“Well, I know that!” said Mary with fervour; “and there are few that would have needed any fleeching, if I may say so. But I reckon that she just heard it from my father, very suddenly. My father is a dour man, Glendochart. Whatever ye may have to say he will never hear ye speak. He will listen to the boys—whiles—but to us never. Just you must do this, or you must do that, and not a word more.”

“Drumcarro,” said Glendochart, now full of passion, “has done me a cruel wrong in putting my suit before any lady in such a way. Your sister was free to have taken it or left it, Miss Mary. Me press a proposition that was not acceptable!—not for all the world!”

“I am well aware of that,” said Mary with feeling; “but my father is a dour man, and he would say, ‘Not a word! just take the offer and be thankful.’ And indeed,” said Mary diffidently, “in most cases there would be little difficulty, but Kirsteen is one that is very much set upon her own way.”

“She had but to say so,” cried the offended suitor; “I promise she would have had no more trouble with me!”

“Oh, Glendochart, do not be angry—I am just sure that he would not let her say a word. She has not been like herself this week past. It has just been on her mind night and day. And at last she has taken, a despair, seeing no way of getting out of it—and she has gone away.”

“I am not in the habit,” said Glendochart, “of finding myself a bugbear. I would seem to cut a pretty figure in all this—a sort of old Robin Gray,” he said with a furious laugh. “I am sure I am obliged to you all! ‘With tears in his e’e, said Jenny, for their sake will ye marry me?’ I beg to say, Miss Mary, that this was not my attitude at all.”

“Do you need to say that to me, Glendochart?” said Mary reproachfully. “Oh, no! nor even to poor Kirsteen either, who would have been fain to hear every word ye had to say—for she was very fond of ye, Glendochart.”

“It is a strange way of showing it,” he said, but he was mollified in spite of himself.

“As we all were. It will be a great heart-break and a great downfall if ye come no more to the house because of Kirsteen. But she would have been fain, fain to hear whatever ye had to say, if it had not been——”

“What hindered her, then?” he said.

“It’s no for me to betray her secrets,” said Mary, “and indeed she never told them to me, for she was not one that opened her heart. But there is little that can be hidden from a sister’s eye. And it was just this—there was one before ye, Glendochart. If she had seen you first I am very sure she would never have thought of him—for to my mind there’s no more comparison—but, poor thing, she had given her word. Take what you offered her and be mansworn to the other lad was all that was before her; and no true to you either, for she would never have dared to tell you.”

Glendochart was still much offended and disturbed. He had fastened his horse to a tree, and was now pacing about the road within the corner of the rock with mingled rage and pain. But he was moved by the soft voice and pleading accents of the very mild and pleasing intercessor, whose suggestion of her own superior taste was put in with so much gentle insistence. Mary’s eyes, which were cast down when he looked at her, but raised with much meaning to his face when he did not seem to be observing, softened his mood in spite of himself.

“If that was the case,” he said, “there was perhaps an excuse for her, though when she knew it was so she should not have encouraged and drawn on—another man.”

It was Mary’s policy to give a very charitable representation of Kirsteen’s action, and it was also quite congenial to her feelings, for she was not spiteful nor malicious, notwithstanding that it seemed to be a very sensible thing to turn her sister’s failure to her own advantage if that could be done.

“Glendochart,” she said, “there’s some things in which gentlemen never can understand the heart of a girl. She had no thought of encouraging and drawing on. That never came into her head. She liked you well, and she thought no harm in showing it.”

“Because,” cried Glendochart, with mingled offence and emotion, “she thought I was an old man, and out of the question. That is easy to see——”

“It was not that,” said Mary softly. “She saw that you were kind to all of us—every one. Perhaps she may have thought that you had—other intentions. And oh,” said the gentle girl, raising her eyes to his, “it made such a difference to us all! It’s been so lightsome and so heartsome, Glendochart, to see ye always coming. There is little diversion at Drumcarro. My father is a very dour man, wrapped up in the boys, and my mother, she is always ailing, poor body; and we see nobody; and to have you coming just like sunshine, with a smile to one and a kind word to another, and thinking no shame to be pleasant even to me—that ye thought nothing of—or little Jeanie, that is but a bairn.”

Glendochart was very much touched. He took Mary’s hand in both his. “Do not say that I thought nothing of you, for that would be far from the case; and how am I to thank you now for taking so much thought for me? You have just behaved like an angel so far as I can see, both to me and to her.”

“Oh, Glendochart, not that! But just what I could do in the way of kindness,” she said.

CHAPTER IV.

The result of this interview was that Glendochart turned and rode home, very full of wrath and disappointment, yet soothed in his amour-propre by the kind expedient of the angelic girl, who returned to Drumcarro very demurely with the consciousness that her time and exertions had not been lost. She had indeed decided perhaps too summarily that Kirsteen’s disappearance was a permanent one; but as the day crept on, and there was no appearance of her return, the temporary qualm which had come over Mary’s mind dispersed again. She had the satisfaction of seeing that her father was very much disturbed by the non-appearance of Glendochart. He came out of his den from time to time, and took a turn round the house and stood out at the gate straining his eyes along the road. “Is it Kirsteen ye are looking for, father?” Mary said. Drumcarro asked with a fierce exclamation what he was caring about Kirsteen. Let her go to the devil if she liked. What he was looking for was quite a different person. “But maybe,” said Mary, “the other person will not be coming if Kirsteen is not here.” Her father asked fiercely, what she knew about it? But he was evidently impressed by the remark, for he went up and down stairs and out to the side of the linn, shouting for Kirsteen in a way that filled all the echoes. “Where is Kirsteen all this day, and why cannot she come when her father is crying on her? He will just bring down the house,” Mrs. Douglas had said, putting her hands upon her ears. “She might maybe have a headache, and be lying down upon her bed,” said little Jeanie, to whom a similar experience had once occurred, and who had felt the importance it gave her.

The anxieties of the family were soothed by this and other suggestions until the early wintry night fell and it was discovered that nobody had seen her, or knew anything about her. Marg’ret in her kitchen had been in an intense suppressed state of excitement all day, but it had not been discovered by any one save the astute Mary that she showed no curiosity about Kirsteen, and asked no questions. When it came to be bedtime the whole household was disturbed. The boys had gone out over the hill, and towards the merchant’s along the road to see if any trace could be found of her, while Jeanie stood under the birch-trees—now denuded of all their yellow leaves—outside, looking out through the dark with all that sense of desolation and mystery which is in the idea of night to the mind of a child. Jeanie stood very quiet, crying to herself, but thinking she heard footsteps and all kinds of mysterious movements about her, and fully making up her mind to see Kirsteen carried home, murdered or dead of cold and exposure, or something else that was equally terrible and hopeless; and though she would have been overjoyed, yet she would also have been a little disappointed had she seen Kirsteen walk in with no harm or injury, which was also more or less the frame of mind of Jock and Jamie, who fully expected to stumble over their sister among the withered bracken, or to see her lying by the side of the road.

There was however a moment of mute despair when they all came back and looked at each other for an explanation of the mystery. Then the children burst out crying one after the other, the boys resisting the impulse till nature was too strong for them, and producing a louder and more abrupt explosion from the fact of the attempted restraint. Their father stood looking round upon them all, his fierce eyes blazing, looking for some way of venting the rage that was in him. The lass disappeared, confound her! And Glendochart drawing back, the devil flee away with him! Drumcarro was indeed in evil case. When Jock, who was the last to give way, burst out without a moment’s notice into a violent boo-hoo, his father caught him suddenly a box on the ear which sent him spinning across the room. “Haud your confounded tongue, can’t ye—and no wake your mother.” “Eh, my poor laddie! Ye need not punish him for me, for here I am, and what is the matter with everybody?” said the weak voice of Mrs. Douglas at the door. She had been left alone during all this excitement, and her repeated calls had brought nobody. So that querulous, displeased, and full of complaining, unable to bear the silence and the want of information, the poor soul had wrapped herself in the first garments she could find, and tottered down stairs. She appeared a curious mass of red flannel, chintz, and tartan, one wrapped over the other. “What is the matter?” she said, looking eagerly round upon the troubled family. “Oh, mother,” cried little Jeanie weeping, running to her and hiding her face and her tears in one of these confused wrappings. “Kirsteen has gone away. She’s run away,” said Jeanie, afraid not to be believed—and then the commotion was increased by a wail from the mother, who sank in a state of collapse into her large chair, and by the rush of Marg’ret from the kitchen, who perceiving what had happened flew to give the necessary help. “Could you not all hold your tongues, and let her get her night’s rest in peace?” Marg’ret cried. The scene was dismal enough, and yet had thus a rude comedy mingled with its real pain. Drumcarro stalked away when this climax of confusion was reached. “I was a fool ever to mind one of them,” he said. “Ye little whinging deevil, get out o’ my way. You’re no better than a lassie yourself.”

Mary had done her best to save the story from becoming public by warning the expectant suitor, who on his side had thought himself safely out of the ridicule of it by his quick withdrawal. But the voices of the servants and the children were not to be silenced. “Have ye heard the news?” said Duncan the carter at the toll-bar. “The maister up at the house is neither to haud nor to bind. Our Kirsteen has ta’en her fit in her hand and run away, the Lord kens where, for fear he would mairry her against her will to auld Glendochart.” “Eh, do ye ken what’s happened?” said Marg’ret’s help in the kitchen as soon as she could find an excuse to run to the merchant’s. “Miss Kirsteen, she’s aff to the ends of the earth, and the mistress near deed with trouble, and Marg’ret raging just like a sauvage beast.” The boys whispered it to their mates at school with a certain sense of distinction, as of people to whom something out of the common had happened, and Jeanie who had no one else to communicate the wonderful fact to, told the little girl that brought the letters, by whom it was published far and near. Miss Eelen heard it the next morning by means of Jock, who rode the pony over almost before daylight to inquire if his sister had been seen there. “Indeed she might have been too proud to have had the offer of Glendochart,” the old lady said. “He should just take Mary instead.” “He will maybe think that’s not the same thing,” said Mr. Pyper, the minister, who went over to the town in his gig soon after about some Presbytery business, and to hear what people were saying. “Well it will be very near the same thing,” Miss Eelen said.

This was how it had come to the ears of the Duke and Duchess and all the best society in the county, who were immensely entertained, and told a hundred stories about the gallant wooer whose attempt at courtship had been so disastrous. He went away himself the next day, sending a letter to Drumcarro to say that he had heard that his suit was disagreeable to the young lady, and that nothing could induce him to press it after he knew this fact; but that he hoped on his return to pay his respects to Mrs. Douglas and the young ladies. Drumcarro was not to be spoken to by any member of his family after this happened for several days. Had he met with the gallant old gentleman who had thus, in his own opinion, retired so gracefully, it is to be feared the trim Glendochart might have found his martial science of but little avail against “the auld slave-driver’s” brutal energy and strength. But after a while Mr. Douglas calmed down. He flung Kirsteen’s little possessions out of doors, and swore with many oaths that whoever named that hizzy’s name again should leave his house on the moment. But when Glendochart, coming back in the spring, came out formally to pay a visit at Drumcarro, bringing boxes of French chocolate and other tokens of his residence abroad, the laird, though he gave him the briefest salutation, did not knock him down, which was what the family feared. And by dint of a diplomacy which would have done credit to any ambassador, Mary continued so to close her mother’s mouth that no reference should be made to the past. Mrs. Douglas was too much afraid of her husband to introduce Kirsteen’s name, but she was ready with a hundred little allusions. “Ah, Glendochart, when ye were here last! That was before our last misfortune. I will never be so well again as I was in those days, when I had one by me that never forgot her mother.” She would have sympathized with him and claimed his sympathy in this furtive way from the moment of his arrival. But Mary had taken by this time very much the upper hand and brought her mother into great subjection. “Ye will just drive him away if ye say a word.” “I am sure,” Mrs. Douglas said weeping, “her name never crosses my lips.” “But what does that matter when you are just full of allusions and talk of her that’s away.” “Alas! there is another that I might be meaning,” said the poor mother; “two of them, bonny lassies as ever lived, and one with weans of her own that I will never see.” “Oh, mother, why should ye make such a work about them that never think of you? They would have bided at home if their hearts had been here. But it’s a grand thing for the boys and Jeanie,” said the astute elder sister, “that Glendochart should come back. It sets us right with the world, and see the things he’s always bringing them.” “Mainy sweeties are not good for children, though thae chocolate ones are maybe wholesome enough,” said Mrs. Douglas. “And what does he ever do for them but bring them sweeties?” “Mother, it’s just education for them to hear such a man speak,” cried Mary, which silenced Mrs. Douglas at the end.

Mary apparently felt the full force of what she said. She listened to him devoutly; she persuaded him to talk with little murmurs of pleasure. “Eh, it’s just as good as a book to hear ye, Glendochart”—and other such ascriptions of praise. Few men are quite superior to this kind of flattery, and one who has been slighted in another quarter and has felt the absence of any just appreciation of his deserts, is more than usually open to it. Glendochart fell into his old habit of frequent visits to Drumcarro, and he was pleased by the universal interest in him—the delight of the young ones, and the gentle devotion of Mary. A soft regret, a tender respect was in her tone. The only time in which she ever displayed a consciousness of the past was when she thanked him with almost tears in her eyes for coming: “Which we could never have expected.” It was not, however, until a day in spring, in the month of April, when the beauty of the country was awakening, that the old gentleman was completely subjugated. The linn was subdued from the volume of its wintry torrent, but was roaring over the rocks still with the fulness of spring showers one bright afternoon when he met Mary on the road taking a walk, as she said. They returned, without any intention passing the house and continuing their walk unconsciously, drawn on by the tumult of the stream. Glendochart stood at the head of the little glen, and looked down the ravine with many thoughts. Mary had drawn aside from its edge. “I cannot go down that dreadful way. It makes me giddy,” said Mary. “I never liked that steep bank; the others run up and down just like goats—but not me! If ye will excuse my weakness, Glendochart, and go a little round by the road, we’ll come out at the foot just the same.”

Now it had been with a rush of recollection that Glendochart had come to the linn side. He remembered well how Kirsteen had rushed on before him as airy as a feather, trying the stones with her light weight, to find which was most steady, like a bird alighting upon them, putting out her hand to help him—she the young lady who ought to have been indebted to him for help. And he remembered the slip he had made and his fall, and the tremble in her voice which he had feared meant laughter, and the effort he had made to look as if a tumble on the wet sod was nothing, a thing he did not mind. Mary had far more sense to go round by the road. He felt himself in so much better a position agreeing with her that it was too steep for a lady, and gallantly guiding her round the safer way. It was a soft evening with no wind, and a delightful spring sky full of brightness and hope. In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, and the fancy of an old young gentleman who has been led to think of these matters and then has been cruelly disappointed, is if anything more easily awakened. Glendochart gave Mary his arm to help her along the gentler round of the road, and his mouth was opened and he spoke.

“Miss Mary,” he said, “ye were very kind a few months back in a matter which we need not now enter into. I can never cease to be grateful to you for the warning ye gave me. And ye have been more than kind since I came home. It has been a great pleasure to come to Drumcarro, though I did it at first mostly out of a sense of duty. But to see you gave it a charm.”

“Oh, Glendochart, you are very kind to say so,” said Mary. “We just all of us have a debt to you that we can never repay.”

“Not a word about debt, or I would soon be on the wrong side of the balance. It has been a great part of the pleasure of my life to come—but now I will have to be thinking whether I should come again.”

“Oh, Glendochart! and wherefore so?” cried Mary with alarm in her eyes.

“My dear young lady,” said the Highland gentleman, “I am getting an old man—I was mangrown (and perhaps a trifle more) before ye were born.”

She had said “Oh, no!” softly while he was speaking, with a gentle pressure upon his arm—and now when he paused she lifted her dove’s eyes and said, “What does that matter?” in tones as soft as the wood-pigeon’s coo.

“You must understand me,” he said, “which I am afraid was more than your sister, poor thing, ever did—I have been experiencing a great change of feeling. She was a bright young creature full of pretty ways—and I was just beguiled—the like of that may blind a man for a time, but when his eyes are opened to the knowledge of a more excellent way—that he had not observed before—”

“It is true,” said Mary in a faltering voice; “my poor Kirsteen had a great deal of the child in her. And it would not be my part to be affronted if ye had seen another that was maybe better adapted to make you happy. Oh, no! it would be ill my part—though I might regret.”

“Ye have no guess,” said Glendochart with a tender touch of the hand that clung to his arm, “who that other is, who is the only person I will ever think of?”

“No,” said Mary with a sigh. “I’m not sure that I want to hear—but that’s a poor sentiment and it shall not be encouraged by me. On the contrary it will not be my fault if that lady—who will have a happy lot, I am sure—does not find kind friends here.”

“If she does not it will be most unnatural,” said Glendochart, “for the person I am meaning is just yourself and no other. And if ye think she will have a happy lot—my dear, take it—for it will never be offered to any woman but you.”

“Oh, Glendochart!” said Mary casting down her eyes.

It was very different from his wooing of Kirsteen and in many ways much more satisfactory—for far from running away in horror of his suit, which is a thing to pique the pride of any man, Mary was unfeignedly proud of having won the prize which she had at once felt, failing Kirsteen, it would be a good thing to keep in the family. She saved her old lover every trouble. She would not have him go to her father, which was what he proposed with great spirit to do at once. “No,” she said, “it is me that must tell him. My father is a strange man; he is little used to the like of you; but I know all his ways. And I will tell him; for ye must mind, Glendochart, if ye mairry me that I will not have ye taigled with all my family. The boys and little Jeanie now and then if ye please for a short visit, or my mother for a change of air, but just at your pleasure, and not like a thing you’re obliged to do. I will take that into my own hand. Ye can leave it all to me.”

Glendochart rode away that night with great satisfaction in his mind. He felt that he had wiped out his reproach; after having failed to marry Kirsteen it was a necessity to vindicate himself by marrying somebody—and he particularly felt (after the consolation that had been drawn from Mary’s gentle speeches and ways) that to marry out of this very house where he had been slighted would be the most complete vindication. And he was delighted with his second choice; her good taste, her good sense, her clear perception of all that was necessary, filled him with satisfaction and content. He rode away with something of the ardour of a young man joined to the more reasonable satisfaction of an old one, in the consciousness of having secured the most devoted of housekeepers, a lady who would “look well at his table-head,” who would take care of his interests and would not even allow him to be taigled with her family. He kissed his hand to his bonny Mary, and his soul was filled with delightful anticipations. There was no doubt she was a bonny creature, far more correct and satisfactory than that gilpie Kirsteen with her red hair. Glendochart was thus guilty of the vulgar unfaithfulness of disparaging his own ideal—but it is a sin less heinous in an old lover than in a young one—for how many ideals must not the old gentleman have lived through?

Mary walked in straight to her father’s door—who took as little notice of Glendochart as possible in these days. He was sitting with a map of the old Douglas property before him, painfully ruminating whether he could anyhow squeeze out of the family living enough to buy a corner of land that was in the market; and wondering, with a sort of forlorn fury, whether Sandy or even Sandy’s son, might be able to gather all that land back again to the Douglas name. This was his ideal; all others, such as love, or affection, or the ties of human fellowship having died out of his mind long ago, if they had ever occupied any place there. He looked up angrily as Mary came in. What could she want, the useless woman-creature that was good for nothing, never could bring a penny into the house, but only take out of it as long as she should live?

“Well! what are you wanting now?” he said sharply.

“I am wanting to speak to you,” Mary said.

“A fool would understand that, since ye’ve come here; which is a place where there’s no room for weemen. Speak out what you’ve got to say, and leave me quiet, which is all I desire from ye.”

“I am afraid,” said Mary sweetly, “that I will have to give ye a little trouble, father; though it will save you a good deal of fash later.”

“Give me trouble is what you do night and day. Save me fash is what I’ve never known.”

“It will be so now,” said Mary, “for to provide for your daughters would be a great fash to you, and one that would go sore against the grain. So you should be glad, father, however little ye think of us, when we can provide for ourselves.”

“How are ye going to do that?” said Drumcarro derisively. “No man will have ye. I’m sick of the very name of ye,” he said; “I wish there was not a woman in the house.”

“Well,” said Mary, with imperturbable good temper, “ye will soon be quit of one. For I’m going to be marriet, and I’ve come to tell you.”

“To be marriet! I don’t believe it; there’s no man will look at ye,” said the indignant father.

“It is true we never see any men,” said Mary; “but one is enough, when ye can make up your mind to him. Father, we would like to name an early day, seeing that he has been disappointed already, and that there is no time to lose. It is Glendochart I am intending to marry,” she said demurely, looking him in the face.

“Glendochart!” he got up from his chair and swore a large round oath. “That hizzy’s leavings!” he said. “Have ye no pride?”

“I will have a great deal of pride when I’m settled in my own house,” replied Mary. “He will be here to-morrow to settle everything; but I thought I would just tell you to-night. And I hope, father,” she added with great gravity, “that seeing I’m here to protect him you will keep a civil tongue in your head.”

CHAPTER V.

“You could always try,” said Mary derisively.

“That’s true, I might try—for she’s a very knowledgeable person, my sister Jean; but that will make a double letter—and how is the like of me to get a frank or any easement?”

“I will ask Glendochart—for he has plenty of friends in the Parliament houses.”

“I will have none from Glendochart! The Lord be praised, I have still a shilling in my pouch to ware upon my friends.”

“Ye are just a jealous woman for your friends,” said Mary with a laugh of triumph.

“Maybe I am that and maybe I am not. I would neither wile away my sister’s jo nor tak what anither’s left,” cried Marg’ret with unreasonable indignation. But Mary turned away with a demure smile. She had no such ridiculous prejudices. And perhaps it will be best to give in full her letter to Kirsteen explaining how everything came about.

This letter was given to Kirsteen out of the cover which Miss Jean opened with great precaution on account of the writing that was always to be found on the very edge of the paper where the letter was folded, and under the seal. Miss Jean shook her head while she did so and said aloud that Marg’ret was very wasteful, and what was the good of so many letters. “For after all,” she said, “news will keep; and so long as we know that we are both well what is the object in writing so often? I got a letter, it’s not yet three weeks ago, and here’s another. But one thing is clear, it’s not for me she writes them, and we must just try to get her a few franks and save her siller.” But she gave what she called a skreigh as soon as she had read half a page. “It’s your sister that’s going to be married?” that was indeed a piece of news that warranted the sending of a letter. Kirsteen read hers with a bright colour and sparkling eyes. She was angry, which was highly unreasonable, though I have remarked it in women before. She felt it to be an offence that Glendochart had been able to console himself so soon. And she was specially exasperated to think that it was upon Mary his choice had fallen. Mary! to like her as well as me! Kirsteen breathed to herself, feeling, perhaps, that her intimate knowledge of her sister’s character did not increase her respect for Mary. “Having known me to decline on a range of lower feelings.” These words were not written then, nor probably had they been written, would they have reached Kirsteen, but she fully entered into the spirit of them. “Mary! when it was me he wanted!” She did not like the idea at all.

“Yes,” she said sedately, “so it appears;” but her breathing was a little quickened, and there was no pleasure in her tone.

“And is your sister so like you?” said Miss Jean.

“She is not like me at all,” said Kirsteen. “She is brown-haired and has little colour, and very smooth and soft in all her ways.” Kirsteen drew a long breath and the words that she had spoken reminded her of other words. She thought to herself, but did not say it, “Now Jacob was a smooth man.” And then poor Kirsteen flamed with a violent blush and said to herself, “What a bad girl I am! Mary has never been false or unkind to me—and why should not she take Glendochart when I would not take him? And why should the poor man never have anybody to care for him because once he cared for the like of me?”

Miss Jean did not, of course, hear this, but she saw that something was passing in Kirsteen’s mind that was more than she chose to say. And, like a kind woman, she went on talking in order that the balance might come right in the mind of her young companion. “They will be coming to London,” she said, “just when the town is very throng—and that is real confusing to folk from the country. If it will be pleasing to you, Miss Kirsteen, I will ask them to their dinner; that is, if they will not think it a great presumption in the like of me.”

To tell the truth Kirsteen herself felt that Marg’ret’s sister was not exactly the person to entertain Glendochart and Mary, who were both of the best blood in the country; but she was too courteous to say this. “It would be very kind of you, Miss Jean,” she said, “but I am not sure that it would be pleasing to me. Perhaps it would be better to let them just take their own gait and never to mind.”

“I have remarked,” said Miss Jean, “in my long experience that a quiet gentleman from the country when he comes up to London with his new married wife, has often very few ideas about where he is to take her to. He thinks that he will be asked to his dinner by the chief of his name, and that auld friends will just make it a point to be very ceevil. And so they would perhaps at a quiet time; but when the town is so throng, and people’s minds fixed on what will be the next news of the war, and everybody taken up with themselves, it is not so easy to mind upon country friends. And I have seen them that come to London with very high notions just extremely well pleased to come for an evening to a countrywoman, even when she was only a mantua-maker. But it shall be just whatever way you like, and you know what my company is and who I would ask.”

“Oh, it is not for that!” cried Kirsteen. By this time she knew very well what Miss Jean’s company was. There was an old Mrs. Gordon, who had very high connections and “called cousins” with a great many fine people, and had a son with Lord Wellington’s army, but who was very poor and very glad to be received as an honoured guest in Miss Jean’s comfortable house. And there was the minister of the Scots church in the city, who announced to everybody on all occasions that there was nobody he had a higher respect for than Miss Jean, and that her name was well known in connection with all the Caledonian charities in London. And there was Miss Jean’s silk-mercer, to whom she gave her large and valuable custom, and who was in consequence Miss Jean’s very humble servant, and always happy to carve the turkey or help the beef at her table, and act as “landlord” to her guests—which was how she expressed it. He had a very quiet little wife who did not count. And there was a well-known doctor who was one of the community of the Scots kirk, and often called on Sabbath mornings to take Miss Jean to Swallow Street in his carriage. Besides these persons, who were her habitual society, there was a floating element of Scotch ladies who were governesses or housekeepers in great families, and who had occasion to know Miss Jean through bringing messages to her from their ladies and being recognized as countrywomen. It was a very strongly Scots society in the middle of Mayfair, very racy of Scotch soil, and full of Scotch ideas though living exclusively in London. It had been a little humiliating to Kirsteen herself to meet them, with the strong conviction she had in her mind that she herself with her good blood must be very much above this little assembly. But she had been obliged to confess that they had all been very agreeable, and old Mrs. Gordon had quoted her fine relations to so much purpose that Kirsteen had been much ashamed of her instinctive resistance and foregone conclusion. All the same she did not think Glendochart would be elated by such an invitation, or that he would consider it a privilege to introduce his wife to the circle at Chapel Street. His wife! She thought with a momentary thrill that she might have been that important personage, ordering new gowns from Miss Jean instead of sewing under her, driving about in a handsome carriage and doing just what she pleased, with an adoring slave in attendance. And that he should have taken Mary in her place! And that Mary should possess all that had been intended for Kirsteen! She thought she could see the quiet triumph that would be in her sister’s eyes, and the way in which she would parade her satisfaction. And wherefore not? Kirsteen said to herself. Since she had paid the price, why should she not have the satisfaction? But it cost Kirsteen an effort to come to this Christian state of mind—and she did not reply to Mary’s letter. For indeed she was not at all a perfect young woman, but full of lively and impatient feelings, and irritability and self-opinion—as belonged to her race.

CHAPTER VI.

London was more than throng when Glendochart and his young wife arrived. It was mad with joy over the great battle of Waterloo which had just been fought, and the triumph of the British arms, and the end of the war which nobody had been sure might not be another long war like that of the Peninsula. When the pair from the Highlands reached town, travelling in the coach for Mary thought a postchaise an unnecessary expense, they met, a short distance from London, the coach which carried the news, all decorated with laurels, the conductor performing triumphant tunes upon his horn, the passengers half crazy with shouting, and feeling themselves somehow a part of the victory if not the first cause, flinging newspapers into passing carriages, and meeting every wayfarer with a chorus only half intelligible about the Great and Glorious Victory. The bride was much excited by these announcements. She concluded that now there would be nothing but balls and parties in London, and that Glendochart would receive sheaves of invitations from all quarters; and finally that it was quite essential she should go at once to Miss Jean Brown’s, not only to ask after Kirsteen, but to get herself one or two gowns that should be in the height of the fashion and fit to appear at the dinner table of the Duke and Duchess, who she made no doubt would make haste to invite so important a member of the clan. “That will no doubt be the first place we will go to,” she said to her husband. “Oh, yes, my dear; if his Grace thinks about it I have no doubt he will mention it to the Duchess, and if they should happen to have a free day——“ “Is that all you say, Glendochart, and me a bride?” cried Mary. But the old bridegroom, who was more or less a man of the world, would not promise more. And he was as much excited by the news as any one, and from the moment when he could seize one of the papers that were flying about, and read for himself the brief despatch from the field of battle, there was nothing else to be got from him. There was another old soldier in the coach, and the two began to reckon up the regiments that had been engaged and to discuss the names of the officers, and to speculate on the results of this great and decisive victory, and whether Boney would ever hold up his head again. Mary felt almost deserted as she sat back in her corner and found all the caresses and whispers of the earlier journey stopped by this sudden excitement. She did not herself care very much for the victory nor understand it, though she was glad it was a victory. She was half glad also, and half sorry, that none of the boys were with Lord Wellington—sorry that she was deprived of the consequence of having a brother with the army, yet glad that she was thus free of the sad possibility of being plunged into mourning before her honeymoon was over.

But when these thoughts had passed through her mind, Mary turned to her own concerns which were more interesting than any public matters. Flags were flying everywhere as they drove through the streets and a grand tumult of rejoicing going on. The very sound of it was exhilarating, the great placards that were up everywhere with the news, the throngs at every corner, the newsvendors who were shouting at the top of their voices imaginary additions to the despatches and further details of the victory, the improvised illuminations in many windows, a candle stuck in each pane after the fashion of the time, that to a stranger from the country had a fine effect seen through the smoky haze of the London streets, which even in June and at the beginning of the century was sufficiently apparent to rural perceptions. Mary was not carried away by this fervour of popular sentiment as her old husband was, who was ready to shout for Wellington and the army on the smallest provocation, but she was agreeably stimulated in her own thoughts. She already saw herself at the grand dinners which would be given in celebration of the event in the Duke’s great mansion in Portman Square—not placed perhaps by his side, as would in other circumstances have been her right as a bride, but yet not far off, in the midst of the lords and ladies; or perhaps his Grace, who was known to be punctilious, would give her her right whoever was there, were it even a princess of the blood, and she would have the pride and the felicity of looking down upon half the nobility seated below her at the feast. The chief of Glendochart’s name could scarcely do less to one of the Douglases entering his clan at such a moment. Mary lay back in her corner, her mind floating away on a private strain of beatific anticipation, while Glendochart hung half out of the window in his excitement, cheering and asking questions. She imagined the princess of the blood, who no doubt would be present, asking of the Duke who the young lady was in her bridal dress who occupied the place of honour, and hearing that she was one of the Douglases, just entered into his Grace’s connection by her marriage with Glendochart, the princess then (she almost saw it!) would request to have the bride presented to her, and would ask that the Duchess should bring her one day to Windsor perhaps to be presented to Queen Charlotte, or to Hampton Court or some other of the royal palaces. Mary’s heart beat high with this supposition, which seemed more or less a direct consequence of Waterloo, as much so as Boney’s downfall, and much more satisfactory than that probable event.

When they arrived in the city where the coaches from the north stopped, and she had to get out, somewhat dazed by all the tumult round her, and the crowd, and the struggle for baggage, and the absence of any coherent guidance through that chaos of shouting men and stamping horses, and coaches coming and going, and everywhere the shouts of the great and glorious victory, Mary was in the act of receiving a pressing invitation from the princess to pass a week with her and meet all the first people in London. She was half annoyed to be disturbed in the midst of these delightful visions, but comforted herself with the thought that it was but a pleasure deferred.

And it may be imagined that with all this in her mind it became more than ever important to Mary to make an early call upon Miss Jean and provide herself as rapidly as possible with a dress that was fit to be worn among such fine company. The riding-habit which she had worn at her marriage, though exceedingly fine and becoming, was not a garment in which she could appear at the dinner-table in Portman Square. There are some rare geniuses who have an intuitive knowledge of what is finest and best without having learned it, and in respect to society and dress and the details of high life Mary was one of these gifted persons. Her habit had been very highly thought of in the country. It was a costume, many rustic persons supposed, in which it would be possible to approach the presence of Queen Charlotte herself. But Mary knew by intuition just how far this was possible. And she knew that for the Duke’s table a white gown was indispensable in which to play her part as a bride; therefore, as there was no saying at what moment the invitation might arrive, nor how soon the dinner might take place, she considered it expedient to carry out her intention at once. Happily Glendochart next morning was still a little crazy about the victory, and anxious to go down to the Horse Guards to make inquiries, if she would excuse him, as he said apologetically. Mary did so with the best grace in the world. “And while you are asking about your old friends,” she said, “I will just go and see if I can find out anything about my poor sister—“ “That is just a most kind thing to do, and exactly what I would have expected from you, my dear,” said Glendochart, grateful to his young wife for allowing him so much liberty. And he hastened to secure a glass coach for her in which she could drive to Miss Jean, and “see all the London ferlies,” as he said, on the way. It was not a very splendid vehicle to drive up to Miss Jean’s door, where the carriages of the nobility appeared every day; but Mrs. Mary felt herself the admired of all beholders as she drove along the streets, well set up in the middle of the seat as if she had been the queen. Her heart beat a little when she reached the house, with mingled alarm as to Kirsteen’s reception of her, and pride in her own superior standing, far above any unmarried person, as Mrs. Campbell of Glendochart. The name did not indeed impress the maid who received her, and who asked twice what it was, begging pardon for not catching it the first time, and suggesting “Lady Campbell of—?” “Mistress Campbell,” said Mary. She felt even in that moment a little taken down. It was as if the maid was accustomed to nothing less than my lady. She was so agitated that she did not perceive the name of Miss Kirsteen in connection with that of Miss Brown upon the brass plate of the door.

She had, however, quite recovered herself before Kirsteen appeared in the show-room to answer the summons, and advanced rustling in all her new ribbons to meet her sister. “Oh, Kirsteen, is that you? Oh, are you really here? I thought I could not be deceived about Miss Jean harbouring ye and helping ye, but I did not think I would just find ye in a moment like this.”

“Yes,” said Kirsteen, “I am here, and I have been here ever since I left home.”

“Ye have turned quite English, Kirsteen, in the time ye’ve been away.”

“Have I? It’s perhaps difficult to avoid it—if ye have anything of an ear for music.” This was perhaps an unkind thing to say, for it was well-known in the family that Mary had no ear for music and could not “turn a tune” to save her life. With a compunction Kirsteen turned to a more natural subject. “And how is my mother?”

“Oh,” said Mary, “she is just wonderfully well for her. The marriage was a great divert to her, settling how it was to be and the clothes and everything. She was dressed herself in a new gown that Glendochart presented to her for the occasion, with white ribbons in her cap, and looking just very well. ‘It’s easy to see where ye get your looks from,’ Henry said to me: which I thought was a very pretty compliment to both of us, for if ever a man was pleased with his wife’s looks it should be on his wedding-day.”

“Very likely,” said Kirsteen drily, “but I have no experience. I got your letter, with an account of what you had on.”

“Yes, it was considered very becoming,” said Mary. “And Jeanie was just beautiful in a white frock; I will have her with me at Glendochart when she gets a little older, and bring her out, and maybe take her to Edinburgh for a winter that she may have every advantage. I would like her to make a grand marriage, and there is nothing more likely when she’s seen as she ought to be in a house like Glendochart.”

“I have yet to learn,” said Kirsteen with dilating nostrils and quivering lips (for she too intended Jeanie to make a great match, and to marry well, but under her own auspices not her sister’s), “I have yet to learn that a Campbell who is the Duke’s clanswoman can give credit to a Douglas that comes of the first family of her own name.”

“Maybe you think too,” said Mary with all the force of ridicule founded on fact, “that the house of Drumcarro is a good place for letting a young thing see the world.”

Kirsteen was silenced by this potent argument, but it by no means softened the irritation in her mind. She had thought of Jeanie as her own, her creation in many ways, between whom and every evil fate she was determined to stand. To have the child taken out of her hands in this calm way was almost more than she could bear. But she compelled herself to patience with a hasty self-argument: Who was she to stand between Jeanie and any advantage—when nobody could tell whether she would be able to carry out her intentions or not? And at all events at the present moment Jeanie being only fourteen there was not much to be done. Mary’s smooth voice going on forbade any very continued strain of thought.

“And, Kirsteen, what is to be done about yourself? We would be real willing to do anything in our power—But oh! it was rash—rash of you to run away—for you see by what’s happened that it was all a mistake, and that Glendochart——”

Kirsteen’s milk-white brow again grew as red as fire. To have your old lover console himself with your sister is bad enough; but to have her explain to you that your alarm was a mere mistake of vanity, and that the only person who was ridiculous or blamable in the business was only yourself,—— this is too much for mortal flesh and blood!

“I am much obliged to you,” she said with self-restraint which was painful, “but I am very happy where I am. It was no mistake so far as I am concerned. It was just impossible to live on down yonder without occupation, when there are so many things to be done in the world.”

“Dear me!” cried Mary astonished with this new view. But at this moment Miss Jean fortunately came in, and was very happy to see the lady of Glendochart and very anxious to show her every attention.

“I consider it a great honour,” said Miss Jean, “that you should come to see me the first morning; though well I know it’s not for me but for one that is far more worthy. Miss Kirsteen is just the prop of this house, Mistress Campbell. Not a thing can be done without her advice—and though I had little reason to complain, and my basket and my store had aye prospered just wonderful, it’s a different thing now Miss Kirsteen is here, for she makes all the fine ladies stand about.”

“Dear me,” said Mary again, “and how can she do that?” But she was more anxious about her own affairs than the gifts and endowments of her sister. “There is one thing I must say,” she added, “before we go further, and that is that I am wishing to get a new gown; for we will likely be asked to our dinner at the Duke’s, and though I have all my wedding outfit I would like to be in the newest fashion and do my husband credit with the chief of his name. So perhaps you would show me some white silks, just the very newest. And I would like it made in the last fashion; for Glendochart is very liberal and he will wish me to spare no expense. Being Marg’ret’s sister, as well as having been so kind to Kirsteen, it was just natural that I should choose what little custom I have to give into your hands. But I would want it very quickly done, just as quick as the needles can go—for we cannot tell for what day the invitation might come.”

Miss Jean with a smile upon her face, the smile with which she received an order, and a bow of acquiescence which made the ribbons tremble in her cap, had taken a step towards the drawers in which her silks were kept; but there was something in Kirsteen’s eyes which made her hesitate. She looked towards her young associate with a half-question—though indeed she could not tell what was the foundation of her doubt, in her eyes.

“Miss Jean,” said Kirsteen promptly, “you have then forgotten our new rule? You will maybe think I want you to break it in consideration of my sister? But ye need not depart from your regulations out of thought for me. And I am sure I am very sorry,” she said turning to Mary, who stood expectant with a smile of genial patronage on her face—“but it’s not possible. Miss Jean has made a rule to take no orders from commoners—except them that have been long upon her list. It would just be hopeless if we were to undertake it,” Kirsteen said.

“No orders—from commoners?” cried Mary in consternation and wrath.

“Just that; we would have all London at our tails, no to speak of persons from the country like yourself—just pursuing us night and day—if we were to relax our rule. And there are many of the nobility,” said Kirsteen turning to Miss Jean with a look of serious consultation, “whom I would wish to be weeded out—for there are titles and titles, and some countesses are just nobodies however much they may think of themselves. You will never get to the first rank,” continued Kirsteen, still addressing Miss Jean, “unless ye just settle and never depart from it, who you are to dress, and who not.”

“Do you mean, Miss Jean,” cried Mrs. Campbell of Glendochart, “that ye will not make me my gown?”

Miss Jean was torn asunder between natural politeness and proper subjection to her superiors, and a still more natural partisanship, not to speak of the glance of fiery laughter in Kirsteen’s eyes. “What can I do,” she cried, “when you hear with your own ears what Miss Kirsteen has said? I am wae to put you to any inconvenience, but it’s just true that we cannot get through the half of our work—and we’ve plenty with the nobility and old customers to keep us always very throng. But I could recommend ye to another person that would willingly serve ye though I cannot take your order myself.”

“Oh, I’ll find somebody,” said Mary in great offence. “It cannot be that in the great town of London you will not get whatever you want when you have plenty of money in your hand.”

“No doubt that’s very true,” said Miss Jean, “and ye may find that ye are not in such a great hurry as ye think, for the Duchess has a number of engagements upon her hands, and will not dine at home for about ten days to my certain knowledge—and probably she will have her table full then if ye have not already received your invitations—for town is just very throng, and everything settled for the grand parties, weeks before.”

CHAPTER VII.

“It will do the business good,” said Kirsteen. “We will let it be known, not just yet perhaps, what I said, that we will take no commoners’ orders—that persons who are nobodies need not come here. You did not take me with you into the business just to go on like other folk.”

“No—that’s quite true,” said Miss Jean, but with a little hesitation still.

“By the time,” said Kirsteen, “that you have turned away half-a-dozen from your door, your name will be up over all the town; and whether in the season or out of it, you will have more to do than you can set your face to, and thanks for doing it. Will you trust me or not, Miss Jean? For I allow that I am inexperienced and perhaps I may not be right.”

“It would be very strange if ye were always right,” said Miss Jean with a smile of affectionate meaning, “for all so young and so sure as ye are. But ye have a great spirit and there’s something in me too that just answers till ye. Yes, I’ll trust ye, my dear; and ye’ll just go insulting all the poor bodies that are not good enough to please ye, till ye make a spoon or spoil a horn for yourself; for it does not matter so very much for me.”

“Not the poor bodies,” said Kirsteen, “but the folk with money and nothing else, that come in as if they were doing us a favour—women that Marg’ret would not have in her kitchen; and they will come in here and give their orders as if it was a favour to you and me! I would like to learn them a lesson: that though we’re mantua-makers, it’s not for the like of them—a person with no name to speak of—and giving her orders to one of the Douglases! We will learn them better before we are done.”

“Oh pride, pride!” said Miss Jean, “there’s something in me that answers till ye, though well I wot I have little to be proud of; but these half and half gentry they are just insufferable to me too.”

In all this there was nothing said of Mrs. Mary, to whom none of these descriptions applied, for she was of course one of the Douglases as well as her sister, and Glendochart was as good a gentleman as any of his name. But while Miss Jean Brown, the daughter of a Scotch ploughman, felt something in her that answered to the pride of the well-born Highland girl, there was much in the other that resembled the “half and half gentry,” of whom the experienced mantua-maker had seen many specimens. Miss Jean’s prognostics however were carried into effect with stern certainty in the disappointment of the country visitors. They did indeed dine in Portman Square, but chiefly because of Lady Chatty’s desire to see the personages of the story which she was so fond of telling, and then only on a Sunday evening when the family were alone. Alone, or all but alone, for there was one guest to meet them in the person of Miss Kirsteen Douglas, who was not a stranger in the house nor awkward, as the bride was in her new gown and much overdressed for the family party. It was impossible for Kirsteen to meet Glendochart, whose wooing had been of so much importance in her life, without a warmer tinge of colour and a slight shade of consciousness. But the good man was so completely unaware of any cause for feeling, that she came to herself with a little start and shock, which was highly salutary and chastised that pride which was Kirsteen’s leading quality at this period of her career. Glendochart was so completely married, so pleased with his young wife, and with himself for having secured her, that all former dreams had departed totally from his mind—a discovery which Kirsteen made instantaneously so soon as their eyes met, and which went through and through her with angry amazement, consternation, wonder, mingled after a little while with a keen humorous sense of the absurdity of the situation. He came after dinner and talked to her a little about her circumstances, and how difficult it was to know what to do. “For your father is a very dour man, as Mary says, and having once passed his word that you are never to enter his door, it will be hard, hard to make him change. You know how obdurate he has been about Anne; but we will always be on the watch, and if the time ever comes that a word may be of use——”

“I beg you will take no trouble about it, Glendochart. I knew what I was risking; and but for my mother I have little to regret. And she has not been any the worse,” Kirsteen said, almost with bitterness. Nobody seemed to have been the worse for her departure, not even her mother.

“No, I believe she has been none the worse. She is coming to pay us a visit so soon as we get back.”

Kirsteen could have laughed, and she could have cried. She could have seized upon this precise, well-got-up elderly gentleman and given him a good shake. To think that she should have been frightened almost out of her wits, and flung all her life to the winds, because of him; and that he was here advising her for her good, as well satisfied with Mary as he ever could have been with herself!

Miss Jean proved however a true prophet in respect to the disappointment of the newly-married couple with their reception in London, and their willingness eventually to accept the hospitality of the mantua-maker, and meet her friends, the minister, the doctor, the silk-mercer, and the old lady of quality, at her comfortable table. Miss Jean gave them a supper at which all these highly respectable persons were present, along with another who gave a character of distinction to the assembly, being no less a person than young Captain Gordon, promoted on the field of battle and sent home with despatches, the son of the old lady above mentioned, who was not too grand, though all the fine houses in London were open to him, to come with his mother, covering her with glory in the eyes of the humbler friends who had been kind to her poverty. This encounter was the only one which brought Glendochart and his wife within the range of the commotion which was filling all society and occupying all talk. Afterwards, when they returned home, it was the main feature of their record, what Captain Gordon had said, and his account of the battle—“which, you see, we had, so to speak, at first hand; for he got his promotion upon the field, and was sent home with despatches, which is only done when a young man has distinguished himself; and a near connection of the Huntly family.” I am not sure that Mary did not allow it to be understood that she had met this young hero at the Duke’s table in Portman Square, but certainly she never disclosed the fact that it was at the mantua-maker’s in Chapel Street, Mayfair. Captain Gordon proved to be of much after importance in the family, so that the mode of his first introduction cannot be without interest. The old lady who patronized Miss Jean by sharing her Sunday dinners, and many other satisfactory meals, felt herself, and was acknowledged by all, to have amply repaid her humble friend by bringing this brilliant young hero fresh from Waterloo to that entertainment, thus doing Miss Jean an honour which “the best in the land” coveted. Alick, so far as he was concerned, made himself exceedingly agreeable. He fought the great battle over again, holding his auditors breathless; he gave the doctor details about the hospitals, and told the minister how the army chaplain went among the poor Highlanders from bed to bed. And he accepted an invitation from Glendochart for the shooting with enthusiasm. “But they will want you at Castle Gordon,” said the proud mother, desirous to show that her son had more gorgeous possibilities. “Then they must just want me,” cried the young soldier. “They were not so keen about me when I was a poor little ensign.” Everything was at the feet of the Waterloo hero, who was in a position to snap his fingers at his grand relations and their tardy hospitality. Kirsteen in particular was attracted by his cheerful looks and his high spirit, and his pleasure in his independence and promotion. It was in accord with her own feeling. She said that he put her in mind of her brothers in India—all soldiers, but none of them so fortunate as to have taken part in such a great decisive battle; and thought with a poignant regret how it might have been had Ronald Drummond continued with Lord Wellington’s army instead of changing into the Company’s service. It might have been he that would have been sent over with the despatches, and received with all this honour and renown—and then!—Kirsteen’s countenance in the shade where she was sitting was suffused with a soft colour, and the tears came into her eyes.

“They get plenty of fighting out there,” said the young soldier, who was very willing to console the only pretty girl in the room; “and if it’s not so decisive it may be just as important in the long run, for India is a grand possession—the grandest of all. I will probably go there myself, Miss Douglas, for though Waterloo’s a fine thing, it will end the war, and what’s a poor soldier lad to do?”

“You will just find plenty to do in your own country, Alick,” said his mother eagerly.

“Barrack duty, mother! it’s not very exciting—after a taste of the other.”

“A taste!” said the proud old lady. “He’s just been in everything, since the time he put on his first pair of trews. I know those outlandish places, as if they were on Deeside, always following my soldier laddie—Vimiera, and Badajos, and down to Salamanca and Toulouse in France. I could put my finger on them in the map in the dark,” she cried with a glow of enthusiasm; then falling into a little murmur of happy sobbing, “God be thanked they’re all over,” she cried, putting her trembling hand upon her son’s arm.

“Amen!” said the minister, “to the final destruction of the usurper and the restoring of law and order in a distracted land!”

“We’ll just see how long it lasts,” said the doctor, who was a little of a free thinker, and was believed to have had sympathies with the Revolution.

“We’ll have French tastes and French fashions in again, and they’re very ingenious with their new patterns it must be allowed,” said the silk-mercer; “but it will be an ill day for Spitalfields and other places when the French silks are plentiful again.”