sister that ‘put him up to it,’” said Jean.“So the Petries may thank you for the honour of his company. That would rather spoil the honour to them, if they were to hear it,” said Mr Dawson with a laugh.“Well, very likely he may let them know it. I canna say much for his discretion,” said May with a shrug. “He asked me who made my sister’s gown, and you should have seen his face when I told him that she made it herself.”“And didna he admire your gown?” asked her father, to the astonishment of the two Jeans, and indeed to May’s astonishment as well.“Oh! yes. But then he said mine was just like other girls’ gowns, ‘very pretty and all that.’ But Miss Dawson’s was ‘unique,’” said May with a drawl. “And he said he would tell his sister.”“And maybe she’ll want me to make one for her. She looks like one who cares about her gowns,” said Jean.“She would be a queer kind o’ a woman if she didna,” said her father dryly.Jean laughed.“But there are degrees in that, as in other things. If Captain Harefield had spoken to me, I would have offered to make one for her.”“And had the Captain nothing to say to you; Jean?” asked Mr Dawson.“He was feared at Jean,” May said laughing. “He just stood and looked at her.”“He had plenty to say, if I had had the time to listen. He said his sister insisted on his coming north that he might keep out of mischief. He found Blackford House a bore rather,” said Jean imitating May’s drawl with indifferent success. Then she added,—“I beg your pardon, auntie. I ken ye dinna like it, and then I don’t do it well enough to make it worth my while, like May here.”“My dear, ye baith do it only ower weel. And as to my no’ liking it—that’s neither here nor there. But I have kenned such a power o’ mockery give great pain to others, and bring great suffering sooner or later on those that had it. It canna be right, and it should be no temptation to a—Christian”, was the word that was on Miss Jean’s lips, but she changed it and said—“to a young gentlewoman.”May looked at her sister and blushed and hung her head. Miss Jean so seldom reproved any one, that there was power in her words when she did speak; and May had yesterday sent some of her young companions into agonies of stifled laughter, by echoing the Captain’s drawl to his face.“I’ll never do it again, auntie,” said she. “And besides,” said her sister, “Captain Harefield is not fair game. It’s not just airs and pride and folly with him, as it is with some folk we have seen; it is his natural manner.”“But that is just what makes it so irresistible,” said May laughing. “To see him standing there so much at his ease—so strong and stately looking, and then to hear the things he says in his fine English words! It might be Simple Sandy himself,” and she went on to repeat some of his remarks, which probably lost nothing in the process. Even her aunt could not forbear smiling as she listened.“Well, I must say I thought well of what I saw of him,” said Mr Dawson. “I would hardly call him a sharp man, but he may have good sense without much surface cleverness. I had a while’s talk with him yesterday.”“And he’s a good listener,” said Jean archly.Her father laughed.“I dare say it may have been partly that. He is a fine man as far as looks go, anyway.”“Very. They all said that,” said May. “And Mavis said to me, ‘Eh, May, wouldna he do grand deeds if he were the same a’ through?’ He has the look of ‘grand deeds.’ But I have my doubts, and so had Mavis,” added May shaking her head.“There are few men that I have ever met, the same a’ through. But who is Mavis that sets up with you to be a judge?” asked her father.“Mavis!”—said May, hanging her head at her father’s implied reproof, as he supposed. “Mavis—is wee Marion—Marion Calderwood.”“And we used—in the old days—to call her Mavis because she has a voice like a bird, and to ken her from our May, and Marion Petrie,” said Jean, looking straight at her father, and as she looked the shine of tears came to her bonny eyes.“She is but a bairn,” said Miss Jean gravely.Mr Dawson’s face darkened as it always did at the mention of any name that brought back the remembrance of his son. May was not quick at noticing such signs, and she answered her aunt.“A bairn! Yes, but ‘a bairn by the common,’ as Mrs Petrie’s Eppie says. She is a clever little creature.”“She is a far-awa’ cousin o’ Mrs Petrie’s, and she’s learning some things from the governess of her bairns. But she might well have been spared on an occasion like yesterday, I would think,” said Miss Jean.“Oh!allthe bairns were there, as well as Marion. And she looked as a rose looks among the rest of the flowers.”“As the violet looks in the wood, I would say,” added Jean. “She’ll be as bonny as her sister ever was.”There was a moment’s silence, round the table, which Jean broke.“She was asking when you would be home, aunt. She has gotten her second shirt finished, and she wants you to see it. She is very proud of it. I told her that you werena going to Portie, except on Sundays, for a month yet, and she must come here and let you see it.”“Weel, she’ll maybe come. It was me that set her to shirt making. There is naething like white seam, and a good long stretch of it to steady a lassie like Marion. And if she learn to do it weel, it may stand her instead when other things fail.”“White seam!” exclaimed May. “Not she! May Calderwood is going to educate herself, and keep a fine school—in London maybe—she has heard o’ such things. She’s learning German and Latin, no less! And I just wish you could hear her sing.”“She markets for her mother, and does up her mother’s caps,” said Jean, “and she only learns Latin for the sake of helping Sandy Petrie, who is a dunce, and ay at the foot of the form.”“She’s nae an ill lassie,” said Miss Jean softly, and the subject was dropped.Phemie came in and the breakfast things were removed, and the girls went their several ways. Miss Jean, who was still lame from a fall she had got in the winter, went slowly to her chair near a sunny window and sat looking out upon the lawn. Mr Dawson went here and there, gathering together some papers, in preparation for his departure to the town. He had something to say, his sister knew as well as if he had told her, and she would gladly have helped him to say it, as it did not seem to be easy for him to begin. But she did not know what he wished to speak about, or why he should hesitate to begin. At last, standing a little behind her, he said,—“It’s no’ like John Petrie and his wife to do a foolish thing, but they are doing it now. And their son Jamie just the age to make a fool o’ himself, for the sake o’ a bonny face. ‘A rose among the other flowers,’ no less, said May.”“But Jean said better. ‘A violet in the wood.’ She is a modest little creature—though she has a strong, brave nature, and will hold her own with any Petrie o’ them a’. And as good as the best o’ them to my thinking.”“Well, that mayna be the father’s thought, though it may be the son’s.”“Dinna fash yoursel’ about Jamie Petrie. He’ll fall into no such trouble. It’s no’ in him?” added Miss Jean with a touch of scorn.“I never saw the lad yet that hadna it in him to ken a bonny lass when she came in his way; and for the lassie’s ain sake, ye should take thought for her.”“She has her mother,” said Miss Jean, more hastily than was her way. “And any interference would come ill from you or me where this one is concerned. And my bonny Mavis is but a bairn,” she added more gently, “and she’s in no danger from James Petrie, who is a well intentioned lad, and who has been ower weel brought up, and who is ower fond of siller and gentility, to have either roses or violets in his plan o’ life, unless they’re growing in a fine flowerpot, in somebody’s fine house. Marion Calderwood is no’ for the like of him.”Her brother regarded her with anger so evidently struggling with astonishment in his face, that she expected hot words to follow. But he kept silence for a moment, and then he said quietly enough,—“It seldom answers for ane to put his finger into another’s pie. There are few men so wise as to profit by a lesson from another man’s experience, and I doubt John Petrie is no’ ane o’ them.”“And there’s few men, it’s to be feared, wise enough to take the best lesson from their ain experience,” said Miss Jean gravely. “And that is a sadder thing to say.”It was quite true, as Captain Harefield had said, that it was his sister who “put him up” to going on James Petrie’s invitation to the garden party that afternoon. The natural desire to get him off her hands, for the rest of the day was her only motive in urging it, and a sufficient one, for it was true that he was bored by the quiet of Blackford House, and that he did not suffer alone. But it was the unwonted energy of his admiring exclamations as soon as they had passed out of the gate of Saughleas, that had suggested the idea.By “this and by that,” were they not beauties, these two girls? Who would have thought of coming upon two such without warning? Even his sister must acknowledge that they were beautiful.She did acknowledge it, but there was something far more wonderful to her than their good looks. That two country girls—and Scotch country girls—should be found at home dressed as these two were, astonished her more than their beauty.“They might have passed at any garden party of the season,” said she.“Passed! I should think so. I don’t know about their gowns, buttheywould pass, I fancy.”“She couldn’t have fallen on any thing to suit her style of face and figure better if she had made a study of it.”“Perhaps she did,” said her brother, laughing. “Or perhaps they get their gowns from London.”“No, they would probably have been dressed alike, in that case, and in the height of the fashion. The white one was very much like the dresses of other girls, but the other was unique. And they seemed nice, lady-like girls.”“Did they not? And not so very Scotch.”“Well, perhaps not sovery—but rather so. But then I like the Scotch of Scotch people better than their English as a rule. However, the few words I heard them speak were softly and prettily spoken, and quite appropriate to the place and time. How it might seem elsewhere I could not say.”“It is rather a nice place, too, isn’t it? The estate is small, but he has no end of money, they tell me, and he seems a sensible old fellow enough.”“The sister is a striking looking woman—with a certain dignity of manner, too.”“Yes, and young Petrie tells me that she used to keep a little shop, in her young days. Indeed, not so very long ago.”Mrs Eastwood did not reply to this. Her mind was evidently intent on solving the problem of Jean’s tasteful gown.“And at home too! I have heard that young people of their class, get themselves up in fine style when they go out to tea. But sitting there on the grass, with the old woman in the cap—”“But perhaps they are going out to tea.—To the garden party! ‘By this and by that’—Did I tell you? Young Petrie at the bank asked me to go. I have a great mind to go.”He glanced down at the faultless grey morning suit he wore.“I could not go all the way to Blackford House and return again, could I?”“Hardly, and you could not improve yourself if you were to go. Yes, by all means accept the invitation. You will be sure to meet the Misses—Dawson is it? And the circumstances will be more favourable for knowing them than they were this morning.”It ended in Captain Harefield’s leaving the carriage, and returning to Portie on foot. He lunched at the inn, and presented himself at Petrie Villa in company with the eldest son of the house in the course of the afternoon. It is to be supposed that he enjoyed himself, for this was by no means his last visit, and his sister was able to congratulate herself on getting him off her hands a good deal after this while they remained in the North.Various circumstances combined, made this a pleasanter summer in Saughleas than the last had been. For one thing, Miss Jean was there more than usual. The fall which had made her almost helpless for a while, still prevented her from moving about with ease; and the Lord’s “little ones,” for the time, received the aid and comfort which she owed them for His sake, through the hands of others, and she had to content herself with sitting still and waiting His will.She could have contented herself in circumstances more adverse than those in which she found herself. She knew that her presence in the house was a pleasure to her brother, and that it was not an uncomfortable restraint upon her nieces, as it might have become, even though they loved one another dearly, had she assumed any other place than that of visitor among them.So young a mistress of a house, to which there were so many coming and going as there always were in summer, needed the help which the presence of an elder person gave, and it was all the better that the help was given and received with no words about it. Jean the younger, was glad of her aunt’s stay, because she loved her, and because escaping now and then from the pleasant confusion that sometimes prevailed in the house, she found quiet and rest in her company. And though she might not have acknowledged her need of her help in any other way, she was doubtless the better of it.It cannot be said that it was altogether a happy summer to her, but it was a very busy one. She was mistress and housekeeper, and gave her mind to her duties as she had not done at first. Indeed, it seemed that she was determined to give herself and her maidens no rest for a while, so intent was she in doing all that was to be done. And even when her maidens had necessary respite, she took none to herself. In the house or in the garden she occupied herself all the morning. She took long walks in the afternoon if there were no visitors to entertain, and if the rain, or the special need or wish of her aunt or her sister kept her in the house, she employed herself still with work of some sort, sitting at it steadily and patiently, “as if she had her bread to make by it,” her father said one day when he had been watching her for some time unperceived.“I should like to know how it would seem to do that,” said Jean gravely.“You would soon tire of it,” said her father laughing.“I dare say. I tire of most things,” said she, rising and folding up the long, white garment on which she had been so busy.Her father regarded her curiously from behind his newspaper. She did not look either well or happy at the moment, he thought.“It is all nonsense, Jean lassie, to keep yourself at your seam, as you have been doing for the last two hours, when there are so many poor women in Portie that would be glad to do it for what you would hardly miss.”“But I like to do it, papa, for the moment, and one must do something.”“It is just a whim of hers, papa,” said May laughing. “Think of her stinting herself to do so much an hour, when she might as well be amusing herself.”“It’s good discipline, Auntie Jean says,” said Jean laughing. “And I need, it she thinks. At any rate, every woman ought to do white seam in the very best way, and I didna like it when I was young.”“But now we have the sewing-machine, and as for the discipline, it’s all nonsense.”“Well never mind, May. Now is the time to speak to papa about the children’s party. Papa, May wants to give a large children’s party—for the little Corbetts, ye ken. Though there must be grown people here too, and it will be great fun, I have no doubt.”Jean seemed quite as eager about it as May, her father thought, as they went on to discuss the proposed party. Of course the result of the discussion was just what the sisters knew it would be. Their father said they were to please themselves, only adding several cautions as to the care that must be taken of fruit trees and flower beds, and some doubts as to how the Portie bairns, accustomed to the freedom of rocks and sands, would care for a formal tea-drinking in the house, or even in the garden.“The bairns’ pleasure is the excuse, and no’ the reason, I doubt,” said he; but he laughed when he said it.This was one of the things that made this summer pleasanter than the last had been. They had amused themselves last summer and their father had not objected; but as to his enjoying any thing of the kind, such a thought had never entered the minds of his daughters. But now he did not endure their gay doings painfully, protesting against them by his manner, if not by his words, nor did he ignore them altogether as had been most frequently his way. He looked on smiling at the enjoyment of the guests, and took evident pleasure in the success of his daughters in entertaining them. If it had been otherwise, there would have been few visitors to entertain, and few gayeties attempted. For Jean did not care enough for these things to make the effort worth her while, and May would have had to content herself with the gayeties provided by other people. But as it was, the elder sister did her part, and did it well; so well that none but her aunt suspected that her heart was not in these things quite as it used to be.Certainly her father was far from suspecting any such thing. And sitting apart, seeing them both and watching, and musing upon all that was going on, Miss Jean could not but wonder at his blindness, and at the folly of the vague and pleasant possibilities he was beginning to see, and to rejoice over in the future.

Mr Dawson was just as usual the next morning. He was never so silent, nor in such haste to get through breakfast and away to the town when his sister was in the house, for he took pleasure in her company, and never failed in the most respectful courtesy toward her when she was under his roof—or indeed elsewhere. She saw traces of last night’s trouble in his face, but it was not so evident as to be noticed by his daughters.

Indeed he seemed to them to be more interested than usual in the amusing discussion into which they fell concerning their yesterday’s pleasure. They had been at a garden party given by Mrs Petrie, the wife of their father’s partner in the bank, and had enjoyed it, and May especially had much to say about it.

“And who do you think was there, papa? Captain Harefield?”

“Captain Harefield! How came that about?”

“James Petrie asked him, it seems. But he said he came because he thought we might be there.”

“But he acknowledged that it was his sister that ‘put him up to it,’” said Jean.

“So the Petries may thank you for the honour of his company. That would rather spoil the honour to them, if they were to hear it,” said Mr Dawson with a laugh.

“Well, very likely he may let them know it. I canna say much for his discretion,” said May with a shrug. “He asked me who made my sister’s gown, and you should have seen his face when I told him that she made it herself.”

“And didna he admire your gown?” asked her father, to the astonishment of the two Jeans, and indeed to May’s astonishment as well.

“Oh! yes. But then he said mine was just like other girls’ gowns, ‘very pretty and all that.’ But Miss Dawson’s was ‘unique,’” said May with a drawl. “And he said he would tell his sister.”

“And maybe she’ll want me to make one for her. She looks like one who cares about her gowns,” said Jean.

“She would be a queer kind o’ a woman if she didna,” said her father dryly.

Jean laughed.

“But there are degrees in that, as in other things. If Captain Harefield had spoken to me, I would have offered to make one for her.”

“And had the Captain nothing to say to you; Jean?” asked Mr Dawson.

“He was feared at Jean,” May said laughing. “He just stood and looked at her.”

“He had plenty to say, if I had had the time to listen. He said his sister insisted on his coming north that he might keep out of mischief. He found Blackford House a bore rather,” said Jean imitating May’s drawl with indifferent success. Then she added,—

“I beg your pardon, auntie. I ken ye dinna like it, and then I don’t do it well enough to make it worth my while, like May here.”

“My dear, ye baith do it only ower weel. And as to my no’ liking it—that’s neither here nor there. But I have kenned such a power o’ mockery give great pain to others, and bring great suffering sooner or later on those that had it. It canna be right, and it should be no temptation to a—Christian”, was the word that was on Miss Jean’s lips, but she changed it and said—“to a young gentlewoman.”

May looked at her sister and blushed and hung her head. Miss Jean so seldom reproved any one, that there was power in her words when she did speak; and May had yesterday sent some of her young companions into agonies of stifled laughter, by echoing the Captain’s drawl to his face.

“I’ll never do it again, auntie,” said she. “And besides,” said her sister, “Captain Harefield is not fair game. It’s not just airs and pride and folly with him, as it is with some folk we have seen; it is his natural manner.”

“But that is just what makes it so irresistible,” said May laughing. “To see him standing there so much at his ease—so strong and stately looking, and then to hear the things he says in his fine English words! It might be Simple Sandy himself,” and she went on to repeat some of his remarks, which probably lost nothing in the process. Even her aunt could not forbear smiling as she listened.

“Well, I must say I thought well of what I saw of him,” said Mr Dawson. “I would hardly call him a sharp man, but he may have good sense without much surface cleverness. I had a while’s talk with him yesterday.”

“And he’s a good listener,” said Jean archly.

Her father laughed.

“I dare say it may have been partly that. He is a fine man as far as looks go, anyway.”

“Very. They all said that,” said May. “And Mavis said to me, ‘Eh, May, wouldna he do grand deeds if he were the same a’ through?’ He has the look of ‘grand deeds.’ But I have my doubts, and so had Mavis,” added May shaking her head.

“There are few men that I have ever met, the same a’ through. But who is Mavis that sets up with you to be a judge?” asked her father.

“Mavis!”—said May, hanging her head at her father’s implied reproof, as he supposed. “Mavis—is wee Marion—Marion Calderwood.”

“And we used—in the old days—to call her Mavis because she has a voice like a bird, and to ken her from our May, and Marion Petrie,” said Jean, looking straight at her father, and as she looked the shine of tears came to her bonny eyes.

“She is but a bairn,” said Miss Jean gravely.

Mr Dawson’s face darkened as it always did at the mention of any name that brought back the remembrance of his son. May was not quick at noticing such signs, and she answered her aunt.

“A bairn! Yes, but ‘a bairn by the common,’ as Mrs Petrie’s Eppie says. She is a clever little creature.”

“She is a far-awa’ cousin o’ Mrs Petrie’s, and she’s learning some things from the governess of her bairns. But she might well have been spared on an occasion like yesterday, I would think,” said Miss Jean.

“Oh!allthe bairns were there, as well as Marion. And she looked as a rose looks among the rest of the flowers.”

“As the violet looks in the wood, I would say,” added Jean. “She’ll be as bonny as her sister ever was.”

There was a moment’s silence, round the table, which Jean broke.

“She was asking when you would be home, aunt. She has gotten her second shirt finished, and she wants you to see it. She is very proud of it. I told her that you werena going to Portie, except on Sundays, for a month yet, and she must come here and let you see it.”

“Weel, she’ll maybe come. It was me that set her to shirt making. There is naething like white seam, and a good long stretch of it to steady a lassie like Marion. And if she learn to do it weel, it may stand her instead when other things fail.”

“White seam!” exclaimed May. “Not she! May Calderwood is going to educate herself, and keep a fine school—in London maybe—she has heard o’ such things. She’s learning German and Latin, no less! And I just wish you could hear her sing.”

“She markets for her mother, and does up her mother’s caps,” said Jean, “and she only learns Latin for the sake of helping Sandy Petrie, who is a dunce, and ay at the foot of the form.”

“She’s nae an ill lassie,” said Miss Jean softly, and the subject was dropped.

Phemie came in and the breakfast things were removed, and the girls went their several ways. Miss Jean, who was still lame from a fall she had got in the winter, went slowly to her chair near a sunny window and sat looking out upon the lawn. Mr Dawson went here and there, gathering together some papers, in preparation for his departure to the town. He had something to say, his sister knew as well as if he had told her, and she would gladly have helped him to say it, as it did not seem to be easy for him to begin. But she did not know what he wished to speak about, or why he should hesitate to begin. At last, standing a little behind her, he said,—

“It’s no’ like John Petrie and his wife to do a foolish thing, but they are doing it now. And their son Jamie just the age to make a fool o’ himself, for the sake o’ a bonny face. ‘A rose among the other flowers,’ no less, said May.”

“But Jean said better. ‘A violet in the wood.’ She is a modest little creature—though she has a strong, brave nature, and will hold her own with any Petrie o’ them a’. And as good as the best o’ them to my thinking.”

“Well, that mayna be the father’s thought, though it may be the son’s.”

“Dinna fash yoursel’ about Jamie Petrie. He’ll fall into no such trouble. It’s no’ in him?” added Miss Jean with a touch of scorn.

“I never saw the lad yet that hadna it in him to ken a bonny lass when she came in his way; and for the lassie’s ain sake, ye should take thought for her.”

“She has her mother,” said Miss Jean, more hastily than was her way. “And any interference would come ill from you or me where this one is concerned. And my bonny Mavis is but a bairn,” she added more gently, “and she’s in no danger from James Petrie, who is a well intentioned lad, and who has been ower weel brought up, and who is ower fond of siller and gentility, to have either roses or violets in his plan o’ life, unless they’re growing in a fine flowerpot, in somebody’s fine house. Marion Calderwood is no’ for the like of him.”

Her brother regarded her with anger so evidently struggling with astonishment in his face, that she expected hot words to follow. But he kept silence for a moment, and then he said quietly enough,—

“It seldom answers for ane to put his finger into another’s pie. There are few men so wise as to profit by a lesson from another man’s experience, and I doubt John Petrie is no’ ane o’ them.”

“And there’s few men, it’s to be feared, wise enough to take the best lesson from their ain experience,” said Miss Jean gravely. “And that is a sadder thing to say.”

It was quite true, as Captain Harefield had said, that it was his sister who “put him up” to going on James Petrie’s invitation to the garden party that afternoon. The natural desire to get him off her hands, for the rest of the day was her only motive in urging it, and a sufficient one, for it was true that he was bored by the quiet of Blackford House, and that he did not suffer alone. But it was the unwonted energy of his admiring exclamations as soon as they had passed out of the gate of Saughleas, that had suggested the idea.

By “this and by that,” were they not beauties, these two girls? Who would have thought of coming upon two such without warning? Even his sister must acknowledge that they were beautiful.

She did acknowledge it, but there was something far more wonderful to her than their good looks. That two country girls—and Scotch country girls—should be found at home dressed as these two were, astonished her more than their beauty.

“They might have passed at any garden party of the season,” said she.

“Passed! I should think so. I don’t know about their gowns, buttheywould pass, I fancy.”

“She couldn’t have fallen on any thing to suit her style of face and figure better if she had made a study of it.”

“Perhaps she did,” said her brother, laughing. “Or perhaps they get their gowns from London.”

“No, they would probably have been dressed alike, in that case, and in the height of the fashion. The white one was very much like the dresses of other girls, but the other was unique. And they seemed nice, lady-like girls.”

“Did they not? And not so very Scotch.”

“Well, perhaps not sovery—but rather so. But then I like the Scotch of Scotch people better than their English as a rule. However, the few words I heard them speak were softly and prettily spoken, and quite appropriate to the place and time. How it might seem elsewhere I could not say.”

“It is rather a nice place, too, isn’t it? The estate is small, but he has no end of money, they tell me, and he seems a sensible old fellow enough.”

“The sister is a striking looking woman—with a certain dignity of manner, too.”

“Yes, and young Petrie tells me that she used to keep a little shop, in her young days. Indeed, not so very long ago.”

Mrs Eastwood did not reply to this. Her mind was evidently intent on solving the problem of Jean’s tasteful gown.

“And at home too! I have heard that young people of their class, get themselves up in fine style when they go out to tea. But sitting there on the grass, with the old woman in the cap—”

“But perhaps they are going out to tea.—To the garden party! ‘By this and by that’—Did I tell you? Young Petrie at the bank asked me to go. I have a great mind to go.”

He glanced down at the faultless grey morning suit he wore.

“I could not go all the way to Blackford House and return again, could I?”

“Hardly, and you could not improve yourself if you were to go. Yes, by all means accept the invitation. You will be sure to meet the Misses—Dawson is it? And the circumstances will be more favourable for knowing them than they were this morning.”

It ended in Captain Harefield’s leaving the carriage, and returning to Portie on foot. He lunched at the inn, and presented himself at Petrie Villa in company with the eldest son of the house in the course of the afternoon. It is to be supposed that he enjoyed himself, for this was by no means his last visit, and his sister was able to congratulate herself on getting him off her hands a good deal after this while they remained in the North.

Various circumstances combined, made this a pleasanter summer in Saughleas than the last had been. For one thing, Miss Jean was there more than usual. The fall which had made her almost helpless for a while, still prevented her from moving about with ease; and the Lord’s “little ones,” for the time, received the aid and comfort which she owed them for His sake, through the hands of others, and she had to content herself with sitting still and waiting His will.

She could have contented herself in circumstances more adverse than those in which she found herself. She knew that her presence in the house was a pleasure to her brother, and that it was not an uncomfortable restraint upon her nieces, as it might have become, even though they loved one another dearly, had she assumed any other place than that of visitor among them.

So young a mistress of a house, to which there were so many coming and going as there always were in summer, needed the help which the presence of an elder person gave, and it was all the better that the help was given and received with no words about it. Jean the younger, was glad of her aunt’s stay, because she loved her, and because escaping now and then from the pleasant confusion that sometimes prevailed in the house, she found quiet and rest in her company. And though she might not have acknowledged her need of her help in any other way, she was doubtless the better of it.

It cannot be said that it was altogether a happy summer to her, but it was a very busy one. She was mistress and housekeeper, and gave her mind to her duties as she had not done at first. Indeed, it seemed that she was determined to give herself and her maidens no rest for a while, so intent was she in doing all that was to be done. And even when her maidens had necessary respite, she took none to herself. In the house or in the garden she occupied herself all the morning. She took long walks in the afternoon if there were no visitors to entertain, and if the rain, or the special need or wish of her aunt or her sister kept her in the house, she employed herself still with work of some sort, sitting at it steadily and patiently, “as if she had her bread to make by it,” her father said one day when he had been watching her for some time unperceived.

“I should like to know how it would seem to do that,” said Jean gravely.

“You would soon tire of it,” said her father laughing.

“I dare say. I tire of most things,” said she, rising and folding up the long, white garment on which she had been so busy.

Her father regarded her curiously from behind his newspaper. She did not look either well or happy at the moment, he thought.

“It is all nonsense, Jean lassie, to keep yourself at your seam, as you have been doing for the last two hours, when there are so many poor women in Portie that would be glad to do it for what you would hardly miss.”

“But I like to do it, papa, for the moment, and one must do something.”

“It is just a whim of hers, papa,” said May laughing. “Think of her stinting herself to do so much an hour, when she might as well be amusing herself.”

“It’s good discipline, Auntie Jean says,” said Jean laughing. “And I need, it she thinks. At any rate, every woman ought to do white seam in the very best way, and I didna like it when I was young.”

“But now we have the sewing-machine, and as for the discipline, it’s all nonsense.”

“Well never mind, May. Now is the time to speak to papa about the children’s party. Papa, May wants to give a large children’s party—for the little Corbetts, ye ken. Though there must be grown people here too, and it will be great fun, I have no doubt.”

Jean seemed quite as eager about it as May, her father thought, as they went on to discuss the proposed party. Of course the result of the discussion was just what the sisters knew it would be. Their father said they were to please themselves, only adding several cautions as to the care that must be taken of fruit trees and flower beds, and some doubts as to how the Portie bairns, accustomed to the freedom of rocks and sands, would care for a formal tea-drinking in the house, or even in the garden.

“The bairns’ pleasure is the excuse, and no’ the reason, I doubt,” said he; but he laughed when he said it.

This was one of the things that made this summer pleasanter than the last had been. They had amused themselves last summer and their father had not objected; but as to his enjoying any thing of the kind, such a thought had never entered the minds of his daughters. But now he did not endure their gay doings painfully, protesting against them by his manner, if not by his words, nor did he ignore them altogether as had been most frequently his way. He looked on smiling at the enjoyment of the guests, and took evident pleasure in the success of his daughters in entertaining them. If it had been otherwise, there would have been few visitors to entertain, and few gayeties attempted. For Jean did not care enough for these things to make the effort worth her while, and May would have had to content herself with the gayeties provided by other people. But as it was, the elder sister did her part, and did it well; so well that none but her aunt suspected that her heart was not in these things quite as it used to be.

Certainly her father was far from suspecting any such thing. And sitting apart, seeing them both and watching, and musing upon all that was going on, Miss Jean could not but wonder at his blindness, and at the folly of the vague and pleasant possibilities he was beginning to see, and to rejoice over in the future.

Chapter Six.A Proposal.The garden party at Petrie Villa had been the first of a series. Not a very long series, indeed, for there were not many gardens in Portie equal to the requirements of such an entertainment, even according to the limited ideas of those who had never “assisted at” a garden party anywhere else. But there had been several, and the presence of Captain Harefield would have been generally declared to be the most interesting feature of nearly all of them.He had not always been invited. That is, he had not always been invited in the formal way usually considered necessary on such occasions even in Portie. But through the kindness of James Petrie at first, and afterward of others, when he became better known, he was sure to make his appearance in the course of the entertainment, and so comported himself and so evidently enjoyed himself, that even those who were at first inclined to resent, as a liberty, his coming so unceremoniously among them, forgot to do so in his presence, and ended in being as pleased and flattered as the rest.Of course there was a garden party at Saughleas, and of course Captain Harefield was a guest, formally and specially invited by Mr Dawson himself. But his presence was not the most interesting circumstance of the occasion, for his sister, Mrs Eastwood, was there also. Mrs Eastwood had come according to her promise and had taken Miss Jean in her carriage to visit Mrs Cairnie, and it had been a successful visit in every way. For May had given the old woman warning, and she had prepared herself to receive them. Not only had she on a clean “mutch” and apron, but her house was “redd up” in a way that would have seemed wonderful to her visitor, if she had been familiar with its aspect on other days.Mrs Cairnie was a clever old woman, and made the most of her opportunity. She bewailed the loss of her daughter’s society, and of the help and comfort she had been to her, but enlarged on her sense of the good fortune that had come to the lassie in being admitted into the service of such a kind and gracious lady. She declared herself overpowered at the condescension and kindness of the visit in terms which did not seem so very much exaggerated to the visitor; but Miss Jean knew that the bad auld wife was laughing in her sleeve at the English lady and her simplicity. However, the visit was considered a success by those chiefly concerned, and it was to be repeated before Mrs Eastwood took her departure.On returning to leave Miss Jean at Saughleas, Mrs Eastwood expressed herself delighted to accept Mr Dawson’s invitation to alight and drink a cup of tea before she set out for Blackford House. In a little the tea and all the pretty accessories were brought out to the terrace, and it was charming—every thing was charming, Mrs Eastwood declared, and “not at all Scotch”; but happily the last part of her opinion was reserved till she was relating her afternoon’s adventures at Blackford House.She herself did her utmost to charm every one, and succeeded very well on the whole, and her suggestion as to an invitation to the garden party came very naturally and gracefully in the midst of the gentle thanks addressed to Miss Jean because of the kindness shown to her brother. Captain Harefield, whom she confessed to be a little impatient of the quiet of Blackford House. Even Miss Dawson did not seem to think it strange when, in her pretty way, she begged to be allowed to accompany her brother to the garden party on the day appointed.“It was very silly of her,” Jean said afterwards. “What possible pleasure could she expect?”“I don’t see that. Why should she not take pleasure in it as well as you? She is young yet,” said Mr Dawson, ready to take the lady’s part.“I should have no pleasure in going out of my own sphere,” said Jean with dignity.“Eh! Jeannie, I’m no’ so sure of that. Werena you just the other day playing at ‘the beds’ with Mavis, and Emily Corbett, and the rest of the bairns on the sands? And didna you finish Maggie Saugster’s seam to let her get away with the rest? And didna you—”“Nonsense, May! I’ve played at ‘the beds’ all my life, and I dinna look down on Mavis and Maggie and the rest. And it was for their pleasure I played with them, and not for my own.”“Well, it may be for our pleasure that Mrs Eastwood is coming here, and as for looking down on us—” said May with a toss of her pretty head.“Whisht, bairns,” said Miss Jean gently. “I dare say she thinks lang in the country as weel as her brother,—her that’s used with London life,—and she would like to come just for a pass-time, with no thought of looking down on any one.”“Her brother doesna seem to be looking down on any one,” said Mr Dawson with a short, amused laugh.“Oh! he makes no secret that it is just for a pass-time, that he favours Portie folk with his company. He finds Blackford House dull. He gets awfully bored,” said May in the Captain’s languid manner.“It’s a wonder he stays on then,” said Mr Dawson.“I said that to him once, and he said—” May hesitated. It would not have been easy to repeat all that had been said on the occasion alluded to; but she put the gist of his communications more clearly and directly than he had done himself, when she added,—“It is a good place not to spend money at, and he does not seem to have much to spend.”“Weel, he’s honest—as to his reasons, at any rate,” said her father.“Oh! that is what I gathered, rather than what he said. He is out of the reach of duns. That hedidsay.”“He doesna seem to me like an ill-disposed youth,” said Miss Jean.“Oh, no, auntie! He’s nice and agreeable, and—all that; but he is—soft,” said May laughing.Her father looked as if he were going to say something sharp, but he did not.“His sister is very fond of him, and very good to him, he says. And he must be a heavy handful whiles,” said Jean gravely.“In what way?” asked her father.“Oh! just having him on her mind to keep sight of, and amuse, and keep out of mischief, as he says. Just fancy the weariness of it?”“You seem to have gathered a good deal from him, as well as your sister,” said Mr Dawson, not well pleased. “And you find him a heavy handfu’, do you? I have thought whiles that you get on very well with him.”“Oh, yes, I get on very well with him! I’m not responsible for him, ye ken, and that makes all the difference.”“Marion Petrie says that Jean keeps him very much to herself, and Jamie looks as if he thought so, too, sometimes,” said May laughing.“That is one of your ‘gatherings,’ May, my dear,” said her sister.“Well, you must make your best of the visitor when she comes,” said Mr Dawson as he went out.And it was very easy to make the best of Mrs Eastwood. She was amiable and agreeable, and if she looked down on any one, it did not appear. She did not mingle much with the younger portion of the company, but she amused herself by observing all that was going on, and talked pleasantly with Miss Jean, and afterwards with Mr Dawson, about various things, but chiefly about her brother, whom she evidently loved dearly, and who as evidently caused her anxiety, though she had no thought of letting this appear.Miss Jean found her soft flowing talk pleasant to listen to, and all the more that she did not need very often to reply. Mr Dawson was charmed with her, and it was not, as a general thing, his way to be charmed with strangers. But she was not altogether a stranger. Her husband’s name—Eastwood, the London banker—had long been familiar to Mr Dawson. He knew him to be a “responsible” man, and that was more than could be said of all the fine English folk, who found it convenient to pass a part of the summer or autumn at Blackford House.Mrs Eastwood herself was of high family, being the granddaughter, or at least the grand-niece, of a living earl, and though Mr Dawson would doubtless have scorned the imputation, it is possible that he found all the more pleasure in entertaining her because of that Mr Eastwood was not of high family. He was very rich however, and they got on together, pretty well, May “gathered” from Captain Harefield’s conversation; that is, they never quarrelled, and were content to spare each other to enjoy the society of other people for a good part of the year.But Mrs Eastwood made much of her husband when speaking of him to Mr Dawson, and of her brother also. Of the brother, she had much to say, and Mr Dawson listened with great interest to it all, as Miss Jean could not fail to see.And in the mean time the young people amused themselves in the garden and in the wood, and Captain Harefield seemed to be at no loss for amusement among them. Jean certainly did not keep him to herself to-day, as Mr Dawson noticed; but then Jean was hostess, and had to occupy herself with the duties of her position, and with the party generally. It passed off very well, all things considered, and the children’s party was likely to be the same thing over again, with the children added.The little Corbetts, who were the reason, or the excuse, of the prospective gayeties, had come from their home in an English manufacturing town, in order that the sea breezes of Portie might put strength in their limbs and colour in their wan cheeks; and they had come at the special invitation of Mr Dawson. Their father, the son of the Portie parish minister of the time, had been his chief friend in the days of his youth, and they had never forgotten one another, though they had not for a long time been in frequent correspondence. During one of Mr Dawson’s infrequent visits to Liverpool, they had met by chance, and had renewed acquaintance to the pleasure of both, and Mr Dawson allowed himself to be persuaded to go and pass a few days with his friend.Mr Corbett had not been a very successful man in the way of making money, and he had a large family, few of them able to do much for themselves. But they were cheerful, hopeful people, and made the best of things. There had been illness among them recently, which had left the younger children white and thin, and not likely to mend during the summer heat in a close city street; and when Mr Dawson asked as many of them as liked to spend a month or two among the sea breezes of Portie, the invitation was accepted gratefully. But it was doubtful whether, for economic reasons, they could have availed themselves of it, if Mr Dawson had not taken matters into his own hand, and insisted on taking some of them home at once.So the two youngest, Polly and Dick, with an elder sister of fifteen to be responsible for their well-being and well-doing, were carried off to Saughleas, and presented unannounced to the startled, but well pleased, household. Their coming gave interest, and occupation as well, to every one, for “Mr Dawson had given mamma no time for preparation,” as the pretty, anxious elder sister was fain to explain when she asked Miss Dawson’s advice and assistance in the matter of shoes and stockings, and other things suitable for the perfect enjoyment of the rocks and sands of Portie. Miss Dawson made all that easy, taking the equipment of the children, and the elder sister as well, into her own hands.And the puny city children enjoyed the sands and the sea, the running and clambering, and the free out-of-doors life, as much as their father had done in his boyish days; and their own mother would hardly have recognised their round brown faces before the first month was over.As to their needing entertainment in the way of children’s parties, that was not likely. But for the sake of their father and grandfather they had been invited to many houses in Portie, and it was but right that they should have a chance to invite their young friends in return. And so the party was decided on, and was much enjoyed, and so might be dismissed with no more words about it, except for a circumstance or two which attended it.Mrs Eastwood was there again, but not by invitation. She had not been aware that there was to be such gay doings at Saughleas, she said, when she came into the garden, and she stayed a while at Miss Jean’s request, to enjoy the sight of so many happy bairns. But she was not bright and beaming and bent on pleasing every one, as she had been the first time she was at Saughleas.To tell the truth, she was anxious and unhappy, at a loss what to do, or whether she should do any thing, or just let events take their own course. It was her brother and his affairs that occupied her thoughts. She had been so long accustomed to think for him, and advise him, he had come to her so constantly for help in the various difficulties into which he had fallen during his life, and she had been so successful in helping him, and so happy in doing so, that she could not—though she sometimes tried—divest herself of a feeling of personal responsibility for his well-being. And now that he seemed to be at a turning point in his life, she felt all the anxiety of one who had a decision of importance to make, with no one at hand on whose judgment she could rely for guidance.It added to her unhappiness, that she could not quite free herself from blame in regard to the matter to be decided. She need not have made herself unhappy about her own course. Nothing that she had done or left undone, had much to do with the intentions of which her brother had informed her that morning. She had been conscious of a feeling of relief for herself at the chance of his finding the means of amusing himself innocently in the country. That was the uttermost of her sin towards him. But his frequent visits to Saughleas, and his loiterings in Portie, would have been none the less frequent had he believed that his sister missed and mourned every hour of his absence.And her present anxiety as to his next step was just as vain. She could neither help nor hinder it, and, whatever might be the result, neither praise nor blame could justly fall to her because of it. But she did not see it so, and so she had come to Saughleas with many vague thoughts as to what it might be wise to do, but with a firm determination as to one thing that was to be plainly said before she went away again.Her first thought when she saw the pleasant confusion that the children were making on the lawn and in the gardens was, that nothing could be said to-day. But by and by, when children and young people, her brother among the rest, went away to amuse themselves with games in the field beyond the wood, the way to speak was opened to her, and she saw no reason why she should not say all that was in her mind. It was to Miss Jean she had intended to say it, and Miss Jean was sitting under the beeches with folded hands, ready to listen. And yet, looking into the grave, serene face of Miss Jean, she did hesitate. She could not tell why; for Miss Jean was only a person who had kept a shop, and counted and hoarded the pence, and who knew their value. A commonplace, good-natured woman, not easily offended, why should she not say to her all that she had to say—and say it plainly too?And so she did. And Miss Jean listened with no offence apparently, with only a little gleam of surprise and interest in her eyes, and perhaps a little gleam of amusement also. Mrs Eastwood was not sure. She did not say much, but she said it very plainly.Miss Jean must have noticed the frequency of Captain Harefield’s visits to Saughleas, and his warm admiration of the young ladies, her nieces. It had gone beyond admiration, she had reason to think, as to one of them. Indeed her brother had intimated as much to her, and had filled her with anxiety; for her brother had no fortune. Of course if he married he would wish to leave the army. Could Miss Jean tell her whether the fortune which Mr Dawson could give his daughter would be sufficient to insure the comfort of the young people in case of a marriage?“And did your brother send you to ask?” said Miss Jean quietly. “And why do you ask me?”“Of course he did not I speak because of my own anxiety, and you must see that I could not speak to Mr Dawson about money until a proposal had been made.”“Weel, madam, I can give you no help and no information. I have no’ sufficient knowledge of my brother’s means, or of his intentions. And I could not influence him in this matter, even if I were to try. Which of them is it?”But strangely enough Mrs Eastwood could not answer this question. The intimation she had that morning received of her brother’s intention to propose to Mr Dawson for the hand of his daughter, had not been very definite or very clearly given. It had come in during a discussion of other and painful matters, with which money, or rather the want of money, had to do. And if her brother had told her which of them he intended to honour, she had failed to understand him, or she had forgotten. So her reply did not touch this question.“I cannot say whether I approve or disapprove of his choice. Your niece is very pretty and lady-like, and she would take her husband’s rank—and, my dear Miss Dawson, I trust you will not think me mercenary, but my brother can give his wife a high station, and a place in society, and to make the marriage an equal one, or in the least degree suitable, there should not only be beauty and grace, which your niece I must acknowledge has, but—money.”“And plenty of it,” said Miss Jean.“Of course. And unless there is, as you say, plenty of it, Percy should not be allowed to speak.”“But if they love one another?”Mrs Eastwood turned and looked at Miss Jean. She had rather avoided doing so hitherto. She was not sure that the old woman was not laughing at her. Miss Jean’s face was grave enough however.“If there is not a prospect of—of—a fortune, he should not be allowed to speak. Not that I do not admire your niece. I admire her extremely. She is clever, and sensible also, and would restrain—I mean she would influence her husband. She would make a good wife to Percy, who is—who needs some one to lean on.”“A heavy handfu’,” said Miss Jean, unconsciously repeating her niece’s words.There was a silence of several minutes between them, and then Mrs Eastwood continued, carrying on her own train of thought.“Of course I knew that the foolish boy admired the young lady—fancied himself in love; but that has often happened to him before, and I thought it would pass with the month. But they are very pretty and fresh, and the tall one is clever, and she would—yes, she would make him a good wife—provided—”Miss Jean’s spirit was stirred within her, but she said nothing; and Mrs Eastwood said all the more, unconsciously betraying her belief that it would be the best thing that could happen to her brother, that he should marry and settle down with a wife clever enough to influence him. And to influence him meant, evidently, to keep him from spending too much money, and from the companionship of those who loved to lead him astray.She did not say in plain words that his marriage with such a one would be a great relief to her and that it would be the saving of him to be kept out of London and out of harm’s way for the greater part of the year; but Miss Jean saw clearly that she was more eager for his success than she was willing to acknowledge. Miss Jean listened silently and patiently. Her niece knew her own mind, doubtless, and would not be likely to allow herself to be influenced by the wishes of any one, and she had no call to reprove, or even to resent, the “ill manners” of the lady.So she sat silent and let the softly spoken words “go in at one ear and out of the other,” till she heard the tramp of a horse’s feet, and knew that her brother was come home, and then she rose, and invited Mrs Eastwood into the house, hoping that she would refuse the invitation and take her departure. For at the sound of her brother’s voice, Miss Jean’s heart misgave her.

The garden party at Petrie Villa had been the first of a series. Not a very long series, indeed, for there were not many gardens in Portie equal to the requirements of such an entertainment, even according to the limited ideas of those who had never “assisted at” a garden party anywhere else. But there had been several, and the presence of Captain Harefield would have been generally declared to be the most interesting feature of nearly all of them.

He had not always been invited. That is, he had not always been invited in the formal way usually considered necessary on such occasions even in Portie. But through the kindness of James Petrie at first, and afterward of others, when he became better known, he was sure to make his appearance in the course of the entertainment, and so comported himself and so evidently enjoyed himself, that even those who were at first inclined to resent, as a liberty, his coming so unceremoniously among them, forgot to do so in his presence, and ended in being as pleased and flattered as the rest.

Of course there was a garden party at Saughleas, and of course Captain Harefield was a guest, formally and specially invited by Mr Dawson himself. But his presence was not the most interesting circumstance of the occasion, for his sister, Mrs Eastwood, was there also. Mrs Eastwood had come according to her promise and had taken Miss Jean in her carriage to visit Mrs Cairnie, and it had been a successful visit in every way. For May had given the old woman warning, and she had prepared herself to receive them. Not only had she on a clean “mutch” and apron, but her house was “redd up” in a way that would have seemed wonderful to her visitor, if she had been familiar with its aspect on other days.

Mrs Cairnie was a clever old woman, and made the most of her opportunity. She bewailed the loss of her daughter’s society, and of the help and comfort she had been to her, but enlarged on her sense of the good fortune that had come to the lassie in being admitted into the service of such a kind and gracious lady. She declared herself overpowered at the condescension and kindness of the visit in terms which did not seem so very much exaggerated to the visitor; but Miss Jean knew that the bad auld wife was laughing in her sleeve at the English lady and her simplicity. However, the visit was considered a success by those chiefly concerned, and it was to be repeated before Mrs Eastwood took her departure.

On returning to leave Miss Jean at Saughleas, Mrs Eastwood expressed herself delighted to accept Mr Dawson’s invitation to alight and drink a cup of tea before she set out for Blackford House. In a little the tea and all the pretty accessories were brought out to the terrace, and it was charming—every thing was charming, Mrs Eastwood declared, and “not at all Scotch”; but happily the last part of her opinion was reserved till she was relating her afternoon’s adventures at Blackford House.

She herself did her utmost to charm every one, and succeeded very well on the whole, and her suggestion as to an invitation to the garden party came very naturally and gracefully in the midst of the gentle thanks addressed to Miss Jean because of the kindness shown to her brother. Captain Harefield, whom she confessed to be a little impatient of the quiet of Blackford House. Even Miss Dawson did not seem to think it strange when, in her pretty way, she begged to be allowed to accompany her brother to the garden party on the day appointed.

“It was very silly of her,” Jean said afterwards. “What possible pleasure could she expect?”

“I don’t see that. Why should she not take pleasure in it as well as you? She is young yet,” said Mr Dawson, ready to take the lady’s part.

“I should have no pleasure in going out of my own sphere,” said Jean with dignity.

“Eh! Jeannie, I’m no’ so sure of that. Werena you just the other day playing at ‘the beds’ with Mavis, and Emily Corbett, and the rest of the bairns on the sands? And didna you finish Maggie Saugster’s seam to let her get away with the rest? And didna you—”

“Nonsense, May! I’ve played at ‘the beds’ all my life, and I dinna look down on Mavis and Maggie and the rest. And it was for their pleasure I played with them, and not for my own.”

“Well, it may be for our pleasure that Mrs Eastwood is coming here, and as for looking down on us—” said May with a toss of her pretty head.

“Whisht, bairns,” said Miss Jean gently. “I dare say she thinks lang in the country as weel as her brother,—her that’s used with London life,—and she would like to come just for a pass-time, with no thought of looking down on any one.”

“Her brother doesna seem to be looking down on any one,” said Mr Dawson with a short, amused laugh.

“Oh! he makes no secret that it is just for a pass-time, that he favours Portie folk with his company. He finds Blackford House dull. He gets awfully bored,” said May in the Captain’s languid manner.

“It’s a wonder he stays on then,” said Mr Dawson.

“I said that to him once, and he said—” May hesitated. It would not have been easy to repeat all that had been said on the occasion alluded to; but she put the gist of his communications more clearly and directly than he had done himself, when she added,—

“It is a good place not to spend money at, and he does not seem to have much to spend.”

“Weel, he’s honest—as to his reasons, at any rate,” said her father.

“Oh! that is what I gathered, rather than what he said. He is out of the reach of duns. That hedidsay.”

“He doesna seem to me like an ill-disposed youth,” said Miss Jean.

“Oh, no, auntie! He’s nice and agreeable, and—all that; but he is—soft,” said May laughing.

Her father looked as if he were going to say something sharp, but he did not.

“His sister is very fond of him, and very good to him, he says. And he must be a heavy handful whiles,” said Jean gravely.

“In what way?” asked her father.

“Oh! just having him on her mind to keep sight of, and amuse, and keep out of mischief, as he says. Just fancy the weariness of it?”

“You seem to have gathered a good deal from him, as well as your sister,” said Mr Dawson, not well pleased. “And you find him a heavy handfu’, do you? I have thought whiles that you get on very well with him.”

“Oh, yes, I get on very well with him! I’m not responsible for him, ye ken, and that makes all the difference.”

“Marion Petrie says that Jean keeps him very much to herself, and Jamie looks as if he thought so, too, sometimes,” said May laughing.

“That is one of your ‘gatherings,’ May, my dear,” said her sister.

“Well, you must make your best of the visitor when she comes,” said Mr Dawson as he went out.

And it was very easy to make the best of Mrs Eastwood. She was amiable and agreeable, and if she looked down on any one, it did not appear. She did not mingle much with the younger portion of the company, but she amused herself by observing all that was going on, and talked pleasantly with Miss Jean, and afterwards with Mr Dawson, about various things, but chiefly about her brother, whom she evidently loved dearly, and who as evidently caused her anxiety, though she had no thought of letting this appear.

Miss Jean found her soft flowing talk pleasant to listen to, and all the more that she did not need very often to reply. Mr Dawson was charmed with her, and it was not, as a general thing, his way to be charmed with strangers. But she was not altogether a stranger. Her husband’s name—Eastwood, the London banker—had long been familiar to Mr Dawson. He knew him to be a “responsible” man, and that was more than could be said of all the fine English folk, who found it convenient to pass a part of the summer or autumn at Blackford House.

Mrs Eastwood herself was of high family, being the granddaughter, or at least the grand-niece, of a living earl, and though Mr Dawson would doubtless have scorned the imputation, it is possible that he found all the more pleasure in entertaining her because of that Mr Eastwood was not of high family. He was very rich however, and they got on together, pretty well, May “gathered” from Captain Harefield’s conversation; that is, they never quarrelled, and were content to spare each other to enjoy the society of other people for a good part of the year.

But Mrs Eastwood made much of her husband when speaking of him to Mr Dawson, and of her brother also. Of the brother, she had much to say, and Mr Dawson listened with great interest to it all, as Miss Jean could not fail to see.

And in the mean time the young people amused themselves in the garden and in the wood, and Captain Harefield seemed to be at no loss for amusement among them. Jean certainly did not keep him to herself to-day, as Mr Dawson noticed; but then Jean was hostess, and had to occupy herself with the duties of her position, and with the party generally. It passed off very well, all things considered, and the children’s party was likely to be the same thing over again, with the children added.

The little Corbetts, who were the reason, or the excuse, of the prospective gayeties, had come from their home in an English manufacturing town, in order that the sea breezes of Portie might put strength in their limbs and colour in their wan cheeks; and they had come at the special invitation of Mr Dawson. Their father, the son of the Portie parish minister of the time, had been his chief friend in the days of his youth, and they had never forgotten one another, though they had not for a long time been in frequent correspondence. During one of Mr Dawson’s infrequent visits to Liverpool, they had met by chance, and had renewed acquaintance to the pleasure of both, and Mr Dawson allowed himself to be persuaded to go and pass a few days with his friend.

Mr Corbett had not been a very successful man in the way of making money, and he had a large family, few of them able to do much for themselves. But they were cheerful, hopeful people, and made the best of things. There had been illness among them recently, which had left the younger children white and thin, and not likely to mend during the summer heat in a close city street; and when Mr Dawson asked as many of them as liked to spend a month or two among the sea breezes of Portie, the invitation was accepted gratefully. But it was doubtful whether, for economic reasons, they could have availed themselves of it, if Mr Dawson had not taken matters into his own hand, and insisted on taking some of them home at once.

So the two youngest, Polly and Dick, with an elder sister of fifteen to be responsible for their well-being and well-doing, were carried off to Saughleas, and presented unannounced to the startled, but well pleased, household. Their coming gave interest, and occupation as well, to every one, for “Mr Dawson had given mamma no time for preparation,” as the pretty, anxious elder sister was fain to explain when she asked Miss Dawson’s advice and assistance in the matter of shoes and stockings, and other things suitable for the perfect enjoyment of the rocks and sands of Portie. Miss Dawson made all that easy, taking the equipment of the children, and the elder sister as well, into her own hands.

And the puny city children enjoyed the sands and the sea, the running and clambering, and the free out-of-doors life, as much as their father had done in his boyish days; and their own mother would hardly have recognised their round brown faces before the first month was over.

As to their needing entertainment in the way of children’s parties, that was not likely. But for the sake of their father and grandfather they had been invited to many houses in Portie, and it was but right that they should have a chance to invite their young friends in return. And so the party was decided on, and was much enjoyed, and so might be dismissed with no more words about it, except for a circumstance or two which attended it.

Mrs Eastwood was there again, but not by invitation. She had not been aware that there was to be such gay doings at Saughleas, she said, when she came into the garden, and she stayed a while at Miss Jean’s request, to enjoy the sight of so many happy bairns. But she was not bright and beaming and bent on pleasing every one, as she had been the first time she was at Saughleas.

To tell the truth, she was anxious and unhappy, at a loss what to do, or whether she should do any thing, or just let events take their own course. It was her brother and his affairs that occupied her thoughts. She had been so long accustomed to think for him, and advise him, he had come to her so constantly for help in the various difficulties into which he had fallen during his life, and she had been so successful in helping him, and so happy in doing so, that she could not—though she sometimes tried—divest herself of a feeling of personal responsibility for his well-being. And now that he seemed to be at a turning point in his life, she felt all the anxiety of one who had a decision of importance to make, with no one at hand on whose judgment she could rely for guidance.

It added to her unhappiness, that she could not quite free herself from blame in regard to the matter to be decided. She need not have made herself unhappy about her own course. Nothing that she had done or left undone, had much to do with the intentions of which her brother had informed her that morning. She had been conscious of a feeling of relief for herself at the chance of his finding the means of amusing himself innocently in the country. That was the uttermost of her sin towards him. But his frequent visits to Saughleas, and his loiterings in Portie, would have been none the less frequent had he believed that his sister missed and mourned every hour of his absence.

And her present anxiety as to his next step was just as vain. She could neither help nor hinder it, and, whatever might be the result, neither praise nor blame could justly fall to her because of it. But she did not see it so, and so she had come to Saughleas with many vague thoughts as to what it might be wise to do, but with a firm determination as to one thing that was to be plainly said before she went away again.

Her first thought when she saw the pleasant confusion that the children were making on the lawn and in the gardens was, that nothing could be said to-day. But by and by, when children and young people, her brother among the rest, went away to amuse themselves with games in the field beyond the wood, the way to speak was opened to her, and she saw no reason why she should not say all that was in her mind. It was to Miss Jean she had intended to say it, and Miss Jean was sitting under the beeches with folded hands, ready to listen. And yet, looking into the grave, serene face of Miss Jean, she did hesitate. She could not tell why; for Miss Jean was only a person who had kept a shop, and counted and hoarded the pence, and who knew their value. A commonplace, good-natured woman, not easily offended, why should she not say to her all that she had to say—and say it plainly too?

And so she did. And Miss Jean listened with no offence apparently, with only a little gleam of surprise and interest in her eyes, and perhaps a little gleam of amusement also. Mrs Eastwood was not sure. She did not say much, but she said it very plainly.

Miss Jean must have noticed the frequency of Captain Harefield’s visits to Saughleas, and his warm admiration of the young ladies, her nieces. It had gone beyond admiration, she had reason to think, as to one of them. Indeed her brother had intimated as much to her, and had filled her with anxiety; for her brother had no fortune. Of course if he married he would wish to leave the army. Could Miss Jean tell her whether the fortune which Mr Dawson could give his daughter would be sufficient to insure the comfort of the young people in case of a marriage?

“And did your brother send you to ask?” said Miss Jean quietly. “And why do you ask me?”

“Of course he did not I speak because of my own anxiety, and you must see that I could not speak to Mr Dawson about money until a proposal had been made.”

“Weel, madam, I can give you no help and no information. I have no’ sufficient knowledge of my brother’s means, or of his intentions. And I could not influence him in this matter, even if I were to try. Which of them is it?”

But strangely enough Mrs Eastwood could not answer this question. The intimation she had that morning received of her brother’s intention to propose to Mr Dawson for the hand of his daughter, had not been very definite or very clearly given. It had come in during a discussion of other and painful matters, with which money, or rather the want of money, had to do. And if her brother had told her which of them he intended to honour, she had failed to understand him, or she had forgotten. So her reply did not touch this question.

“I cannot say whether I approve or disapprove of his choice. Your niece is very pretty and lady-like, and she would take her husband’s rank—and, my dear Miss Dawson, I trust you will not think me mercenary, but my brother can give his wife a high station, and a place in society, and to make the marriage an equal one, or in the least degree suitable, there should not only be beauty and grace, which your niece I must acknowledge has, but—money.”

“And plenty of it,” said Miss Jean.

“Of course. And unless there is, as you say, plenty of it, Percy should not be allowed to speak.”

“But if they love one another?”

Mrs Eastwood turned and looked at Miss Jean. She had rather avoided doing so hitherto. She was not sure that the old woman was not laughing at her. Miss Jean’s face was grave enough however.

“If there is not a prospect of—of—a fortune, he should not be allowed to speak. Not that I do not admire your niece. I admire her extremely. She is clever, and sensible also, and would restrain—I mean she would influence her husband. She would make a good wife to Percy, who is—who needs some one to lean on.”

“A heavy handfu’,” said Miss Jean, unconsciously repeating her niece’s words.

There was a silence of several minutes between them, and then Mrs Eastwood continued, carrying on her own train of thought.

“Of course I knew that the foolish boy admired the young lady—fancied himself in love; but that has often happened to him before, and I thought it would pass with the month. But they are very pretty and fresh, and the tall one is clever, and she would—yes, she would make him a good wife—provided—”

Miss Jean’s spirit was stirred within her, but she said nothing; and Mrs Eastwood said all the more, unconsciously betraying her belief that it would be the best thing that could happen to her brother, that he should marry and settle down with a wife clever enough to influence him. And to influence him meant, evidently, to keep him from spending too much money, and from the companionship of those who loved to lead him astray.

She did not say in plain words that his marriage with such a one would be a great relief to her and that it would be the saving of him to be kept out of London and out of harm’s way for the greater part of the year; but Miss Jean saw clearly that she was more eager for his success than she was willing to acknowledge. Miss Jean listened silently and patiently. Her niece knew her own mind, doubtless, and would not be likely to allow herself to be influenced by the wishes of any one, and she had no call to reprove, or even to resent, the “ill manners” of the lady.

So she sat silent and let the softly spoken words “go in at one ear and out of the other,” till she heard the tramp of a horse’s feet, and knew that her brother was come home, and then she rose, and invited Mrs Eastwood into the house, hoping that she would refuse the invitation and take her departure. For at the sound of her brother’s voice, Miss Jean’s heart misgave her.

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