The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 6

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 s.h.i.+ne 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 s.h.i.+rt finished, and she wants you to see it. She is very proud of it.