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The Twa Miss Dawsons

by Margaret M. Robertson · English · Gutenberg #38197 · 584,596 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Twa Miss Dawsons

Author: Margaret M. Robertson


        
Release date: December 3, 2011 [eBook #38197]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38197

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWA MISS DAWSONS ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Twa Miss Dawsons
By Margaret Murray Robertson
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London.
This edition dated 1880.

The Twa Miss Dawsons, by Margaret Murray Robertson.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
THE TWA MISS DAWSONS, BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON.

CHAPTER ONE.

"AULD MISS JEAN."

Saughleas was not a large estate, nor were the Dawsons gentlefolks, in
the sense generally accepted in the countryside.

It was acknowledged that both the mother and the wife of the new laird
had had good blood in their veins; but George Dawson himself, had been,
and, in a sense, still was, a merchant in the High-street of Portie.  He
was banker and ship-owner as well, and valued the reputation which he
had acquired as a business man, far more than he would ever be likely to
value any honour paid to him as the Laird of Saughleas.

He had gotten his land honestly, as he had gotten all else that he
possessed.  He had taken no advantage of the necessities of the last
owner, who had been in his power, in a certain sense, but had paid him
the full value of the place; and not a landed proprietor among them all
had more pride in the name and fame of his ancestry, than he had in the
feet that he had been the maker of his own fortune, and that no man,
speaking truth, could accuse him, in the making of it, of doing a single
mean or dishonest deed.

His mother "had come o' gentle bluid," but his father had been first a
common sailor and then the mate of a whaling ship that sailed many a
time from the little Scottish east coast harbour of Portie, and which at
last sailed away never more to return.

His widow lived through years of heart-sickness that must have killed
her sooner than it did, but that her two fatherless bairns needed her
care.  They were but bairns when she died, with no one to look after
them but a neighbour who had been always kind to them.  The usual lot
awaited them, it was thought.  The laddie must take to the sea, as most
of the laddies in Portie did, and the lassie must get "bit and sup" here
and there among the neighbours, till she should be able to do for
herself as a servant in some house in the town.

But it happened quite otherwise.  Whatever the Dawsons had been in old
times, there was good stuff in them now, it was said.  For "Wee Jean
Dawson," as she was called, with few words spoken, made it clear that
she was to make her own way in the world.  She was barely fifteen at
that time, and her brother was two years younger, and if she had told
her plans and wishes, she would have been laughed at, and possibly
effectually hindered from trying to carry them out.  But she said
nothing.

The rent of the two rooms which the children and their mother had
occupied, was paid to the end of the year, and the little stock of pins
and needles, and small wares generally, by the sale of which the mother
had helped out the "white seam," her chief dependence, was not
exhausted, and Jean, declining the invitation of their neighbour to take
up their abode with her in the mean time, quietly declared her intention
of "biding where she was for a while," and no one had the right to say
her nay.  Before the time to pay another quarter's rent came round, it
was ready, and Jean had proved her right to make her own plans, having
shown herself capable of carrying them out when they were made.

How she managed, the neighbours could not tell, and they watched her
with doubtful wonder.  But it was not so surprising as it seemed to
them.  She was doing little more than she had been doing during the last
two years of her mother's life under her mother's guidance.  She had
bought and sold, she had toiled late and early at the white seam, when
her mother was past doing much, and had made herself busy with various
trifles in cotton and wool, with crochet-needle and knitting-pins, when
white seam failed them, and that was just what she was doing now.

And she went on bravely.  She accepted offered favours gratefully, but
sooner or later, she always repaid them.  If Bell Ray, the fishwife,
left a fresh haddock at the door as she passed, she was sure to carry
with her some other day a pair of little socks, or a plaything for the
bairnie at home.  And if Mrs Sims, next door, kindly took the heaviest
part of the girl's washing into her hands, she got in return her Sunday
"mutch" starched and ironed and its broad borders set up in a way that
excited the admiring wonder of all.

The two rooms were models of neatness as they had always been.  George
was comfortably clothed, at least he was never ragged, he very rarely
went hungry, and he went to the school as regularly, and to as good
purpose, as the banker's son, or the minister's son, and was as obedient
to Jean as he had been to his mother in the old days.  Jean was neat,
and more than neat in her black print frock and holland apron--it cannot
be said of the first half year that she was never hungry.  For many a
time the portion set aside for the dinner of two was only enough for
one, and it cost Jean less pain to go without her share than to let the
growing laddie be stinted of his needed food.  But after the first half
year, they had enough, and some to spare to those who had less, and much
as Jean sometimes needed money to add to her stock in trade, she had
been too wisely taught by her mother, not to know that a sufficient
quantity of simple and wholesome food was absolutely necessary for
health of body and of mind, and therefore necessary for success in life.

Of course she was successful.  In after years, when she used to go back
to this time in her thoughts and in her talk, she attributed her success
in business, chiefly to two things--her silence, and her determination
never to fall into debt.  To the talk which "neebour folk" fell into in
her little shop, she listened, but she rarely added her word; and she so
ordered matters that it never became, as it very easily might have been,
a centre of gossip and a cause of trouble in the neighbourhood.  As to
falling into debt, her determination against it hindered her for a
while; but when the "big" merchants of Portie came to know her and her
ways, they gave her the benefit of the lowest prices in sales, so
trifling to them, but so important to her.  They helped her with advice,
and put some advantages as to fashions and fabrics in her way; and best
of all, when Geordie's schooling was supposed to be at an end, one of
them took him into his employment in a humble capacity indeed, but his
rise to the place of honour behind the counter, and then to the
book-keeper's desk, was more rapid than generally happens in such a case
as his.

Before Jean was seven and twenty years of age, she and her brother were
equal partners in a fairly prosperous business established by her in the
High-street.  After this fortune was secure in the course of time.

They were equal partners for a good many years, but gradually, as their
resources increased, and new ways of employing energy and capital were
open to the brother, this was changed.  With her usual prudence, Jean
refused to engage in risks which she had not sufficient knowledge to
guide or strength to control, and a change was made in their business
relations, and each continued to prosper in the chosen way.

As time went on, Jean ruled well her brother's home and helped him in
many ways; but she did not, as had been predicted of her, grow into a
mere hard business woman--seeing nothing so clearly as the main chance,
and loving money itself better than the comfort that money may bring.
It was they who knew her least, or who knew her only in her capacity of
business woman, who feared this for her.  The people who had watched and
wondered at her early efforts and success, the neighbours, and the
fisher wives who had exchanged kindly gifts with her in these days, did
not fear it, nor the "puir bodies" in the back streets and lanes of
Portie, who enjoyed the pickles o' tea and snuff, and the bits of
flannel that found their way to them from her hands, nor the mothers of
fatherless bairns who "won through sair straits," and got the better in
many a "sair fecht" with poverty and trouble by her help.

Her silence and reserve, even to her friends--and she had many--looked
to those who were not specially her friends, like the coldness and
hardness that strengthens with the years.  It was by deeds rather than
words that her strong and tender nature found expression, and those who
needed her help most, knew her best and trusted her most fully, and even
in the busiest time of her life, she saw enough of other people's cares
and sorrows, to remind her that there was something more needed in life
than money, or the good things that money could bring.

And, when she ought to have been past "the like o' that," as she said to
herself, for she was not far from thirty, the wonderful gift of love was
given to her.  And then, through her love, came the gift which God is
sure, sooner or later, to give to His own,--the gift of sanctified
trouble.

There came to Portie in one of the ships in which her brother had an
interest, a lad--he looked scarcely more than a lad--sick with fever.
Accident brought him to George Dawson's house for a night, and in the
morning he was too ill to leave it.  Through long weeks of suffering and
delirium, Jean nursed him, and cared for him, and saved him from death.
He was not a good young man.  The wild words uttered in his wanderings,
proved this to Jean, only too clearly, and if he had gone away as soon
as he rose from his bed, he would have taken her interest and her good
will with him, and nothing more.  But his convalescence was long and
tedious, and whatever his sins against himself and others might have
been, he was of a sweet and kindly nature, and a handsome and manly lad
withal.

And of course it was the fairest side of his character that he showed to
Jean in these days.  Not that he tried to hide his past follies and even
his sins from her.  But it was his sorrow for them that he showed her,
and his longing to live a better life by her help; and what with his
penitence and his gentleness and his winning English ways, he wiled the
heart out of her breast before she was aware.  And the love was mutual.
But whether he ever could have given to her all that she gave to him,
was doubtful to the only one who knew what had befallen her.

To say that her brother was amazed at her love for a man so much younger
and mentally and morally so much beneath her, is to say little.  He was
utterly dismayed.  But he knew her strong and steadfast nature too well
to try to move her from her purpose.  He only stipulated that there
should be time given to prove the young man's love, and to prove also
the firmness of his determination to live a new life.  It was not a
severe test that he insisted on.  One voyage the young man was to make,
and coming home with the good word of his captain and shipmates, no
difficulty should be put in the way of the marriage, strange as he
confessed the idea of such a marriage to be.  It was to be a six months'
voyage only, and though Jean did not feel that such a sacrifice need be
made, she was yet willing to make it at the will of the brother whom she
loved.  And so they parted.

But six months passed, and then six more, and when three more had worn
away tidings came.  Through these months of waiting Jean went in
silence, and when the captain's son came home--the only survivor of the
crew of the ship that had carried her heart and her hope away--and told
the story of their wreck on wintry seas, no one knew that she listened
and suffered as no widow of them all suffered for her cruel and utter
loss.

Her lover's name was spoken with the rest, and it was told how brave he
had been and kindly, and how he had kept up the courage of the rest and
cheered them all to the last, and how the hardest and most careless of
the crew had planned together to beguile him into taking more than his
share of the food they had, because he was not strong like the rest, and
because they loved him.  And Jean listened to it all, and never uttered
a word.  Nor afterward did she open her lips even to her brother.  He
tried to speak to her some vague words of comfort, as to its being God's
will, and all for the best, but she only put forth her hand to bid him
cease, and when he still would fain have spoken a word of his own sorrow
for her trouble she rose and went away, and it was many years before
either of them returned to the sorrow of that time.  She lived through
her trouble, and she did not grow hard or bitter under it, as she might
have done if he had lived and forgotten her; and comfort came to her as
the years went on.

It came to her in a strange way, her brother thought, and though he was
glad of its coming, it cost him some pain.  The first, indeed the only,
danger of estrangement that ever came between the brother and sister
grew out of this.  Not that there was any real danger even then; for
Jean was, in her silent and determined way, so soft and gentle and
unprovokable in the new manner of thought and life into which she fell
at this time, that though her brother was both angry and ashamed, and
suffered both shame and anger to appear to her and to others, it made no
real breach between them.

And he had cause for neither shame nor anger.  It was only that weary of
herself and the drowsy ministrations of the parish kirk, Jean had
strayed one stormy Sabbath night into "a little kirkie" lately built in
a back street by "a queer kin' o' folk ca'ed missioners," and had there
heard words such as she had never heard before, and had found in them
more than comfort.

Not that the words were altogether new, nor the thoughts,--they were in
her Bible, every one of them--she told her brother afterwards; but, for
one thing, they were earnestly spoken by one who believed them, and then
they came to one ready for them and waiting, though she knew it not.

Ah! well, that does not explain it altogether.  It was the Lord Himself
who spoke to her by the voice of His servant revealing Himself to her,
through His own familiar Word in a new way.  After that she could say of
Him, "Whose I am and whom I serve," and her life took a new meaning.  It
was His who "had bought her with a price."  All that she had done
hitherto for pity's sake, she did now _for His sake_.  "To one of the
least of these," He had said.  The world was full of "these little ones"
of His, and there were some of them in Portie even, and henceforth they
were to be her care.

Her outward life did not change much however.  Except that at first she
"whiles" went to "the little kirkie," and afterwards went there
altogether, there was no difference that could be named by her little
world generally.  Her brother saw a difference, and so did the poor folk
who shared her care and kindness.  Her eye was brighter and her step
lighter, and the look of suffering she had lately worn was giving place
to a look of patient even cheerful peacefulness that was good to see.
She had more words, too, at her command.  Not for her brother--at least
not for him at first.  But the impulse which her new love for her Master
had given her, was strong enough to overcome the silence natural to her,
and "good words" gently and yet strongly spoken went with her gifts now,
and sometimes they were received as gladly as her gifts.  But that she
should cast in her lot with the handful of "newfangled folk" in Stott's
Lane was a pain and a humiliation to her brother which it took years to
outlive.

Their outward life went on as it had done before for a good while, and
then her brother married.  His wife was of a family which had had a name
and a place in the countryside for generations; but George Dawson found
her earning her bread as a teacher in a school in Aberdeen, and married
her "for pure love," Portie folk said; and some who had known him best,
expected no such thing of George Dawson.

It was doubtful whether his love for her or his pride in her was
strongest.  He did not take her to the house above the shop where he and
his sister had lived so long, but to a fine house at the head of the
High-street in a far pleasanter part of the town, and there they began
their married life together.  Jean did not go with them, though they
both wished it.  It was better for them to be alone, she said, and as
well for her.  So she staid still in the house above the shop, making a
home for the young men employed in the business, keeping a wise and
watchful eye on them and on the business also.  After a few years, when
her sister-in-law became delicate, and there were little children
needing her care, she, with greater self-denial than any guessed, gave
up her independent life and went home to them for a while, and lightened
the mother's care for them and for the home as well, and found her
reward in knowing that her work was not vain.

But when more years had passed, and her brother, a richer man than she
knew, bought the small estate of Saughleas, and took his family there,
she did not go with them.  She was getting on in years, she was too old
to begin a new life in new circumstances, and the bairns were getting
beyond the need of her care.  So she went to a home of her own that
looked out upon the sea, and set herself with wisdom and patience and
loving kindness to the work which her Master had given her to do.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE BROTHER'S SORROW.

George Dawson had been very successful in life.  He was not an old man
when he took possession of his estate of Saughleas.  He had many years
before him in which to enjoy the fruit of his labours, he told himself,
and he exulted in the thought.

What happy years the first years there were!  His children were good and
bonny and strong; his wife was--not very strong--but oh! so sweet and
dear!  What lady among them all could compare with her, so good and
true, so fair and stately, and yet so kindly and so well-beloved?

"I will grow a better man to deserve her better," he said to himself
with a vague presentiment of change upon him--a fear that such happiness
could not last.  For who was he, that he should have so much more than
other men had?  So he walked softly, and did justly, and dealt
mercifully in many a case where he might have been severe with justice
on his side, and strove honestly and wisely to make himself worthy of
the woman who had been growing dearer day by day.

Growing dearer?  Yes--but who was slipping away from him, slowly, but
surely, day by day.  He strove to shut his eyes to that which others
clearly saw, but deep down in his heart was the certain knowledge that
he must lose her.  But not yet.  Not for a long time yet.  With care in
a warmer climate, under sunnier skies, she might live for years yet--
many years.  So he set himself to the task of so arranging his affairs,
that he might take her away for the winter at least, away from the bleak
sea winds to one of the many places where he had heard that health and
healing had come to many a one far more ill than she was.

And if he could have got her away in time, who knows but so it might
have been.  But illness came in amongst the children, and she would not
leave them even to the wise and loving care of their aunt; and when
first one, and then another little life went out, her husband could see
with a sinking heart, that she longed to follow where they had gone.

When the other children grew better he took her away for a little while.
But the drawing of those little graves, and the longing to die at home
among those who were still left, brought them back to Saughleas--only
just in time.  He did not lay her in the bleak kirkyard of Portie.  He
_could_ not do it.  It was a foolish thing to do, it was said, but in
the quietest, bonniest spot in Saughleas, in a little wood that lay in
sight of the house, he laid her down, when he could keep her no longer,
and by and by he lifted her bonny little bairns and laid them down
beside her.  And then it seemed for a while that to him life was ended.

But life was not ended.  He had more to do, and more to suffer yet, and
indeed had to become a changed man altogether before he could be ready
and worthy to look again upon the face that he so longed to see.

Oh, the length of the days! the weariness of all things!  He used to
wonder at the sickness that lay heavy on his heart all day--at the
anguish that made the night terrible to him.  He was growing an old man,
he said to himself, and he had thought it was only the young who strove
and suffered, and could not yield themselves to the misery of loss and
pain.  But then--who, old or young, of all the men he had ever known,
had lost what he had lost?  No wonder that he suffered and could find no
comfort.

"Ay!  No wonder that you suffer," said his sister to him once.  "But
take tent lest ye add rebellion to the sin of overmuch sorrow.  Have you
ever truly submitted to God's will all your life, think ye, George, man?
Things had mostly gone well and easily with ye.  But now this has come
upon you, and take ye thought of it.  For ye're no' out of God's hand
yet, and `whom He loveth He chasteneth.'"

She did not speak often to him, but he heard her and made no answer.
That was Jean's way of looking at things, he thought; and because she
had had sore troubles of her own, he did not answer her roughly, as he
felt inclined to do.  There was nothing to be said.

He sent his two daughters away to be educated, first to Edinburgh and
afterwards to London, and after that, the house of Saughleas, except a
room or two, was shut up for a time.  The father and son left it early
and returned to it late, and the father spent his days in working as
hard as ever he had done in the days when he was making his own way in
the world.  The winter was hard to bear, but the coming of the
spring-time was even worse.  Every bonny flower looked up at him with
the eyes of her he had lost; every bird, and breeze, and trembling leaf
spoke to him with her voice.  The sunlight lying on her grave, the
still, soft air, the sweetness of the season,--all brought back on him
like a flood, the longing for her presence; and he must have gone away
or broken down altogether, if it had not been for his son George, his
only son.

He was a handsome, kindly lad, more like his mother than any of his
bairns, and dearer than any of them to his father, because he was her
firstborn.  George had mourned his mother deeply and truly, but her name
had never been spoken between them till on one of the first sunny days
of spring, the father found the son lying on his face among the long
withered grass that covered her grave.  Sitting there then, lips and
hearts were opened to each other, and it was never so bad to either
after that.

By and by hope sprang up in the father's heart, in the presence of the
son who was so like his mother, and so the weight of his heavy sorrow
was lightened.

But there were folk in Portie, and his sister Jean was one of them, who
doubted whether the father was doing the best that could be done for his
son.  He held a situation in the Portie Bank, and his father's intention
was, that he should there, and elsewhere, when the right time came,
acquire such a knowledge of business, as should enable him, if not to
make money for himself, at least to make a wise use of the money already
made for him.

But his work was made easy to the lad, as was natural enough, by others
besides his father, and his comings and goings were not so carefully
noted, as if he had not been his father's son.  He had time and money at
his disposal; not so very much of either, but more than any of his
companions had, and certainly more than was good for him.  Not that he
fell into ill ways at this time, though that was said of him.  That only
came afterwards; and it might have been helped, if his father had been
as wise then as he was determined with him afterwards.

But that which raised his father's anger, was almost worse, to his
thought, than falling into ill ways, in the common acceptation of the
term, would have been.  He might have spent money freely, even
foolishly, and his name might have been spoken with the names of men
whose society his father would have shunned or scorned, and he might
have been reproved and then forgiven.  But that he should love and be
determined to marry a girl in humble life, the daughter of a sailor's
widow, and he not one and twenty, seemed to his father worse than folly
and even worse than sin.  The father had never given a thought to any
woman except his sister, till he was thirty-five, and that his son, a
mere lad, should wish to marry any one, was a folly not to be tolerated.

He blamed his sister in the matter, for bonny Elsie Calderwood was the
daughter of the man who had brought home to her the bitter tidings that
her lover was lost, and Jean had cared for and comforted his widow and
orphans when their turn came to weep for one who returned no more.  But
he was wrong in this, for she had known nothing of the young man's
wishes, certainly she had never abetted him in his folly, as was said.
Indeed she had taken no thought of danger for him.  "They were just a'
bairns thegither," she had said, "and had kenned one another all their
lives."

For the Calderwood bairns had been the chosen companions of Geordie and
his sisters in the days when, openly scorning the attendance of
nursemaids, they had clambered over the rocks, and waded in the shallows
along the shore, and gathered dulse and birds' eggs with the rest of the
bairns of the town.  When his sisters went away, after their mother's
death; the intimacy was naturally enough continued by George, and all
the more closely that he missed his sisters, and was oppressed by the
dreariness of the life at home.  It was natural enough, though the
father could not see it so, and he spoke angrily and unwisely to his
son.

But Mrs Calderwood was as proud in her way as Mr Dawson was in his,
and she scorned the thought of keeping the rich man's son to the promise
he had made without leave asked of her.  She was also as hard in her way
as he was in his, and forbade the young man to enter her house, and gave
him no chance to disobey her.  But in a place like Portie young folks
can meet elsewhere than at home, and one or other of them must be sent
away.

So with Miss Jean's advice and help Elsie was sent to get a year at a
boarding-school, as was wise and right, all her friends in Portie were
given to understand.  But she went away without giving back her promise
for all that her mother could say.  She went cheerfully enough, "to make
herself fitter to be his wife," she said.  But she never returned; a
slow strong fever seized her where she was, and first her mother went to
her, and then Miss Jean, whose heart was sore for them all.

And then Miss Jean did what the mother never would have done.  When she
saw that the end was drawing near, she wrote one letter to her nephew
telling him to come and take farewell of his love, and another to his
father telling him that so she had done.  All this mattered little
however.  For it was doubtful whether the dying girl recognised the
lover who called so wildly on her name.  But she died in his arms, and
he went home with her mother and his aunt to Portie and laid her down in
the bleak kirkyard; and then he went away speaking no word to his
father, in his youthful despair and anger, indeed never looking on his
face.

There had been something said, before all this came to pass between
them, of the lad's being sent to London for a while, to learn how
business was done in a great banking-house, one of the partners of which
was a friend of his father; and after a time he was heard of there.  But
he did not write to his father directly, and he never drew a shilling of
the money that his father had deposited in his name.

He did not stay long in his place in the London bank, but went away,
leaving no trace behind him, and was lost to them all; and it was long
before his name was spoken by his father again.  Even Miss Jean, having
no words of comfort to put with it, never named to him the name of his
son, for whom she knew he was grieving with anger and pain unspeakable.
It was to be doubted, Jean thought, whether these days were not longer,
and drearier, and "waur to thole" than even the days that had followed
the death of the mother of the lad.

But they had to be borne, and he left himself in these days little time
for brooding over his troubles.  He devoted himself to business, with
all his old earnestness, and wealth flowed in upon him, and the fear was
strong in his sister's heart, that he was beginning, in the desolation
that had fallen upon him, to love it for its own sake.  He added to
Saughleas a few fields on one side, and a farm or two on the other,
which the necessities of the owners had put into the market, at this
time; but it was more to oblige these needy men, than because he wanted
their land.  He had the money in hand, he said indifferently to his
sister, and the land would ay bring its price.  But he took little
pleasure in Saughleas for a while.

When Geordie had been gone a year and more, his sisters came home from
school.  They had been away long, and their father had, as he said, to
make their acquaintance over again.  They had changed from merry girls
of fifteen and sixteen, into grown up young ladies,--"fine ladies" their
father called them to their aunt, and a good many people in Portie,
called them "fine ladies" also, for a while.  They looked to be fine
ladies, with their London dresses, and London manners, and some folk
added, their "London pride."  They held their heads high, and carried
themselves erect and firmly as they walked, and spoke softly and in
"high English," which looked like pride to some of their old friends,
who were more than half afraid of the young ladies of Saughleas, they
said.  But it soon came to be known that what looked like pride was more
than half shyness, and as for the "high English," the kindly Scotch fell
very readily from their lips on occasion.

It cannot be said that they made themselves very happy in Saughleas for
a time.  They came home in November, and that is a dreary month on the
east coast, indeed all the winter is dreary there.  There were gay
doings in the best houses in Portie to welcome them home, and they
enjoyed them well.  For they had only been school-girls in London, and
the gayeties they had been permitted to mingle in there, had been mostly
of the kind which are supposed to blend improvement of some sort with
the pleasure to be enjoyed, and though they doubtless valued such
opportunities and made good use of them, both for pleasure and
improvement, the gayeties of Portie were quite different and more to
their taste.  They were young and pretty and gay, and the kindness and
the admiration so freely bestowed on them were very pleasant to them
both.  But they would have preferred the house in the High-street, where
they had all been born, in these first days, for their home.

Saughleas was dull and dreary in the short winter days, and oh! how they
missed their mother!  It was like losing her again, to come home to the
great empty house, which their father left almost before the sun rose
for weeks together, not to return again till the lamps had been lighted
for hours in the wide hall.

And Geordie!  When they had been at Saughleas a month or more, their
father had never spoken his name, and when Jean, the eldest and bravest
of the sisters, putting great force upon herself, asked him when her
brother was coming home, he answered so coldly, and with words so hard
and bitter, that her heart sank as she heard.  They had known for some
time that something had gone wrong between them.  Geordie had told them
that, when he had gone to see them in London; but the sad story of poor
Elsie Calderwood they had never heard.  They mourned for their brother,
and longed for his coming home, thinking that the happy days that were
gone would come again with him.

Though the estate of Saughleas was small, the house was both large and
stately.  The last owner had put into the house, the money which should
have been given to enrich the land, and make a beginning of the
prosperity of the family which he had hoped to found.  So it was like a
castle almost, but it was little like a home.

The two or three great landed proprietors in the countryside were great
people in their own esteem, and in the general esteem also; and George
Dawson, notwithstanding Saughleas, was just the merchant and banker of
the High-street to them--a man much respected in his own place, and he
was not out of place on occasion, at the table of any of them all.  But
an interchange of civilities on equal terms between the ladies of the
families was not likely to take place, nor was this greatly to be
desired.  It might have been different if their mother had lived, they
said to one another; for in their remembrance of her, she was superior
in every way to any lady of them all.  But they were quite content with
the society of Portie, and would have been content with the house in the
High-street as well.

Mr Dawson asked his sister to come and live in his house when his
daughters came home, but she declined to do so.  They did not need her
as mistress of the house, and she believed that her influence over them
would be more decided and salutary should she remain in her own house.
They were good bairns, she said, who meant to do right, and though they
might whiles need a word of advice, or a restraining touch, it must be
their own guidance that their father must lippen to, and not hers.  And
Auntie Jean was right.

They were good bairns on the whole, as their aunt said, and they were
"bonnie lassies" as well.  The first idea that most people had on seeing
them, was that in person, mind, and manners, they were very much alike.
Even their father thought this at first.  But it was not long before he
discovered that in most respects they were very different May, the
youngest, was like her mother, "though _nothing like_ so bonny," he told
himself with a sigh.  Jean was like her aunt, it was said, but Auntie
Jean herself, and the two or three others who remembered Auntie Jean's
mother as she was before her husband's ship went down, said that the
elder sister was like her grandmother, who had been a far bonnier woman
than ever her daughter had been.

In form and features there was a resemblance between the sisters; May
was the fairer and slighter of the two, and was often called the
prettier.  But as time went on the resemblance did not increase.  Jean
was the strongest in person and in mind, and the better able of the two
to profit by the discipline, which time and circumstances brought to
them both, and of this difference in character her face gave token to
those who had eyes to see.

They loved each other, and were patient and forbearing with each other
when they did not quite agree as to the course which either wished to
pursue.  But when it came about that one must yield her will to the
other, it was May who was made to yield when her will would have led her
into wrong or doubtful paths.  But if pleasure were to be given up, or a
distasteful duty done, or if some painful self-denial had to be borne by
one so that the other might escape, such things generally fell to the
lot of Jean.

CHAPTER THREE.

A DREARY DAY.

The folk looking out of their windows in Portie might well wonder what
could be bringing the young ladies of Saughleas into the town on such a
dismal day.  Though April was come in, it might have been the wintriest
month of the year; for the wind that met them was dashing the wet sleet
in their faces, and tangling their bright brown curls about their eyes,
till laughing and breathless they were fain to turn their backs upon it
before they were half down the High-street.  They were in shelter for a
little while as they crossed through a side street, but the wind met
them again as they went round a corner, and came close upon the sea.
They were going to their aunt's house and a few steps brought them to
the door; but for all the wind and the sleet, they did not seem in haste
to enter.  They lingered, taking off their dripping cloaks and
overshoes.

"Auntie will wonder to see us on such a day."

"She'll wonder to see you.  She kens that I am not afraid of wind or
rain."

As they lingered the door opened.

"Eh!  Miss Dawson and Miss May.  Is it you on sic a day?  Wha would ha'e
expected to see you--and on your ain feet too.  Wet enough they must
be."

"We'll go to the kitchen, Nannie, and no' wet the carpet," said May; and
they staid there chatting with the maid for a minute or two.  The
expected greeting met them at the parlour door.

"Eh! bairns!  Here on such a day!"

"Papa had to come to the town," said Jean.

"And so we thought we might as well come with him," said May.

"Weel, ye're welcome anyway, and ye're neither sugar nor salt to be
harmed by a drop of rain.  But come in by to the fire."

But their tussle with the wind had made the fire unnecessary.

"It's a good thing that your curls are no' of a kind that the rain does
ill with, May, my dear.  But you might as well go up the stair and put
them in order now."

"Oh!  I needna care.  We have only a minute to stay, and it's hardly
worth my while."

"Papa went straight to the inn with the dog-cart, and we only walked
down the High-street.  It _is_ a dreary day."

"And we'll need to go to the inn and wait for him.  For he said nothing
of coming here," said May.

"But it's likely he'll come for all that.  He maistly ay looks in.  It's
a pity he came out on sic a day, and him no weel.  But I suppose he had
to come.  The `John Seaton' sails the day," said their aunt.

The sisters gave a sudden involuntary glance at each other.  May
reddened and laughed a little.  Her sister grew pale.  Their aunt looked
from one to the other, thinking her own thoughts, but she did not let
this appear.

"She mayna sail the day.  They have lost some of their men, it is said,
and that may hinder them."

"And the wind and the waves are fearsome," said the elder sister with a
shiver.

"Ay, but the wind is in the richt airt.  That wouldna hinder them," said
her aunt; and then she added in a little.

"Willie Calderwood goes as her first mate.  That's a rise for him.  I
hope he may show discretion.  He's no' an ill laddie."

"And he's on a fair way to be a captain now," said May.  "So he told
me--in awhile."

"Ay, in a while," said her aunt dryly.  "But he has a long and dangerous
voyage before him, and it's no' likely that all who sail awa' the day
will ever come hame again."

The eldest sister was standing with her face touching the window.

"The sea looks fearsome over yonder," said she.

"Ay.  But they'll ha'e room enough when once they are outside the
harbour bar, and then the wind will drive them off the rocks and out to
sea; and they are in God's hands."

"Auntie Jean," said the girl turning a pale face toward her, "why do you
say the like of that to-day?"

"It's true the day as it's true ilka day.  Why should I no' say it?  My
dear, the thought of it is a consolation to many a puir body in Portie
the day."

"But it sounds almost like a prophecy of evil to--to the `John Seaton,'
as you said it.  And the sea is fearsome," repeated she, turning her
face to the window again.

"Lassie, come in by to the fire.  Ye're trembling with cold, and I dare
say ye're feet are no' so dry as they should be.  Come in by and put
them to the fire."

"But we havena long to bide."

However she came at her aunt's bidding, and sat down on a stool, shading
her face with a paper that she took from the table.

"Auntie Jean," said May, "I have seen just such a picture in a book, as
you would make if you were painted just as you are, with your hands
folded on your lap, and your stocking and your ball of worsted beside
you, and your glasses lying on the open book.  Look, Jeannie, look at
auntie.  Is she not like a picture as she sits now?"

"What's the lassie at now, with her picturing and her nonsense?" said
her aunt, not sure whether she should be pleased with all this.  "I'm
just as usual, and so is the room.  No more like a picture than on other
days."

She was in full dress--according to her ideas of full dress--and she was
that every day of the year.  She had on a gown of some soft black stuff,
the skirt of which was partly covered by a wide black silk apron.  A
snowy kerchief was pinned across her breast, and fastened at her neck
with a plain gold brooch, showing a braid of hair of mingled black and
grey.  Her cap was made in the fashion worn by the humblest of her
countrywomen, but it was made of the finest and clearest lawn, and the
full "set up" borders were edged with the daintiest of "thread" lace,
and so were the wide strings tied beneath her chin.  Not a spot nor a
speck was visible upon it, or upon any part of her dress, nor indeed on
any article which the room contained.  She and her room together would
have made a picture homely and commonplace enough, but it would have
been a pleasing picture, with a certain quaint beauty of its own.

"It is that you are so peaceful in here always, and untroubled.  That is
what May means when she says it is like a picture in a book.  And after
the wind, and the sleet, and the stormy sea, it is quieting and restful
to look in upon you."

"Weel, maybe.  But it is the same picture ilka day o' the year, and I
weary of it whiles.  And the oftener you look in upon it, the better it
will be for me.  What ails the lassie?  Canna ye bide still by the
fire?"

For Jean had risen from her low seat, and was over at the window again.

"The clouds are breaking away.  It is going to be fair, I think.  We'll
need to be going, May, or we may be late.  I'll come over to-morrow,
auntie, and good-bye for to-day."

"But, lassie, what's a' your haste?  Your father will be sure to come
for you.  Bide still where you are."

"I think I'll bide still, anyway," said May.  "I am no' going, Jeannie.
I'm no' caring to go."

"Yes, you are coming with me," said her sister sharply.  "You must come.
I want to speak to you--and--yes, come away."

May pouted and protested, but she followed her sister to the kitchen
where they had left their cloaks, and they went away together.  They
kept for a while in the shelter of the houses nearest the sea, but they
did not speak till they were beyond these.  The wind was still high, but
neither rain nor sleet was falling, and they paused a minute to take
breath before they turned to meet it again.

"The `John Seaton' sails the day," said May, turning her laughing face
toward her sister.  Jean did not laugh.  "As though that werena the very
thing that brought us both out as well as papa, though we said nothing
about it before we came.  To the high rocks?  But it would be more
sensible like to go to the pier head, and then we might get a chance to
shake his hand and say God bless him.  And it's not too late yet."

"No, I'm no' going.  It would do no good and it would anger my father."

But May persisted.

"Why shouldna we be there as well as half the town?  Papa mightna like
it, but he couldna help it, if we were once there.  And ye ken ye never
said good-bye to Willie Calderwood."

"May," said her sister, "when did you see Willie?  I mean, when did he
tell you that he was to be first mate of the `John Seaton,' and maybe
captain by and by?"

"Oh!  I heard that long ago, and I saw him last night.  He came a bit of
the way home with me.  He would have come all the way to say good-bye to
you, but he had something to do, that couldna be put off.  And I'm sure
he'll expect to see you at the pier to-day."

"But I canna go."

And then she added--"Well, and what more did he say?"

"Oh! what should he say?  He said many a thing.  He told me if I would
stand on the high rocks above the Tangle Stanes and wave my scarlet
scarf when the `John Seaton' was sailing by, he would take it as a sign
of good luck, and that he would come safe home again, and get his
heart's wish."

"And we are going there."

"Oh!  I dinna ken.  It's cold, and the ship mayna sail, and we might
have to wait.  I'm not going."

"Did he say that to you?  Yes, you are going.  Do you mean that you
would let him be disappointed at the very last, and him taking it for a
sign?"

"But the mist is rising, and it's all nonsense--and he winna see."

"Where is your scarlet shawl?  Did you no' bring it?"

"Oh! yes.  I brought it fast enough," said May, laughing and lifting her
dress, under which the shawl was fastened.  "As we were going to Auntie
Jean's I thought it as well to keep it out of sight.  But, Jean, it is
wet and cold, and he was only half in earnest."

"How could he speak out all that he wanted to say, kenning my father!
But you must go."

"Go yourself.  He'll never ken the difference."

"No, he'll never ken the difference.  But when he comes home--what will
you say to him then?  And besides it was your being there that was to be
the sign of his safe coming home--and--his getting his heart's wish.
You are coming."

They turned their steps northward, in the direction of a high ledge of
rocks, that half a mile above the harbour jutted out into the sea.  It
was this point both had been thinking of when they left home, for they
well knew that the young ladies from Saughleas could not, on such a day,
go to loiter on the pier with all the town, just to see a whaling ship
set sail for northern seas.  If the day had been fine, they might have
gone with a chance companion or two to see what was to be seen, and to
while away an hour.  Even in the wind and sleet Jean might have gone
with her father, if the ship had not been the "John Seaton," or if
Willie Calderwood had not been on board.  But as it was, she could not
even name such a thing to her father.  He would have been angry, and it
would have done no good.

So it was to the rocks above the Tangle Stanes they must go.  If the day
had been fine, there would have been other folk there, and many a signal
would have been given as the ship went by.  But they had the high
desolate rocks to themselves when they had clambered up at last, and it
was all they could do to keep their footing upon it, for the wind which
had met them so fiercely even on the level, raged here with tenfold
violence.

And there was no sign of the ship.  There was nothing but great wild
waves rising and falling as far as they could see, and masses of white
foam here and there, where they broke themselves on half hidden rocks
beneath.  There was no sign of life except that now and then a solitary
sea-gull shrieked sadly through the blast.

"Eh! but it's dreary and cold," said May with a shudder.

"Go down to yon sheltered nook and bide there till I tell you that she
is coming."

"But it's a' nonsense, Jean.  She mayna come at all, as auntie said."

"Since we're here, we'll bide a while:" So May went down to the
sheltered nook, and wrapping her cloak about her, she took from her
pocket a biscuit or two with which she had providently supplied herself,
and prepared to wait with what patience she could till her sister chose
to go.  And Jean, unable to stand still in the bitter wind, struggled up
and down the narrow limits of the ledge,--not thinking--hardly feeling--
for she needed all her power to keep her footing on the slippery rock--
only waiting for the ship.

She came in sight at last, but, driven by the wind, as soon as she was
beyond the harbour bar, she drifted so far to the eastward, that it was
doubtful whether any signal from those on shore could be seen on board.

"Are you coming, May?  Haste you," cried Jean, and while her sister
lingered, she let the long shawl float its full length on the wind.  At
the moment the clouds parted, and a sudden gleam of sunshine lighted the
rock and the girlish figure, and the waving signal which she held.  It
was but for a moment.  Before May had clambered to her side, the clouds
met again, and dimness and dreariness were over all.

"Take it, May.  It is you he is thinking of now when he sees it.  He
must have seen it when the sun shone out.  Take it, and hold it fast."

"It is easy said, hold it fast, and it's all nonsense," said May
pettishly, and from her uncertain fingers the wind caught the scarlet
signal, and carried it out to sea.

"My shawl!" gasped May.  "My bonny scarlet shawl?"

"It's an ill omen, I doubt," said Jean in a whisper.  "But never mind
the shawl; you shall have my bonny blue one instead.  And now we may go
home."

"It is all folly from first to last," said May.  "And what I am to say
about my shawl, I canna tell."

"Say nothing.  Who has a right to ask?  And, May, I think I'll walk
home--to warm myself, for I am cold."  She looked cold and could not
keep herself from trembling.  "Go back to Auntie Jean's.  My father will
be sure to seek us there, and I'll be home before you."

May was not sure of the wisdom of consenting to meet her father without
her sister, lest he might ask any questions as to how they had spent the
afternoon.  But hoping that she might get to her aunt's house before
him, she hurried away, scarcely remembering till she sat beside her
aunt's pleasant fire, that she had left her sister standing there on the
desolate wind-swept height.

And there she stood while the ship went slowly on its northern way,
"carrying her life with it," she said to herself, in vague wonder at the
utter faintness of heart, and weariness of body which had fallen upon
her.

"What has come to me?" she muttered.  "What is Willie Calderwood to me,
but a friend?  He has ay been that, and ay will be, and if he is more to
my bonny May--why that makes him more to me--and not less, surely.  And
friends must part.  There is many a sair heart in Portie the night--and
folk man just thole whatever is sent, and say nothing.  And oh! if
Geordie would but come home?"

Again the clouds parted, and a gleam of sunshine touched the water,
giving her one more glimpse of the white sails of the ship before she
went down to the north, and then there was but "the fearsome waves of
the sea," from which she could scarcely turn her dazed eyes.  But she
had to take her way down the steep rocks, and through the wet fields,
the near way home.  She lingered and walked wearily, and it was growing
dark when she went in at the gate.

"Is it you, Miss Dawson?" said a voice in the darkness.  "Has any thing
happened?  Are ye your lane?"

"Nothing has happened.  I preferred to walk.  Are they not come yet?"

"Nobody has come yet, Miss Dawson, and there has been nobody here but
Robbie Saugster, wantin' a book that you promised him--or Miss May maybe
it was," said Phemie.  "You were hardly awa' ere he was here, and he
said he'd come back the morn."

Jean sat down wearily in the hall.

"I am wet and tired," said she.

"I was sure you would be that," said Phemie, "and I made a bit fire in
your ain room, and I'll bring warm water and bathe your feet in a jiffy.
No wonder you are tired."

"That was well done.  They cannot be long now in coming.  I'll go and
make myself ready, and have the tea made at once."

Phemie was up with the warm water almost as soon as her mistress.

"Eh!  Miss Dawson, but you are white and spent looking.  It's the heat,
I dare say, after being in the cold."

She knelt and took off her shoes and stockings, and bathed her weary
feet with kindly care, and Jean let her do as she would, saying nothing
for a while.

"I'm better now.  Yes, it must have been coming into the warm room after
the cold of the afternoon.  Thank you, Phemie, that is comfortable.  I
will be down in a minute now."

She was sitting behind the urn with a book in her hand when her father
came in.

"You are late, papa."

"Yes--too late--too late," said he, and then he sat down by the fire
without taking off his greatcoat or the heavy plaid which was on his
shoulders above it.

"Something has happened," said Jean to herself.  But she knew he would
not in his present mood answer her questions.  She rose and took the
plaid and his hat, and carried them away.  Then she helped him to take
off his coat.  He did not resist her, but he did not speak, and by the
time he was seated at the table, May came down.  Her sister met her at
the door, asking softly,--

"What has happened to my father?"

"Has any thing happened?  I do not know.  I waited at auntie's till I
was weary, and then I went to Jamieson's, and waited there.  He came at
last, but he has not opened his lips all the way home."

And he did not open his lips during the meal.  He ate and drank as
usual, and as usual took his notebook from his pocket when he was done,
and turned the leaves and wrote a word or two.  He was scarcely more
silent than was his wont, but there was a look on his face that Jean had
seen only once or twice upon it--a look at once grieved and angry, of
which she had learned to be afraid.  She longed to ask him if any new
trouble had befallen him, but she did not dare to ask, and she sat in
silence with her work in her hands till Phemie appeared at the door.

"If you please, Miss Dawson, will you speak here a minute.  It's Robbie
Saugster again."

Jean rose and went out of the room, conscious that her father's eye
followed her, with something of suspicion in its glance.  She went into
the room where her father's books and papers were kept, and in a minute
Phemie ushered in a boy who looked as though he had had the benefit of
all the wind and the rain that had fallen through the day.  He waited
till Phemie had shut the door, and then he said:

"It is this I was bidden give you, Miss Jean.  I cam' afore, and then I
looked for ye on the pier and a' way, but I couldna see ye, and I doubt
it's ower late for an answer new."

He offered her a soiled and crumpled note, which she read at a glance
and put in her pocket.

"What is this about a book that I promised you, Robbie?" she asked.

"Oh! ay, Miss Dawson.  I had to tell Phemie something.  And I'll be glad
o' an orra book or two, as I'm goin' to the school--a count-book or
maybe a Latin grammar.  But I'll come back for it again."

"Wait a minute, Robbie," said Jean.  She went into the parlour again
where her father was sitting.

"May, what is this about a book for Robbie Saugster?  Did you promise
him one?  He says he is going to the school."

"A book?  I dinna mind.  Maybe I did.  What kind of a book was it?  I
canna look it out to-night, I am too tired."

The father's eyes had gone from one to the other with eager scrutiny.

"There are old school books enough, and I'll tell him that you'll look
them out to-morrow."

"You should have had them ready, no' to keep the laddie coming back
again," said her father sharply.

"I didna mind about it, and I dare say Jean promised as well as me," she
answered pettishly.

"Mind next time then; and, Jean, tell Phemie to give the laddie his
supper before he goes home."

"Yes, papa," said Jean as she shut the door.

"Something has happened and he was watching.  It is about poor Geordie,
and I'm not sure whether I should tell him or not I must think about it
first."

Robbie got his supper, and the promise of the books, and then Jean came
in and sat down with her work at her father's side, working quietly and
busily as usual, but all the time putting a strong restraint upon her
thoughts lest she should betray herself unawares by look or sign.  May,
weary with the exertion of the afternoon, by and by fell asleep in her
chair.

"Bid them come ben to worship, and let the lassie go to her bed," said
her father.

When worship was over, Jean folded her work, saying she was weary too.
"Unless you may want any thing, papa," said she turning before she
reached the door.

He looked at her a moment as if in doubt, and then he said shortly, "I
want nothing," and Jean went away to let herself think over it all.

"No answer!" said she as she took the note from her pocket again.  A
leaf torn from an account-book it seemed to be.  She spread it before
her on the table; there were only a few words written on it.

"Miss Dawson,--

"If it is possible, come to the pier head before the `John Seaton'
sails.  Maybe the sight of you will do what no persuasion of mine can
do.  But no ill shall come to Geordie that I can keep from him.  Come at
all risks.

"Your humble servant,--

"W.C."

"And I might have been there, if I had but known.  What will he think of
me?  And can it be that Geordie has sailed on the `John Seaton'?  No
wonder that my heart grew sick as the ship went out of sight.  And oh
how can I ever tell my father?"

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?"

"It _is_ a 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.

"It _is_ a 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.

"It _is_ a 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! _all_ the 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, but _they_
would 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 so _very_--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 he _did_ say."

"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.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A MISFORTUNE.

Miss Jean's heart misgave her, for she knew that the thought suggested
to her brother on the morning when Mrs Eastwood and Captain Harefield
came to Saughleas to inquire about poor Tibbie Cairnie had returned to
him more than once; and she feared that should Captain Harefield speak
to-day, he might not refuse to listen, and then there would be troublous
times before them.

That there was even a possibility that he should be willing to listen to
him was amazing to Miss Jean.  So wise and cautious and far-seeing as he
had always shown himself to be, how could he think of trusting any part
of the wealth which he had spent his life in gathering, to the hands of
a man who had proved himself incapable of making a good use of that
which had fallen to him?  To say nothing of being willing to trust him
with his daughter!

There was comfort here, however.  Jean's welfare was in her own keeping.
Miss Jean was not so much at a loss as Mrs Eastwood, as to which of
her nieces Captain Harefield intended to seek.  And she was glad it was
Jean, for Jean could hold her own against father and lover and all.  But
still there was trouble before them, for, strangely enough, her brother,
hard-working and practical, a thorough man of business, had taken
pleasure in the comings and goings of this young man so utterly unlike
himself in all essential respects.  She had seen it with wonder and a
little amusement at first; but she knew now, or she thought she knew,
that he had been preparing disappointment for himself and vexation to
her bonny Jean.

"Truly we need guidance," she said aloud, and then she rose and invited
Mrs Eastwood to go in to the house and take a cup of tea, hoping all
the time that she might refuse, and that she might be away before Mr
Dawson came.

It was not to be so arranged however.  Mr Dawson was delighted to see
Mrs Eastwood, and expressed his pleasure so frankly, that Miss Jean
thought it possible the lady might take courage, and make known to him
as plainly as she had done to her the cause of her visit.  So, instead
of moving away with the help of her cane, as she had at first intended
to do, she seated herself again.  Not that she thought that her presence
would be likely to prevent her speech, but she was curious to know how
the matter, so interesting to the lady, should be presented to a new
listener; and curious also to see how her brother might receive it.

There were the usual inquiries and compliments as to health, and the
usual remarks about the weather and the appearance of the country, and
then Mrs Eastwood spoke of the benefit she had received from her long
stay, and her regret that the time of her departure was so near.  Then
Mr Dawson inquired with more interest than the occasion demanded,
whether Captain Harefield was to leave also.

"If he take my advice about it, he will certainly do so," said Mrs
Eastwood.  "But that is doubtful.  The interest of the season is just
beginning to him, and as he has had his leave extended, he may remain."

"He is a keen sportsman, I hear," said Mr Dawson.

"Oh, yes; and the shooting here is good, they say, and does not involve
very much fatigue.  Yes, he will probably stay for a little; though I
think he had much better go, for various reasons."

She spoke with a certain significance of tone and manner, and Mr Dawson
remained silent, expecting to hear more; and possibly he might have had
the pleasure of hearing of Captain Harefield's hopes and his sister's
opinions, had no interruption occurred.

But at the moment a sudden outcry arose somewhere in the garden.  They
could see nothing where they were sitting, but they heard the sound of
many voices--entreating, expostulating, scolding, and at last they heard
words.

"Ye needna tell, May.  Naebody will ken wha did it."

"I wouldna tell Mr Dawson--for--oh! for ony thing."

"An' naebody will ken that it was you that did it."

"It wasna me, but it was my fault; and if Sandy winna tell, I must, and
just take the wyte (blame) mysel'."

"Eh!  Marion!  Yon's him speaking to the leddy.  I wouldna be you for
something."

"Something untoward has happened, I doubt," said Miss Jean.  "I hope no
ill has come to any of the apple-trees."

Now Mr Dawson's apple-trees were the pride of his heart.  It is not
easy to raise fruit trees of any kind so near to the sea; and as far as
apple-trees are concerned, the fruit is not of the best, when success
has crowned persevering effort.  But on a few young trees, bearing for
the first time, there hung several apples beautiful to behold, and they
had been watched through all the season with interest by every one in
the house, but above all by Mr Dawson.  So when Miss Jean said
"apple-trees," he rose at once to satisfy himself that they were safe.

But alas! before he had fairly turned to go, all doubt was at an end.
There were many children at a little distance, and two or three were
drawing near, and in the hand of one, a girl in her teens, was a broken
branch, on which hung two of the half dozen apples from the best of all
the trees.  Mr Dawson had watched them with too great interest not to
know just where the little branch belonged.  He did not speak,--indeed
the little maiden did not give him time.

"It was a' my wyte, Mr Dawson, and I'm very grieved," said she, holding
up the branch, and looking up into his face with eager, wistful eyes.

Mr Dawson took it, but he looked not at it, but at the child, saying
nothing.

"I beg your pardon.  I'm very grieved," repeated she.

Mrs Eastwood whispered to Miss Jean what a pretty picture the child
made, but Miss Jean was thinking of other things.

"It was Sandy," continued the little pleader.  "He was taking a' wee
David's sweetees, and I couldna bide that, ye ken, and I just--just
tried to hinder him; an' he ran awa', and me after him.  And he ran in
beneath the tree, but he wouldna have gone, if I hadna been after him,
and so--"

"She licket me, and she tried to rug my lugs," (pull my ears), said a
voice in the distance.

The change in the girl's face was wonderful to see as she turned to the
speaker.  A sudden colour rose to her cheeks, and her grey eyes flashed
scorn and anger.

"If I only had been able!" said she, and then she turned to Mr Dawson
again.

"I'm very grieved," repeated she.

"It canna be helpit now, Maysie," said Miss Jean.  "Never heed.  Run
awa' with the lave o' the bairns."

For Miss Jean knew that it was not the apples nor their destruction that
had brought that look to her brother's face.

"Are ye angry with me, sir?  And winna ye forgive me?" said Maysie, the
sweet wistfulness coming back to her eyes.  "I'm very grieved."

"It canna be helpit.  Never heed," said Mr Dawson, repeating his
sister's words.  "I dinna think I mind your name," added he, not meaning
to say it, but making a great effort to recover himself.

"I'm Marion Calderwood," said she, a sudden brightness, followed by a
cloud as sudden, passing over her face.  She lifted beseeching eyes to
his face, and then she turned to Miss Jean.

"Run awa', lassie, with the lave o' the bairns," said Miss Jean.

"Maybe I should go hame?"

"Hoot, lassie!  Never heed.  Only run away with the lave."

Quite unconscious that he owed an apology to Mrs Eastwood for his
abrupt departure, Mr Dawson turned and strode off in another direction.

"They must be precious apples," said Mrs Eastwood, looking after him
with surprise not unmingled with disgust.

"It's an old trouble," said Miss Jean sorrowfully.  "He'll hear none o'
her fine words the night," she added to herself, conscious, amid her
trouble, of some satisfaction that it should be so.

No, Mr Dawson was not likely to listen patiently to words of any kind
that night.  The very first look from the child's eyes smote his heart
with a pang in which there was regret, as well as anger and pain.  For a
sudden remembrance of eyes as sweet, and with the same look of wistful
appeal in them came back to him--the eyes of bonny Elsie Calderwood, who
had come between him and his son.

Almost the last words which his son had spoken to him, the very last
such as a son should speak to his father, had been spoken while those
wistful eyes entreated him.  It had been a moment of great bitterness,
and as he passed down the lane that led to the fields, and then to the
sea, eager to get beyond the sound of the gay voices ringing from garden
and wood, the old bitterness returned, and with it came the added misery
of the vain wish that he had yielded his own will that day--a longing
unspeakable for all that he had lost.

His boy--the only son of his mother who had been so dear, had he lost
him forever?  Would he never return?  Could he be dead?  Should he never
see his face or hear his voice again?

He had a bitter hour or two, this man, whom even his sister, who knew
him best and loved him best, called hard in her secret thoughts.  And
the bitterness did not pass with the hour, nor the pain.  Silence
reigned in the house before he came home that night, and in the morning
something of the old gloom seemed to have fallen upon him.

Captain Harefield did go home with his sister; at least he left
Blackford House with her, and that without returning after the night of
the children's party to say "Good-bye" to his friends at Saughleas.  May
remarked upon this with a little indignation, and Mr Dawson said it was
not like the young man not to do what was polite and kind, and he also
wondered at the omission of the visit.  Jean said nothing; at least she
said nothing to them.  To her aunt she acknowledged that she had known
of his intended departure, and that she had also known when he bade her
good-bye that night, that she was not likely to see him again.  But even
to her aunt she did not acknowledge that he would have stayed longer if
she had bidden him, or that even now a word from her would bring him
back again.

Out of the unfortunate incident of the broken apple-tree, there rose a
little talk between "the two Jeans."  Miss Jean had for a long time had
something on her mind to say to her niece, but it was the younger Jean
who spoke first.

"Aunt, what is this they are saying about my father's anger at Marion
Calderwood?"

"My dear, he wasna angry!"

"Did you see it all, auntie?  Because Marion went home greeting, the
other bairns say.  Of course it was a pity about the tree, but it wasna
Marion who broke it, and it wasna like my father to show anger to a
guest, even to a bairn."

"My dear, he showed no anger."

"But, auntie, there must have been something; for I met Mrs Calderwood
in the High-street this morning, and she went red and then white, and
was stiff and distant, as she used to be when we first came home.  She
had grown quite friendly of late, and to-day she would have passed me
without speaking.  It must have been because of Marion."

"It might have been, but I dinna think it.  Mrs Calderwood is a proud
woman, Jean, my dear,--and--"

"Well?"

"Weel, ye have been consorting with fine folk lately, and maybe--"

"Auntie Jean!  Dinna say more, for that is not your real thought; and
that is a terrible thing to say of you."

"My dear, it is my real thought, as far as it goes.  I ha'e little doubt
that was present in Mrs Calderwood's mind when she met you in the
High-street--with other things."

"We'll take the other things first then," said Jean, the angry colour
rising in her cheeks.  "You must think your friend but a poor creature,
or she must think it of us."

It was the first time in all the girl's life, that her eyes with an
angry light in them had rested fully on her aunt's face.  Her aunt did
not resent it, or notice it, except by a gentle movement of her head
from side to side, and the shadow of a smile passed over her face.  She
looked grave enough as she answered, however.

"I am far from thinking her a poor creature, whatever she may think of
us.  And, Jean, my dear, I think ye maun ken something of the other
things, though ye never heard them from me."

Jean's look grew soft and sad, and she came and leaned on her aunt's
chair.

"Do you mean about bonny Elsie, and--our Geordie?  Was it because of
Elsie that Geordie went--and lost himself?  Tell me about it."

"I think ye maun ken all that I could tell you--or mostly all."

"I only ken--I mean I used to think that they--cared for one another--oh
long ago, before my mother died.  And since we came home, I have heard a
word dropped now and then, by different folk--Marion Petrie, and her
mother; and once Tibbie Cairnie said something about my father's cursed
pride, and his fine plans that would come to nothing.  But it wasna till
afterwards that I knew that it was Geordie she was thinking about Auntie
Jean, I have had my thoughts, but I ken little.  Was my father angry?
But he must have been sorry for George when poor Elsie died.  And was it
because of Elsie that my brother went away?"

It was not an easy story to tell, and Miss Jean put it in as few words
as possible, having her own reasons for telling it to Jean.  She dwelt
less upon her father's anger at his son's folly, than upon the
heartbreak that his loss had brought him.  But she made it clear that
"poor bonny Elsie" was the cause of their estrangement, and that it
would have been the same had Elsie lived and had George carried out his
determination to marry her against his father's will.

"If the poor foolish lad had only waited and had patience in the mean
time, much sorrow might have been spared to all concerned.  Your father
might have given in--though I dinna think it; or as they were little
more than bairns, they might have forgotten ane anither--though I dinna
think that either.  But if George had won to man's estate, and had been
doing a man's work and getting a man's wages, he would have had a better
right to take his own way, and your father _might_ have given in then.
At least he must have been silent, and let the lad go his ain gait.  I
whiles weary myself thinking how it might have been."

Jean sat without a word, but with a face that changed many times from
white to red and from red to white as she listened; and when her aunt
paused, and took up the work which in her earnestness she had allowed to
fall on her lap, she sat silent still, quite unconscious of the uneasy
glances that fell on her from time to time.

"It has made an old man of your father," added Miss Jean in a little.

"Poor father! and poor Geordie!  Ay, and poor Elsie! and nothing can
change it now."

Jean rose from the stool on which she had been sitting at her aunt's
feet, and walked restlessly about the room.  By and by, she came and
stood behind her aunt's chair, leaning upon it.

"Aunt--there is something I would like to tell you.  I wonder if I
ought?"

"Ye maun judge, my dear."

"If I were only sure."

Both were silent for a time.

"Would I be better able to give help or counsel to you or--to any one--
if I were to hear what you could tell?"

Jean shook her head.

"Nothing can be done--at least not now," said she sadly.  "Weel then,
dearie, dinna speak.  Whiles troubles take shape and strength in the
utterance and grow persistent, that might have died out or come to
little in silence.  If a time should come that you are sure that
speaking would do any good, tell me then."

"It would do no good now.  And I am not sure that there is any thing to
tell."

There was a long silence between them.  Jean was thinking of the "John
Seaton" sailing away with her brother to the northern seas.  Miss Jean
was thinking of the "John Seaton" too, and of Willie Calderwood, with a
sad heart.

"They were just a' bairns thegither I thought, but I little kenned.  And
wae's me! for my bonny Jean, gin she has to go through all that--and
wae's me! for her father as well.  No' that the pain and the trouble
need be feared for them, so that they are brought through--and no
unfilial bitterness left to sicken my bairn's heart forever more; but I
mustna speak, or let her speak.  I think she hardly kens yet how it is
with her, but she would ken at the first word; silence is best."

And silence it was.  But by and by more was said about the story of
those two "for whom life was ended," as Jean said sadly.  She was not
angry at her father's part in the matter, as her aunt had feared she
might be.  It could not have been otherwise, looking at things as he
looked at them, she acknowledged, and she grieved for him all the more,
knowing that there must mingle much bitterness, perhaps remorse, with
his sorrow for his son.

"If my mother had but lived!" she said sadly.  "Ay, lassie!  But He kens
best who took her hence where we'll a' soon follow.  We make muckle ado
about our gains and our pains, our loves and our losses, forgetting that
`our days are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.'"

"A shadow to look back upon, auntie, but a reality as we are going
through with them day by day."

"Ay! that's true, my lassie, and a stern reality whiles.  The comfort is
that it is a' ordered for us."

Jean shook her head with a doubtful smile.

"Only it is not till afterward that we get the good of that knowledge."

"And coming afterward it comes ower late, ye think, lassie.  But bide ye
still and see.  And indeed no one need wait till afterwards to know the
blessedness o' just lying quiet in His hands.  And ye needna wait a day
for that, my dear bairn."

If Jean had spoken, the tears must have come; so she rose and kissed her
aunt silently, and then went away.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

WILLIE CALDERWOOD.

The name of Willie Calderwood had never been spoken between the sisters
since the day when, standing on the high rocks above the Tangle Stanes,
they had watched the "John Seaton" making out to sea.  Jean was silent
for one reason, and May for another; and there were reasons enough that
both could see why silence was best, to prevent either of them from
feeling such silence strange.

Willie Calderwood had been their companion and their brother's chief
friend in the days when they all played together on the rocks and sands
of Portie--in the days before George Dawson had admitted into his heart
the thought, that the wealth he had won, and the estate he had made his
own, gave his children a right to look higher for their friends than
among their less prosperous neighbours.  But his children were not of
the sort that forget easily, nor were the Calderwoods the sort of
friends to be easily forgotten.  Willie had always been a leader among
them, a handsome, fearless, kindly lad, and he became a hero to them
all, when he went to sea and came home to tell of shipwreck first, and
then of strange adventures among strange people; of hunger and cold and
suffering, and escape at last.

A hero!  There were many such heroes in Portie who had suffered all
these things and more--old men and men old before their time who had
passed their lives in whaling ships on the northern seas; who had been
wounded or maimed in battles with northern bears and walruses, and with
northern frost and snow; and even they made much of the lad who had
begun his battles so early.  So no wonder that he was a hero to his
chosen companions and friends.

"They were jist a' bairns thegither," as Miss Jean had said; but it was
during that summer, the last of his mother's life, that young George
lost his heart to bonny Elsie, and it was during that summer too, that
the visionary glory that rested on the name of the returned sailor
carried captive the imagination of his sister Jean.  She did not forget
him while she was away from Portie; but when she returned they did not
fall into their old friendly ways with one another.

That would have been impossible even if the sad story of George and
Elsie had never been to tell; for Jean was a woman by this time, and she
was Miss Dawson of Saughleas, and he was but the second mate of a
whaling ship; a brave man and a good sailor, but not the equal of the
rich man's daughter as times were now.  So they seldom met, and when
they did meet, it was not as it used to be in the old times between
them.  He never sought her out when they met in the houses of their
mutual friends, and when the circumstances of the moment brought them
together, he was polite and deferential and not at his ease.  Jean would
fain have been friendly and tried to show it, and not knowing then of
her father's anger, because of his son's love, she could not but wonder
at her ill success.

"Maybe he is like Tibbie Cairnie, and thinks you are set up with London
pride," said May laughing.  "If I were you, I would ask him."

But Jean never asked him, and he was not long in Portie after they
returned.  But when he came back again it was very much the same.  He
was at home the greater part of the winter before he sailed with the
"John Seaton," and they met him often at other houses, though he never
went to Saughleas.  There were times when they seemed to be felling back
into their old friendliness, and Jean, who was noted in their small
circle for the coolness with which she accepted or rejected the
compliments, or the graver attentions of some who seemed to seek her
favour, grew gentle and winning, and even playful or teasing, when any
movement in the room brought the young sailor to her side.

"She is just the Jean of the old days," poor Willie said to himself, and
he could say nothing better than that.  They fell back at such times
into the kindly speech of their childhood "minding" one another of this
or that happy day when they were "a' bairns thegither."  They could say
little of Elsie who was dead, or of George who was lost, in a bright
room with others looking on, but the tears that stood in Jean's "bonny
een" told more than words could have done of her love and sorrow for
them both.  If she had known all, she might have thought it wise to say
nothing; but her words and her wet eyes were as drops of sweet to the
lad in the midst of much bitterness.  He did not always go home cheered
and comforted after the sweetness; but Jean did, telling herself that at
last they were friends as they used to be--till they met again, and then
the chances were, that her "friend" was as silent and deferential and as
little eager, apparently, to seek her company as ever; and she could
only comfort herself with the thought that the fault was not hers.

So it went on strangely and sadly enough for a while, and then Jean
began to see that though he shunned rather than sought her, he seemed
friendly enough with her sister.  He seemed to seek her out, and to have
much to say to her; and why he should be friendly with May and not with
her, she could not easily understand.

"Unless--and even then?" said Jean to herself with a little sinking of
the heart.

She did not follow out her thought at the moment, but it came back to
her afterwards, and on the high rocks as they watched the departing
ship, she thought she saw it all clearly, and that she was content.  He
was her friend, and if he were May's lover, he would still be her
friend, and all the more because of that, and time would make all things
that might hinder their friendship now, clear to them both.

But she did not speak to her sister about this.  It was for May to speak
to her, she thought at first, and after a while it would not have been
easy to speak, and on the whole, silence was best.  Then as she listened
to her aunt's story of their brother and Elsie, and of their father's
opposition and anger, she was not sure that silence was best.  How much
of it May might know, she could not tell; but sooner or later she must
know it all, and if there was trouble before her, it would make it none
the easier to bear, but all the heavier, the longer the knowledge was
kept from her.  But she shrank from speaking all the same.

"I will tell her to-night," she said as she sat by her aunt's side.  But
she did not, nor the next, and even on the third night she sat long in
the dark when the house was silent, listening to the wind among the
trees, and the dull sound of the sea, and the painful beating of her own
heavy heart, before she found courage to go into her sister's room.

"If she is asleep, I will not wake her."

But May was not asleep.  She had been lingering over various little
things that she had found to do, and had only just put out her light
when her sister softly opened the door.  She seemed to sleep, however,
as Jean leaned over to listen, but as she turned away, May laughed
softly.

"Well, what is it?  I dinna think I have done any thing so very foolish
to-day--not more than usual, I mean."

For, in her elder sisterly care for her, Jean thought it wise to drop a
word of counsel now and then, and this was the hour she usually chose to
do it.  She stooped down and kissed her as she turned, a circumstance
that did not very often occur between them.  For though they loved one
another dearly, they were--after the manner of their kin and country--
shy of any expression of love or even of sympathy in the way of
caresses.

"Is there any thing wrong?" said May startled.  "Did any one ever tell
you about--about our Geordie and Elsie Calderwood, May?  Auntie Jean has
been speaking about them to me lately."

It was not a very good beginning, but she did not know what better to
say.  May raised herself up, and looked eagerly in her sister's face.

"I have heard something.  Do you mean that you only heard it the other
day?"

"Tell me all you know," said Jean, leaning down on the bed beside her.
"And why did you not tell me before?"

"I did not like--and I thought you must ken about it."

"Ah! yes.  It is sad enough.  No wonder you didna like to speak about
it.  But tell me now all you know."

And May did so, and it was very nearly all there was to tell.  She had
heard the story, not straight through from beginning to end, as Jean had
heard it from her aunt, but from words dropped now and then by one and
another of their friends.  And Jean could not but wonder that, May
having heard so much, she herself should have heard so little.  But May
knew little of the part her father had taken in the separation of the
lovers, how angry he had been, and how determined to put an end to what
he called the folly of his son.  It was just this that May ought to
know, and Jean told it in as few words as possible.  She wondered a
little at the way in which her sister seemed to take it all.

"Poor Elsie!  But she might have died even if she had not been sent to
the school.  How little folk ken!  They say in Portie that her mother
sent her away that she might learn things that would fit her to be the
wife of young Mr Dawson, and by and by the lady of Saughleas--and that
her pride got a fall.  It is a sorrowful story, Jean."

"And the saddest part of it to us is, that poor Geordie is lost and gone
from us.  And even if he were to come home, it might be little better."

"Is my father angry yet, Jean?  Or is he sorry?  Would he do the same if
it were all to do over again?"

"Who can say!  He has many thoughts about it, doubtless, and some of
them cannot but be bitter enough.  But as to his doing differently--"
Jean shook her head.

"But, Jean, I canna blame my father altogether.  His heart was set on
his only son, and George was but a boy."

"Yes, and Aunt Jean says if he had but waited with patience my father
might have yielded at last."

"Or George might have changed.  He had seen no one else, and though
Elsie was good, and bonny too, there was a great difference between her
and--and some that we have seen,--ladies educated and accomplished as
well as beautiful.  And, Jean, I canna but be sorry for my father."

"Sorry!  That says little.  My heart is like to break for him whiles--
and it might have been so different!" said Jean sadly.

"If he were living, we should have heard from him before this time."

"Who can say?  Oh! he is living!  I canna think he is dead.  Poor papa,
he must have a sore heart often."

"Jean," said her sister after a long silence, "do you think he would do
it all over again?  I mean--do you think he would be as hard on--you or
me?"

"Do you mean--Willie?" asked Jean at last.  "Well--Willie or another.
It is not easy for my father to change."

"No, it is not.  But, May, have patience.  Things often come round in
strange ways when we least expect it.  If George would only come again!
How long is it since the `John Seaton' sailed?"

"A good while since."

Jean could have told her sister the days and even the hours that had
passed since then, but she did not.  When she asked the question, it was
her brother she was thinking of; but May, who could not know that,
believed that she was thinking of Willie Calderwood.

"He may be captain next voyage," said May.  "But I wish he could leave
the sea altogether.  My father could open the way for that, if he
chose."

"Leave the sea?  Is it Willie you are speaking about?  He would never do
it.  May, you must not ask it of him.  It would be putting him in a
false position altogether.  He is a true sailor."

"Oh!  I shall not ask him.  It would do little good.  But I wonder at
you all the same.  You have no ambition.  He can never be more than just
a sea captain--and always away."

"A sea captain!" repeated Jean.  "A sailor!--And what would you have?
Would you put him behind the counter in a shop? or set him to casting up
figures or counting money in a bank?  Would you even old Mr Petrie or
James or any of them with the like of him?"

May laughed.  "Oh! well, a sailor let him be.  But ye needna flee at me
as though I had said something horrible.  And we needna vex ourselves.
That will do no good."

"It must be late," said Jean rising.  "She takes it quietly enough, and
it is well she does.  It would wear her out to be ay thinking and
fearing and longing for his coming home, as I long for poor George's.
She is ay light-hearted, dear child.  God bless her," added Jean with a
sigh.

The rest of the summer passed quietly away.  The little Corbetts went
home strong and brown and with a wonderful knowledge of and delight in
their father's mother tongue, rejoicing over the invitation for another
visit the next summer, if all should be well.

They were much missed in Saughleas, and so was Miss Jean, who, though
she enjoyed a visit to her brother and her nieces now and then, liked
best the quiet of her own house, and the silent secret doing of the work
which she had chosen among the sinful and suffering poor creatures of
which, especially in winter-time, Portie had its share.  Her stay at
Saughleas had done her good.  She left her crutch behind her there, and
she was able now to go with her staff in one hand and "help and comfort"
in the other, to those who in the back sheets and lanes of the town
needed her help most.  At Saughleas they missed her greatly, for various
reasons, and chiefly for this, that at meal times, and at other times
also, Mr Dawson was ready to fall into his old habit of silence and
reserve, when left alone with his daughters.  This silence was good
neither for them nor for himself.

"And I am going to try and have it otherwise," said Jean to herself, as
she sat behind the urn, waiting for his coming the first morning they
were alone.

He came in as usual with a bundle of papers in his hand, letters that
had been received last night, and that must be answered this morning as
soon as he reached the bank, and in the mean time he meant to look them
over while he drank his coffee.

"I think," said his daughter looking straight into his face as he
adjusted his spectacles, so that he might not let her remark fall as
though it had been made to her sister, "I think Aunt Jean is the woman
the most to be envied among all the women I know."

"Ay!  Think ye that?  And what new light ha'e ye gotten about her
to-day?" said her father, arrested by her look rather than her words.

"No new light.  Only I have been thinking about her last night and
to-day.  She is the best woman I know, and the happiest; and I envy
her."

"Ye have but to follow in her steps, and ye'll be as good as she is,--in
time," said her father dryly.  "As to her happiness--I should say she
perhaps makes the most of the means of happiness given to her, but
otherwise I see little cause that you have to envy her.  She is
reasonable, and doesna let her wishes and her fancies get the better of
her good sense, and so she is content."

"And if I were reasonable, would I be content, I wonder?  As to being as
good--that must come of higher teaching and peculiar discipline, and I
doubt I shall never be good in her way."

"And what for no?  Your aunt would be the first to tell you that you can
get the higher teaching for the asking.  And as for discipline--the
chances are ye'll get your share as well as the rest of us."

"But not just in the same way.  A long, patient, laborious,
self-forgetting life hers has been--has it not?  She is strong and she
has been successful; yet she is not hard.  She is good, but she is not
down on wrong-doers in the way that some good folk are.  If I had my
choice, I think I would choose to have just such a life as she has had--
if it would make me like her."

Mr Dawson looked at his daughter in some surprise.  Jean was not
looking at him, but over his head far away to the sea, bright for the
moment, under a gleam of sunshine.

"Would that be your choice?  A life of labour, and then the life of a
solitary single woman!  I think I see you!" said her father with
something like indignation in his tones.

May laughed.  Jean's eyes came back from the sea with a vague, wistful
look in them that startled her father.

"I think, Jean, ye hardly ken what ye're speaking about."

"Yes.  About Aunt Jean.  `A solitary single woman?'  No.  Not solitary.
That has such a sorrowful sound.  Oh! she is not solitary in an unhappy
sense; even when she is quite alone in her own house by the sea."

"What I mean is, that she has neither husband nor child.  She is alone
in that sense.  And if ye think that she hasna whiles felt--weel--as if
she had missed something in life--that's no' my thought."

"Yes--and that is part of the discipline, I suppose.  Missed something--
yes.  But then, having had these things she might have missed that which
makes her different from, and better than, any one else.  I ken no one
like my Aunt Jean."

"Weel--ye're no' far wrong there.  And if ye had kenned her in her
youth, you would have said the same.  There were none like her then more
than now.  But she's growing unco frail-like now, poor body?" added Mr
Dawson with a sigh.

And then there was more said.  Mr Dawson went on to tell many stories
of his sister's youth, all going to prove that there were few like her
for sense and goodness even then.  Most of these his daughters had heard
before, but they liked to listen all the same.  And Mr Dawson forgot
his letters, and Jean forgot that it was only to keep his eyes away from
them, that she had begun to speak about her aunt, and she took courage
because of her success.

CHAPTER NINE.

AN INVITATION.

She was not always so successful; still she was successful to a degree
that surprised herself, in withdrawing her father from the silent and
sombre musings which of late had become habitual to him.  This was the
work which she set herself.  Her time, while he was in the house, or
near it, was given to him.  She disturbed him doubtless now and then
when he would have been better pleased to be left to himself; but upon
the whole he responded to her advances, and by and by showed in many
ways that he counted upon her interest in whatever he might be doing,
and on such help as she could give.

In all matters connected with the management of the estate he took
especial pains to claim her attention and interest.  She tramped with
him over the wet autumn fields in all weathers, and listened to his
plans for the improvement of the place in the way of dikes and ditches
and drains, and to plans that went further than these--plans which it
would take years to carry out well and wisely.  Her interest was real
for the moment, and soon it became eager and intelligent as well.  She
not only listened to him, but she discussed, and suggested, and even
differed from him in various matters, and held to her own opinions in a
way that certainly did not displease him.

She tired of it all sometimes, however, and though she permitted no sign
of it to appear to her father, she could not always hide it from her
sister.

"And what is the good of it all?  You cannot surely be vain enough to
think that you are doing any good, or that papa cares to have you
tramping about in the wet and the wind."

"Oh, I like it!  And I may as well do it as any thing else.  As to
papa--yes, I think he likes it.  I am better than no one to speak to,
and--oh yes, I like it!"

"It is all nonsense!" said May with a shrug.  "As for papa, he might
enjoy it, if it were Peter Stark, or John Stott, or any one that could
understand him, or give him a sensible answer;--but you!--What is the
use of it?--and just look at your shoes and stockings!"

Jean looked down, as she was bidden, at her feet, and her soiled
petticoats.

"They _are_ wet," said she, "and dirty."

"And tell me if you can, what is the good of it all?"

"It has made me hungry, and it will make me sleep, perhaps.  And the
best reason for it is, that I like it--as well as any thing."

She went away to change her wet things, and came back in her pretty
house dress with a knot of gay ribbon at her throat, looking wonderfully
bright and bonny her father thought as he came in at the hall door, and
so he noticed all the more readily, perhaps, how white and changed she
looked afterwards.  When he also had changed his wet things, and came in
to sit down, she was standing in the darkening room, looking out at the
window, leaning on the ledge as though she were tired, and she did not
turn round as he passed her to take his usual place at the fireside.

"The days are drawing in fast," said he, by way of saying something.

"Yes, it is already growing dark.  I cannot see the sea."

"Ye needna care.  It is an angry sea to-night, and the wind is rising."

"Yes, the moan of it is in among the trees already, and before morning
it will be a cry--a terrible sharp cry--that will not be shut out.  An
ill night for those at sea."

"By no means.  The folk at sea are safe enough, so that they bide away
from the shore.  There will be worse nights than this, and many of them,
before the winter be over."

"The long, long winter!  And think what it must be in Greenland seas,
with the ice and the dark, and the bitter cold."

"Lassie, draw the curtains and come to the fire.  What ails you at the
wind and the sea to-night, more than usual?  Draw the curtains, and shut
out the night, and come and make the tea."

And then when Jean did his bidding and turned from the window, he saw
that her face was white and her eyes strained and anxious.  She came to
the fire and stooped down, warming her hands at the blaze.

"One would think you were a sailor's wife, and that his ship was in
danger," said her father.

"It is the book she has been reading," said her sister.  "That American
book about the men who sailed in search of Sir John Franklin and his
crew.  What pleasure there can be in poring over any thing so dismal, is
more than I can tell."

"That is because you do not know.  It gives one courage to know that
there have been men--that there are men--so patient and so brave.  Their
leader was a hero," said Jean with shining eyes.

"Well, we'll have our tea now," said Mr Dawson in a tone that made May
think he was ill-pleased at something, though he said nothing more.  He
was wondering what could have come to the lassie so to change the
brightness of the face that had met him at the door.  May knew that Jean
must be thinking of the "John Seaton," but she knew that her father
could have no such thought.  Nothing was said by any of them for a
while, but by the time tea was over, they had fallen into their ordinary
mood again, and spoke of other things.  But afterwards Jean was sorry
that she had not taken courage that night to tell him how she had heard
that her brother had sailed in the "John Seaton" so long ago.

For her secret knowledge burdened her sorely.  That George should have
been at home and then have gone away again without a word, it would be
like to break his father's heart to know.  The hope of seeing him when
the "John Seaton" came home might be better than the uncertainty of the
present.  But if his anger still burned against his father, he might not
come home, and such a disappointment would be worse to bear than even
the present uncertainty.

She wearied herself thinking about it, but she did not know what to do.
She longed to tell her aunt.  She had almost done so, but her aunt had
forbidden her, or so she had thought.  And months must still pass before
the "John Seaton" could be in port again.

Her thoughts were with her brother night and day, and she was
pre-occupied and grave, and grew white and anxious-eyed; and by and by
it added to her trouble, to know that her father was observing her.  So
when he was in the house, all her thoughts were given to the effort to
be just as usual.  She talked cheerfully and had visitors at the house;
and when they were alone she worked busily and steadily, falling back,
when her white seam failed her, on May's embroidery; and did her best to
grow enthusiastic with her sister over silks and wools of brilliant hue.

She practised her music also, and took courage to sing even when her
father was in the house.  It needed some courage, for their mother had
been one of the sweetest of singers, and their father had never heard
the voices of his daughters since the days when they used to stand at
their mother's side, and sing the songs she loved.

No harm came of it.  Though her father made no remarks, she knew that he
listened to her voice in the dark, and if it woke the old sense of pain
and loss, it stirred neither anger nor rebellion, as the gentleness of
his words and ways made her sure.

And so the winter wore on with the usual breaks in the way of
hospitalities given and received till the days began to lengthen--and
then something happened.

There came to the girls an invitation from a friend, to pass a month or
two with her in London.  The friend had been Miss Browning, their
favourite teacher in their London school.  Now she was Mrs Seldon, the
wife of a young city merchant, "as happy as the day is long," she wrote,
and she promised them a taste of many enjoyments, if they would come and
see her as mistress of her own pretty house--free now to come and go at
her own will and pleasure.  Much she said to induce them to come, and
much was not needed, as far as May was concerned.

Mr Dawson might have hesitated as to accepting an invitation for his
daughters into an unknown household, even though he had every confidence
in the good sense and discretion of the lady who invited them.  But
strangely enough, it happened that Mr Seldon was the son of almost the
only man in London with whom he had ever had other than mere business
intercourse, and the young man himself was not altogether a stranger to
him.  As men of business, father and son were worthy of respect, and
socially occupied an unexceptionable position, and Mr Dawson was more
than pleased that his daughters should see something of London, in
circumstances so favourable as a residence with such people would imply.
So his consent was given readily.

Jean listened and said little through all the preliminary discussion of
the matter; but when it was settled that the invitation was to be at
once accepted, she quietly declined to leave home.

She gave several good reasons why one should pay the visit rather than
them both, and several why it should be May that should pay it.  She
gave several reasons also, why it would be wrong for both of them to
leave home at once.  Their father would be left in the house alone.
Their aunt was by no means strong.  Indeed if there were no other reason
she would never think of leaving her alone during the spring months,
which had during the last few years been so trying to her.  Then there
had been something said about certain changes to be made in the early
spring in the grounds and gardens.  These might certainly be put off
till another year, as her father suggested, but it would be a pity to do
so, and if they were to be made, Jean must be at home to superintend
them.

"And indeed, papa, it was May who used to be Miss Browning's friend,
much more than I.  Mrs Seldon would enjoy May's company better than
mine, and May would take ten times the pleasure that I should take.  How
should I have any pleasure knowing that my sister was lonely and
disappointed at home.  As to both going, it is out of the question.  And
I can go next time."

Of course Mr Dawson could not do otherwise than yield to such an array
of good reasons, especially as May was as eager to go as her sister was
to stay; but he had an uneasy feeling that Jean herself had needed none
of these good reasons to induce her to remain.  It pleased him, of
course, that she should like home best, and he was glad not to be left
to the trial of a silent and forsaken house during a gloomy month or
two.  But it did not please him that Jean should care so little for the
enjoyment that her sister anticipated with such delight.  It was not
natural, and he wearied himself trying to imagine what it might be.

"I will see what my sister says about it," thought he.

But in the mean time he could only let her take her way; and he and May
set out together on their journey, for he would not permit his daughter
to travel alone.

And then for a few days Jean had the house to herself, and during these
days, she became aware of one thing.  She must turn her thoughts away
from the constant dwelling on poor lost Geordie, and his wanderings on
northern seas, or she would lose the power of thinking or caring for any
one or any thing in the world besides.

It had nearly come to that already.  If the wind blew, it was of him she
thought, and it was the same if the sun shone, or the rain fell.  Night
and day her heart was heavy with fears for him.  It was the shipping
news she read first in the papers, about storms and wrecks of whale
ships that had come home, and of some that might never come, till she
grew morbid and heartsick with her doubts and her fears.

When she went to the town, or took her daily walk by the sea, she spoke
with the fishermen about the signs of wind and weather, and with certain
old sailors--long past sailing because of age and rheumatism--about the
voyages they had made, and about the dangers of the deep, and the
dreariness of Arctic seas when winter nights were long and the days "but
a blink."  And of late, she had come to be aware that now and then as
they talked, there was a look of wondering curiosity in their dim old
eyes.  They took her sixpences, and her "bits o' backey" with smiles and
nods of encouragement, and with assurances "that there was nothing like
keeping a stout heart and a cheerful, on the shore as well as on the
sea."

"And they canna ken about Geordie," she said to herself wondering.

No; they did not know about Geordie; but they saw the weary, wistful
looks ever turned to the sea, and they could not but know that they must
mean something, though neither kith nor kin of hers had sailed from the
harbour of Portie, as far as they knew, for many a day.  And thinking
about their words and their looks, she told herself, that unless she
meant to fall into utter uselessness and folly, she must shake herself
free from this dull brooding over her fears.  For the suspense must
continue for months yet--perhaps for many months, and she began to be
afraid for herself at the thought.

"I wonder what the sailors' wives do, and their mothers and sisters all
these wintry months?  Do they sit and think of the danger, and the
distance, and the long suspense?  No, they must live and have patience,
and take the good of other things, and trust in God--as I must, if I
would not go wild.  _They_ get through, and I must.

"But then I must never speak about him, and my fears for him, and that
must make it worse to bear.  Oh, if I had but told my father that first
night!  How can I wait on for months like this?" and Jean suffered
herself to cry as she had never cried before.  She might cry this once
since there was no one at home to notice the traces of tears.  But all
the same she knew that she must make a braver stand against the trouble
that oppressed her, and even amid her tears she was saying that
to-morrow she would begin.

And so when to-morrow came, instead of going toward the wild sea shore
above the town, she set out to go directly to her aunt.  It was not an
agreeable day for a walk.  It was not raining, but the mud was deep on
the road, and the fields which Jean liked best at such times, were in
places under water; and a wide ditch here and there was so full, that
she had doubts of being able to get across, since the footing on either
side could not but be insecure in the prevailing wetness.  So she kept
the highway, warily picking her steps, and meeting the wind from the sea
with a sense of refreshment--and by and by with a conscious effect to
throw off the weight of care which had so long oppressed her.

When she came to the corner at which she turned into the High-street,
she saw Marion Calderwood coming toward her with her music book under
her arm.  A pretty sight she was to see, and a welcome as she sprang
forward, greeting her joyfully.  But a shadow passed over the girl's
face when the first words were spoken.

"Oh! yes.  I am very glad to see you, and Miss Jean will be glad too.
But if ye hadna come in this morning, I was going out to see what had
become of you.  Your aunt bade me ask my mother to let me go when my
lesson was over--and--I think she would have let me."

"And she'll let you still.  Run away now to your lesson, and you'll find
me at Aunt Jean's, and we'll go out together."

Marion looked doubtful.  "My mother would have let me go to oblige Miss
Jean, but--she does not approve of my leaving my other lessons, for one
thing--and besides--"

"Run away.  I'll ask your mother.  She'll let you go home with me, if I
ask her."

Marion was not very sure, nor was Jean.  For Mrs Calderwood was a very
proud woman, and her pride took the form of reserve, and a determined
avoidance of any thing that looked like claiming consideration or
attention from those whom, from their circumstances, she might suspect
of wishing to hold themselves above her.

And there were reasons of another kind, Jean well knew, why she should
look with little friendliness on any one in the house of Saughleas--
reasons that must prevent all renewal of the intimacy that had been so
warm and pleasant during her mother's lifetime.  Still she had almost
always been friendly in manner with Jean when they had chanced to meet,
but Jean had been but seldom in her house since she had come from
school, and she was glad of the excuse which her proposed invitation to
Marion gave her to go there.  For it had come into her mind that she
might speak to Mrs Calderwood about the trouble which she found it not
easy to bear alone.

CHAPTER TEN.

MRS CALDERWOOD.

Mrs Calderwood's house faced the sea a little nearer the pier head than
Miss Jean's, and Miss Dawson nodded and smiled to her aunt in the window
as she passed, hardly confessing to herself that she felt a little
anxious as to how she might be received.

"But she'll not be likely to put on her stiff, silent manner in her own
house," said she, encouraging herself.

Mrs Calderwood was not alone.  Mrs Cairnie was with her, asking advice
and sympathy for "a beeled thoom," and Mrs Calderwood was in the act of
applying a warm poultice to relieve the pain.  In the poor old woman's
eagerness to tell her troubles to a new listener, the awkwardness of the
first moment was got over.  Nor was Mrs Cairnie in any hurry to leave
when the interesting subject was exhausted.

"So ye didna gang up to Lunnon with your father, Miss Dawson?  Ye're
wise to bide and let the great folk come to seek you.  It's a thankless
job whiles gaen after them."

This of course required no reply.

"And are ye your leafu' lane at Saughleas?  But I suppose ye're used
with it now--the big hoose and the few in it.  It is changed times since
ye used to bide in the High-street.  But being an eddicated leddy, ye'll
ha'e resources in yoursel', as the books say."

No, Miss Dawson did not like being "her leafu' lane" in the big empty
house, and she turned to Mrs Calderwood with her request for Marion's
company.  But Tibbie had not yet said her say.

"Your leafu' lane!  It's little ye ken what that means.  Bide ye till
the time come when ye lie through the lang nichts o' a hale (whole)
winter, hearkening to the awfu' things that the winds and the waves are
crying in at your window and doon your lum (chimney), and some o' yours
far awa' on the sea--and syne ye'll ken.  Oh! the weariness o't, and the
dreariness o't, and nae help frae Heaven aboon nor frae earth beneath,
but just to sit still and wait for their hame coming.  And whiles they
come, and whiles they never come--and ane canna be sure even o' their
loss till years go by.  Eh! woman' ye little ken, but speir ye at Mrs
Calderwood."

She paused a moment in the surprise of seeing Jean's face grow pale as
she listened, but went on again before any one spoke.

"I'm through wi't, for the last o' mine was lost lang syne.  But she has
ane yet--as far as she kens.  God be gude to him!  Ye've had no word o'
the `John Seaton' as yet, mem?"

"Not yet; it is not to be expected yet," said Mrs Calderwood quietly.
"Martha will give you a cup of tea.  You will be the better of it, as
you were able to take little breakfast; and I hope your thumb is past
the worst now."

Mrs Cairnie felt herself to be dismissed beyond even her power to
linger.

"Many thanks to ye, mem, and ye ha'e nae occasion to be mair anxious
than ordinar' as yet.  And ye can just encourage ane another--and I'se
awa' hame."

"Poor bodie! she has had her share of trouble in her day, and some of it
she brought on herself, which makes it none the lighter, I dare say,"
said Mrs Calderwood as she shut the door.

"You are not growing anxious, Mrs Calderwood, are you?" said Jean.  "It
is not time to be anxious yet?"

"Not anxious--more than usual.  Oh, no!  Of course the wind and the
waves have something to say to me most nights.  But I can only wait."

"Yes, it is the waiting that is so terrible.  And it must be for a good
while yet."

"For months.  We cannot say how many.  We seldom see the ships home
within the year."

"And the `John Seaton' sailed on the tenth of April.  It is nearly three
months still till then.  And to think of all who are waiting even here
in Portie--wives and mothers and sisters.  It makes one's heart sick to
think about it."

Then she sat silent, with her eyes turned toward the window, through
which was to be seen the dull grey sea, all unconscious of the uneasy
glances with which Mrs Calderwood was from time to time regarding her.

"Mrs Calderwood," said she at last, "how will you ever bear it as the
time draws near?  The waiting and the suspense, I mean?"

"My dear, I have had worse troubles to bear."

"Ah! yes; but those will make this all the worse to bear."

"I can but trust in God and have patience.  He is very merciful."

"Very merciful.  But then--He lets terrible things happen whiles."

Mrs Calderwood rose and moved about the room.  She was startled out of
her usual quiet by the girl's changing colour and the sad eagerness of
the eyes that looked out upon the sea.  She was afraid of what might be
said if they went on.  She wished to hear no sorrowful secret from the
girl's lips.  She would hear none, she said to herself with a sudden
sharp pang of remembrance.  George Dawson's daughter could have nothing
to say to which it would be right for her to listen.  At last Jean left
the window and came and stood near the fire.

"I came in to ask you if I might have Marion home with me for a day or
two.  I am `my leafu' lane,' as Tibbie says.  And I think she would like
to come with me."

"There is little doubt of that," said Mrs Calderwood sitting down with
a sense of relief, for she thought the danger was over.

"There is no danger of her falling behind in her lessons for a day or
two, and I can help her with her music.  I will take good care of her,
and her company will be a great pleasure to me."

There was no sufficient reason why the child should not have this
pleasure--at least there was none that could be spoken about.  She had
no time to make clear to herself why she would have liked to refuse, she
could only say,--

"You are very kind.  The child will be pleased to go," and Jean thanked
her, accepting it as consent.

She was still standing with her muff in her hand as though she were
about to take her leave.  But she did not go.  She stood, not looking at
her friend, but past her, seeing nothing, with her eyes full of
eagerness and anxiety, and before Mrs Calderwood, moved by a sudden
fear, could find words to avert it, that which she feared had come upon
her.  Jean came a step nearer.

"Mrs Calderwood, may I tell you something?  I have no one else, and you
will at least help me to be patient.  You were my mother's friend, and
you have had much to bear, and will you help me?"

But there was no friendly response in Mrs Calderwood's face.  She
withdrew herself from the eager girl, with something like terror in her
eyes, actually moving away till she touched the wall of her narrow
parlour, holding up her hands entreatingly.

"No.  Do not tell me.  I am not the right person to receive confidences
from--from any one.  I am not sympathetic I do not care to hear secrets.
And--you have your aunt."

Jean looked at her with surprise but with no anger in her eyes.

"My aunt!  I tried to tell her once, but she said unless I were quite
sure that she could help me, I should not speak.  It would have grieved
her--and--"

"She was quite right, I have no doubt," said Mrs Calderwood.  "The
least said is soonest mended, as the old saying has it.  Silence is
almost always best, even between friends."

Mrs Calderwood had come forward again to the table, and her hands were
busy moving about various things upon it, hurriedly and heedlessly, as
though she hardly knew what she was doing; while Jean looked on saying
nothing for a little.

"Is silence always best?  It would be such a comfort to me to be able to
tell some one.  I daze myself thinking about it.  I am sorry now that I
did not tell my father at once, though at the time it did not seem the
wisest thing to do--or even possible.  It was on the very day the ship
sailed--the tenth, ye ken.  And--"

"Whisht, lassie!  I will not hear your secret," said Mrs Calderwood
with a cry which told of many things.  "It is to your father that you
must tell it, if you have not the sense and courage to keep silence
forever.  As for me, I will hear no secret from the lips of your
father's daughter.  No good could come of it.  Oh! must I go through
with all that again!  And my poor, foolish Willie that I thought so wise
and strong!"

She hardly seemed to know what she was saying for the moment.  But she
made a great effort to restrain herself, and rose and came forward,
holding out her hand as if the visit were at an end.  But she paused,
startled as she met Jean's look.

A sudden momentary wave of colour crimsoned her face and even her
throat, and passing left her as white as death.  Through it all she
never turned her eyes from the face of her friend.

"Mrs Calderwood," said she in a voice that scarcely rose above a
whisper, "I think I must tell you now--that my brother George sailed in
the `John Seaton.'"

Mrs Calderwood sat down on the sofa without a word.  Of what horrible
thing had she been guilty?  What words had she spoken?  She could not
recall them, but the girl's changing colour showed that her thoughts had
been understood.  In her sorrow and shame she could have knelt and
entreated forgiveness.  But she well knew that _now_ at least, silence
was best.  No words of hers could help the matter now.  It cost her
positive pain to raise her eyes to the girl's face.  The colour came and
went on it still, almost at every word; but Jean spoke quietly and
firmly, and never turned her eyes from the face of her friend.

"You are right perhaps, and I ought to have spoken to my father at once;
but since I have waited so long, it may be as well to wait till the
`John Seaton' comes in--and I must have patience--like the rest of those
who wait."

"Are you sure he went?  My son said nothing to me about George--poor
dear Geordie?" said Mrs Calderwood, with a sudden rush of tears.

Jean sat down on the other side of the table and leaned her head on her
hand.

"Did he not?  Still I think he must have gone--or what can have become
of him?"

"Who told you he went?  It is strange that you have never spoken of it
all this time.  Why do you think that your brother sailed in the `John
Seaton'?"

"Is it strange?  Perhaps I was quite wrong.  But I did not know till
afterwards.  Robbie Saugster brought word that day to Saughleas, but I
had gone to the town.  That night he came back again, but it was too
late.  The ship had sailed, and we had been at the high rocks to see her
pass, May and I--never thinking whom she was carrying away."

"And had Robbie seen him?"

"No.  I never asked him.  I don't think he knew.  It was in a note that
I got from--your son."

"And what did he say?" asked Mrs Calderwood in a little.  "He said I
was to come to the pier head before the ship sailed, and that perhaps I
might be able to persuade my brother--though he could not.  But he came
too late.  The ship had sailed."

"Well, we can only wait now till she comes home again."

"Yes, we can only wait.  I am glad he went with--Willie, who will be
good to him.  That is all my comfort."

"Yes, Willie will stand his friend whatever happens."  There was no more
said, for Marion came dancing in.  "Yes, Mavis dear, your mother says
you may come home with me.  I must go and see Aunt Jean first, and you
will find me there."

"And, Miss Dawson, take a good rest, and we'll go round by the sea
shore.  It is so long since I had a walk with you.  See the sun is
coming out after all."

"Well," said Jean nodding and smiling.  Then she shook hands with Mrs
Calderwood, but they did not linger over their good-byes.  Marion turned
a wistful look to her mother's face when they were alone.  But her
mother would not meet it, but hastened her away.

Jean turned towards the pier head, to let the wind from the sea blow her
hot cheeks cool, before she came into her aunt's sight, and as she went
she was saying to herself,--

"It was May she was thinking about I could not speak, because May has
never spoken to me.  And after all--I dare say she is right.  `The sense
and courage to keep silence.'  No wonder that his mother should say
that, who can never forget her poor bonny Elsie."

It was mid-day--the hour when the usual frequenters of the pier head
were home at their dinners, and Jean stood alone for some time looking
out to the sea, and thinking her own thoughts.  They were troubled
thoughts enough.  "The sense and courage to keep silence."  Her
temptation was not to speech.  It was sense and courage to speak that
she needed.

Her aunt too had told her that silence was best--that foolish fancies,
that might have vanished otherwise, sometimes took shape and became
troubles when put into words.  All at once it came into Jean's mind,
that it could not have been of her brother's loss, but of something
quite different that her aunt had been thinking when she said this.
Could it have been of May and Willie Calderwood?

"She too must think that my father would never yield, and that it would
be just the same sad story over again.  But still, I am not sure that
silence is best."

By and by those who worked or loitered on the pier head, came dropping
back in twos and threes, and Jean knew that unless she would keep her
aunt's dinner waiting she must go.  Miss Jean had said to herself that
the first word spoken would reveal to the girl her own sad secret.  But
it had not done so--or she would not acknowledge it--even though the
remembrance of Mrs Calderwood's words and manner brought a sudden hot
colour to her face.

"It was May she was thinking about," she repeated, as she went down the
street.

She looked "bonny and bright--a sicht for sair e'en," Nannie, her aunt's
maid, said, when she came in.  She did not stay very long.  She had
intended to spend the day, but Marion Calderwood was going home with
her, and she would have to come another day, she told her aunt.

Indeed Marion came in before dinner was over, and Jean was glad to have
a long walk and the young girl's gay companionship, rather than an
afternoon of quiet under her aunt's keen, though loving, eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A VISITOR.

Mr Dawson was longer away than he had intended to be when he left.  A
visit was made to the Corbetts on the way, and from thence came a letter
telling Jean to prepare to receive another visitor when her father
should return.  Hugh, the Corbett who came next after Emily, a schoolboy
of fourteen, had been so unfortunate as to hurt his knee in some of his
holiday wanderings during the previous summer, and had been a prisoner
in the house for months, and Mr Dawson proposed to bring him to Portie
for a change.

Jean was promised no pleasure from the visit.  The lad was ill, and "ill
to do with," irritable and impatient of his long confinement in the
house.  There was little enough space in the Corbett house for those who
were well, and it would do the lad good to see something else besides
the four walls of the rather dim parlour where he had been a prisoner so
long.  He must be a prisoner even at Saughleas for a time, poor lad; but
when the spring came so that he could get out, and get the good of the
sea air, he would doubtless be better; and in the mean time, said her
father, Jean must make the best of him.

The next letter was from London, telling of their safe arrival, and kind
reception, but neither that nor the next, told the day on which Mr
Dawson might be expected home.  Indeed it told nothing in a very
satisfactory manner; but Jean gathered that they found themselves in
very favourable circumstances for seeing many of the wonderful sights of
London, and the only thing they seemed to regret was, that Jean was not
there to enjoy it all with them.  A good many names of people and places
were mentioned, but no very clear idea was conveyed with regard to them
all, and Jean was advised to wait patiently for her father's return to
hear more; and this she was content to do.

Her father came home the better for his trip, Jean saw at the first
glimpse she got of his face.  Of course the first minutes were given to
care of the lame boy, who was tired and shy, but when he had got his
tea, and was happily disposed of for the night, Jean sat down to hear
what her father had to tell.  Not that she expected to hear much at any
one time.  His news would come out by little and little on unexpected
occasions, as was his way with news, but he answered her questions about
her sister, and her friends, and gave his opinion of them and their
manner of life readily enough.  He had evidently enjoyed his stay among
them, and acknowledged that he had known nothing of London before this
visit.

Jean listened, pleased and interested; but all the time she was waiting
to hear a certain name which had occurred more than once in the brief
letters of her sister, and which had also been mentioned once at least
by her father.

"And you went to the British Museum?" said she at last.

"Yes.  I had been there before, but this was different.  It is one thing
to wander about, looking at things which you don't understand, till eyes
and mind and body grow weary,--and never a clear idea of any thing
gotten, to keep and carry away to look at afterwards--and it is quite
another thing to go about in the company of one who, by two or three
words, can put life and spirit into all there is to see.  Mr Manners
was with us that day."

And it seemed that Mr Manners had been with them other days, and on one
occasion when her father had mentioned his name several times, Jean
asked,--

"And who is Mr Manners?  You have not told me who he is."

"He is a man with a clear head o' his ain, who will make his mark yet,
or I'm much mistaken.  No, he was not staying with the Seldons, though
he was there often.  He has rooms near the university in which he is a
professor.  I thought much of him."

"What is he like?  Is he old or young?" asked Jean.

"Oh! he is not young.  Not that he is to call old either.  He is tall
and thin rather, and stoops a little, and he wears glasses whiles, but
not when he is reading."

Jean laughed.

"Stoops and wears glasses!"

She was laughing at herself.  She had been conscious of a little
discomfort, at the frequent mention of this man's name.  A new interest
and influence had come into her sister's life in which she had no part,
and it saddened her though she acknowledged that her sadness was
unreasonable.  But she was a little anxious as well as sad, because,
having so long watched over her sister, she feared that in the new
circumstances in which she found herself, her care might be needed and
missed--which was also unreasonable, since she might have gone with her
had she cared to do so, and since her sister had both sense and judgment
to care for herself.

And for the special danger which was in Jean's thoughts--though she
would not allow that she feared it--surely May was safe from that.  The
child liked attention and admiration, and got them wherever she went;
but her heart was not in her own keeping, as Jean believed, and so she
was safe, and would come back to them as she went; and Jean acknowledged
her own folly in being either anxious or sad.  But all the same she
laughed and was, pleased, that the new friend she had found should be
"not young, though not just to call old," as her father had said, and
that he should stoop a little and wear glasses.  So she determined to
put all unpleasant possibilities out of her thoughts, and the fact that
the professor's name no longer found frequent place in her sister's
letters, made it all the easier for her to do so.

Besides, she had more to occupy herself as the winter passed away, and
less time to brood and vex herself; and as it was not in her nature when
she was well to vex herself without sufficient occasion, her occupations
helped her to a better kind of cheerfulness than that which of late she
had sometimes assumed for her father's sake.

Young Corbett was her best help toward a more reasonable frame of mind
with regard to all things.  The journey had been too much for him, or he
had in some way injured his knee again, for he suffered much pain in it
for a time, and his young hostess was kept constantly busy, ministering
to both mind and body.  Dr Maitland, the chief Portie practitioner,
took a different view of the lad's case from that which the doctor at
home had taken, and he was subjected to different treatment which told
to his benefit after a time.  But just at first he suffered a good deal,
and Jean "had her ain adoes wi' him," as Phemie, her maid, declared.

He was not an ill-tempered boy, though Mr Dawson had received that
impression from what he had seen and heard in his own home.  He
suffered, and he was irritable, and impatient of necessary restraint.
But he made an effort towards patience and submission to circumstances
in the presence of strangers which he possibly would not have made at
home, and the change and the quiet of the house helped his patience on
to cheerfulness before very long.

"How my father and mother should have ventured to inflict such a
nuisance upon you amazes me; and how you should consent to it amazes me
more still," said he to Jean when he had been two days in the house, and
when he was beginning to feel himself not so strange and forlorn as he
had felt at first.

"But I did not consent I was not consulted," said Jean laughing.

"No," said the boy gravely.  "And you could hardly refuse to have me
when I was laid down at your door.  But that only makes it all the more
surprising that you should--take so much trouble with me."

"But then it was to my father's door you came, and he brought you
himself.  Don't be foolish.  If I were lame and ill and needed your
help, would not you be willing to give it to me?"

"But that would be quite different.  And I could not help you, besides."

"Well, never mind.  I am glad papa brought you here.  I am going, by and
by, to send you home strong and well, and fit to do a man's work in the
world.  And in the mean time--though I acknowledge that you are whiles a
wee fractious and ill to do with--I like you.  I'm glad my father
brought you here, and we'll be friends always," and Jean held out her
hand.

The tears started in the lad's eyes.

"It is very good of you," said he with a gasp.

After that, life went better with him.  When after a little he could be
taken every day and laid on the sofa in the parlour, he began to feel
the good of the change.  He had plenty to amuse him.  He liked reading,
well enough, as boys like it, but he was not a book worm; and Jean might
have found him heavy on her hands during the first weeks after he came
down-stairs, if he had had only books to fall back upon.  But to her
surprise and his own, an unfailing source of interest and pleasure
presented itself to him.

Scarcely a vessel for the least ten years had come into the harbour of
Portie without bringing some curious or beautiful thing to one member or
another of the Dawson family, until the house was filled with them.  A
wonderful collection they made,--corals, shells, minerals, stuffed
birds, beetles, and butterflies; and a scarcely less wonderful
collection of objects of art and skill.  A great trouble this
accumulation became to housemaids, and even to the young mistress of the
house, who could not always trust the dusting and keeping them in order
to unaccustomed hands.  There were many valuable and beautiful things
among them, and almost all of them had some pleasant association with
the giver, which made it not easy to part with them even to persons who
would have valued them, or to put them out of sight.  So there were a
great many of them scattered up and down in the house.

In these the boy found constant interest and delight, and when he had
gone over all that were within his reach, he was quite ready to begin
again.  And then Jean bethought herself of the quantities of things
which in past years had been bestowed in out-of-the-way corners of the
house, to make room for new treasures, and with some trouble to herself,
but with some pleasure also, these were sought out, and brought to the
lad, as he could not go to them.

Of course the result was an untidy room, and after a while, confusion so
utter as not to be endured patiently.  This lasted for a few days, and
then a chance word from the lad, suggested the idea of proper cases
being made in which all these things might be bestowed, and so arranged
as that they might be more carefully preserved, and made useful as well
as pleasant to look at.

"There are few things in our town museum at home so rare or so beautiful
as several of these.  I have been through ours scores of times.  I like
it."

Rather to Jean's surprise and much to her delight, her father took up
the idea as a good one, and entered into the discussion of the different
kinds of cases required, with interest.  The cabinet-maker was sent for,
and by the help of Hugh's description of the arrangements made for such
things in the museum of his native town, they succeeded in settling all
things in a satisfactory manner.  The long hall extending from one side
of the house to the other was the place to receive them.  Therefore the
cases must be handsome as furniture as well as convenient for the
reception of the articles to be arranged in them; and in a shorter time
than would have at first seemed possible, John Helvie finished the work
in a way which pleased himself and his employers.

In the mean time May was written to for books about shells and minerals,
and all such things; and Hugh, and even Jean, grew enthusiastic over
them.  And so the last months of winter passed more quickly than the
first had done.  May's visit was prolonged beyond the six weeks which
had been at first stipulated for, and the third month was nearly at an
end before any thing was said about her return.  She was well and happy,
and her friend was happy in her company.  She was not especially needed
at home, and neither her father nor her sister cared to shorten her
holiday, as she called it.  But if Jean had known what was to be the end
of it all, the chances are that she would have been speedily recalled.

As Hugh grew better and the weather became milder, a new means of
pleasure and health was presented to him by Mr Dawson in the shape of a
small Shetland pony.  He was one trained to gentleness and past his
youth, so that there was no risk in riding, when the doctor's permission
had been obtained.  It could hardly be called riding for some time.  It
was slowly creeping along, with some one at his side, to make sure that
no stumble should harm the still painful knee; but it was a source of
much enjoyment to the lad who had been a prisoner so long.

Jean was most frequently his companion, and at such times their
favourite course was along the sands when the tide was out, or by the
path which led over the rocks.  They lingered often on their way, to
talk to the old sailors who remembered the lad's father and grandfather,
and who had much to tell about his grandfather's goodness, and his
father's wild exploits as a lad.  They talked with the fishwives also in
the town, and made friends with the bairns, who, as the days grew
milder, came in flocks to their favourite playground, the sands above
the town.  All this was good for the lad, who caught a little healthy
colour from the fresh sea breezes, and day by day, Mr Dawson thought,
grew more like his companion and chief friend in the days when they were
both young.

But it was not so good for Jean.  For their talk with the old sailors,
and the fishwives, and indeed their talk together, was mostly of the sea
and its dangers, the treasures which it hid, and the far lands that lay
beyond it.  She told him tales of the sea, and repeated songs and
ballads made about sea kings and naval heroes of all times, and sang
them in the gloaming, with their wild refrains, which look like nonsense
written down, but which sung, as Jean could sing them, deepened the
pathos of the sad and sometimes terrible tales which were told; and the
lad was never weary of listening.

And all this was not good for Jean.  It stirred up again the old fears
and doubts and questionings as to whether she had done right to keep
silence about her brother, and whether she ought even now to speak.  The
wistful, far-away look which her father could not bear to see, came back
to her eyes, now and then; and on stormy nights, when the moan of the
wind was in the trees, and the sound of the sea came up like a sigh, the
old restlessness, which in her father's presence she could only quiet by
constant and determined devotion to work of some kind, came upon her.
She could not read at such times or even listen.  Her "white seam," on
which her father used to remark, was her best resource.  He remarked on
it still, and not always pleasantly, and Jean began to be aware that his
eyes now followed her movements as they had done in the first part of
the winter, and that even when he occupied himself with a book, or with
his papers, he listened to the talk into which she and Hugh sometimes
fell.  She did her best to be cheerful, and with the lad's help it was
easier than it had once been; and she comforted and strengthened herself
with the thought that the year was nearly over, and that it could not
now be long before the "John Seaton" came home.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

NORTHERN SEAS.

"Do ye ken what ye are doing, Jean?  Ye're doing your best to mak' a
sailor o' the lad; and ye'll do him an ill turn and get him into trouble
if that happens.  His father has other plans for him."

Her father had come in to find Jean singing songs in the gloaming.  It
could hardly be said that she was singing to Hugh.  She would very
likely have been singing at that hour, if she had been quite alone; but
she would not have been singing,--

  "The Queen has built a navy of ships,
  And she has sent them to the sea,"

in a voice that rang clear and full in the darkness, and she would not
have followed it with the ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens," which Mr
Dawson was just in time to hear.  He was not sure about all this singing
of sea songs; but he said nothing at the time, and sat down to listen.

He had heard the ballad scores of times, and sung it too; but he felt
himself "creep" and "thrill," as Jean--her voice now rising strong and
clear, now falling into mournful tones like a wail--went through the
whole seven and twenty verses.  She said it rather than sung it, giving
the refrain, not at every verse, but only now and then; the pathos
deepening in her tones as she went on towards the end, when--

  "The lift was black, and the wind blew loud,
  And gurly grew the sea."

and there were "tears in her voice" as she ended--

  "And lang, lang may the ladies sit
  Wi' their fans into their hands,
  Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
  Come sailing to the strand!

  "And lang, lang may the maidens sit
  Wi' the gowd (gold) kames in their hair,
  Awaiting for their ain true loves,
  For them they'll see nae mair--"

and then the refrain--which cannot be written down--repeated once and
again, each time more softly, till it seemed to die away and be lost in
the moan of the wind among the trees.  No one spoke for a minute or two.

"I think you might give us something mair cheerfu' than that, Jean, my
lassie," said her father, inclined to resent his own emotion and the
cause of it.  "And in the gloaming too!"

"The gloaming is just the time for such ballads, papa.  But I didna ken
ye were come in.  Shall I ring for lights now?" said Jean rising.

"There's nae haste.  It's hardly dark yet."

Jean crossed the room to the window that looked out to the sea, and
leaning on it, as she had a fashion of doing, softly sang the refrain of
her song again.

Her father could not see her face, but he knew well the look that was on
it at the moment,--a look which always pained him, and which sometimes
made him angry; and the chances are he would have spoken sharply to her,
if Hugh had not said after a little while, "But sailors don't go to sea
now to bring home king's daughters, or even to fight battles with their
foes.  They go for wages, as the navvies do on railways, and the factory
people in the towns.  It is just the common work of the world with them
as it is with others--buying and selling--fetching and carrying.  There
is nothing heroic in that."

"Of course--just the common work of the world.  But I would not thi

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