“Yes, Menie, I am quite satisfied.” It is Mrs Laurie herself who
volunteers this declaration, while Menie, on the little stool at her
feet, looks up wistfully, eager to hear, but not venturing to ask what
her conversation with Randall was. “We said a great many things, my
dear—a great deal about you, Menie, and something about our
circumstances too. The rent of Burnside will be a sufficient income for
me. I took it kind of Randall to say so, for it shows that he knew I
would not be dependent; and as for you, Menie, I fancy you will be very
well and comfortable, according to what he says. So you will have to
prepare, my dear—to prepare for your new life.”
Menie hid her face in her mother’s lap. Prepare—not the bridal garments,
the household supplies—something more momentous, and of greater
delicacy—the mind and the heart; and if this must always be something
solemn and important, whatever the circumstances, how much more so to
Menie, whose path had been crossed already by such a spectre? She sat
there, her eyes covered with her hands, her head bowing down upon her
mother’s knee; but the heavy doubt had flown from her, leaving nothing
but lighter cloudy shadows—maidenly fears and tremblings—in her way. Few
hearts were more honest than Menie’s, few more wistfully desirous of
doing well; and now it is with no serious anticipations of evil, but
only with the natural thrill and tremor, the natural excitement of so
great an epoch drawing close at hand, that Menie’s fingers close with a
startled pressure on her mother’s hand, as she is bidden prepare.
What is this that has befallen little July Home? There never were such
throngs of unaccountable blushes, such a suffusion of simple surprise.
Something is on her lips perpetually, which she does not venture to
speak—some rare piece of intelligence, which July cannot but marvel at
herself in silent wonder, and which she trembles to think Menie and
“a’body else” will marvel at still more. Withdrawing silently into dark
corners, sitting there doing nothing, in long fits of reverie, quite
unusual with July; coming forward so conscious and guilty, when called
upon; and now, at this earliest opportunity, throwing her arms round
Menie Laurie’s neck, and hiding her little flushed and agitated face
upon Menie’s shoulder. What has befallen July Home?
“Do you think it’s a’ true, Menie? He wouldna say what he didna mean;
but I think it’s for our Randall’s sake—it canna be for me!”
For July has not the faintest idea, as she lets this soft silken hair of
hers fall down on her cheek without an effort to restrain it, that
Johnnie Lithgow would not barter one smile upon that trembling child’s
lip of hers for all the Randalls in the world.
“He says he’ll go to the Hill, and tell them a’ at hame,” said July.
“Eh, Menie, what will they say? And he’s to tell Randall first of all. I
wish I was away, no to see Randall, Menie; he’ll just laugh, and think
it’s no true—for I see mysel it canna be for me!”
“It is for you, July; you must not think anything else; there is nobody
in the world like you to Johnnie Lithgow.” And slowly July’s head is
raised—a bright shy look of wonder gradually growing into conviction, a
sudden waking of higher thought and deeper feeling in the open simple
face; a sudden flush of crimson—the woman’s blush—and July withdrew
herself from her friend’s embrace, and stole a little apart into the
shadow, and wept a few tears. Was it true? For her, and not for another!
But it is a long time before this grand discovery can look a truth and
real, to July’s humble eyes.
But, nevertheless, it is very true. Randall’s little sister, Menie’s
child-friend, the little July of Crofthill, has suddenly been startled
into womanhood by this unexpected voice. After a severer fashion than
has ever confined it before, July hastily fastens up her silky hair,
hastily wipes off all traces of the tears upon her cheek, and is
composed and calm, after a sweet shy manner of composure, lifting up her
little gentle head with a newborn pride, eager to bring no discredit on
her wooer’s choice. And already July objects to be laughed at, and feels
a slight offence when she is treated as a child—not for herself, but for
him, whom now she does not quite care to have called _Johnnie_ Lithgow,
but is covetous of respect and honour for, as she never was for Randall,
though secretly in her own heart July still doubts of his genius, and
cannot choose but think Randall must be _cleverer_ than his less
assuming friend.
And in this singular little company, where all these feelings are astir,
it is hardly possible to preserve equanimity of manners. Miss Annie
herself, the lady of the house, sits at her little work-table, in great
delight, running over now and then in little outbursts of enthusiasm,
discoursing of Mr Home’s sweet book, of Mr Lithgow’s charming articles,
and occasionally making a demonstration of joy and sympathy in the
happiness of her darling girls, which throws Menie—Menie, always
conscious of Randall’s eye upon her, the eye of a lover, it is true, but
something critical withal—into grave and painful embarrassment, and
covers July’s stooping face with blushes. Mrs Laurie, busy with her
work, does what she can to keep the conversation “sensible,” but with no
great success. The younger portion of the company are too completely
occupied, all of them, to think of ordinary intercourse. Miss Annie’s
room was never so bright, never so rich with youthful hopes and
interests before. Look at them, so full of individual character,
unconscious as they are of any observation—though Nelly Panton, very
grim in the stiff coat armour of her new assumed gentility, sits at the
table sternly upright, watching them all askance, with vigilant unloving
eye.
Lithgow, good fellow, sits by Miss Annie. Though he laughs now and then,
he still does not scorn the natural goodness, the natural tenderness of
heart, which make their appearance under these habitual affectations—the
juvenile tricks and levities of her unreverent age. Poor Miss Annie
Laurie has been content to resign the reverence, in a vain attempt at
equality; but Lithgow, who is no critic by nature, remembers gratefully
her true kindness, and smiles only as little as possible at the
fictitious youthfulness which Miss Annie herself has come to believe in.
So he sits and bears with her, her little follies and weaknesses, and,
in his unconscious humility, is magnanimous, and does honour to his
manhood. Within reach of his kindly eye, July bends her head over her
work, glancing up now and then furtively to see who is looking at him—to
see, in the second place, who is noticing or laughing at her; and July,
with all her innocent heart, is grateful to Miss Annie. So many kind
things she says—and in July’s guileless apprehension they are all so
true.
Graver, but not less happy, Menie Laurie pursues her occupation by
July’s side, rarely looking up at all, pondering in her own heart the
many weighty things that are to come, with her tremor of fear, her joy
of deliverance scarcely yet quieted, and all her heart and all her mind
engaged—in dreams no longer, but in sober thought; sober
thought—thoughts of great devotion, of lifelong love and service, of
something nobler than the common life. Very serious are these
ponderings, coming down to common labours, the course of every day; and
Menie does not know the nature of her dreamings—they look to her so
real, so sober, and so true—and would scorn your warning, if you told
her that not the wildest story of Arabian genii was more romance than
those, her sober plans and thoughts.
Apart, and watching all, stands Randall Home. There is love in his
eye—you cannot doubt it—love, and the impulse of protection, the strong
appropriating grasp. There is something more. Look how his head rises in
the dimmer background above the table and the lights, above the little
company assembled there. With something like laughter, his eye turns
upon July—upon July’s wooer, his own friend—kindly, yet with a sense of
superiority, an involuntary elevation of himself above them both. And
this glance upon Miss Annie is mere scorn, nothing higher; and his eye
has scarcely had time to recover itself, when its look falls, bright and
softened, upon his betrothed; a look of love—question it not, simple
Menie—but it is calm, superior, above you still.