The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 21

He rose as if to go, but sat down again and said quietly, "A few months sooner or later will make little difference, and we could hardly expect that he would hear of making it a matter of years. Nor would I wish it."

"But it will not be--just at once?" said Jean. She had almost said "not till the 'John Seaton' comes home."

"Well, not just at once. There is time enough to decide that."

Mr Dawson looked doubtfully at his daughter. The look he had wondered at had left her face. She had grown pale and her eyes had the strained and anxious look that had more than once pained him during the winter.

The question over which she had wearied herself then was up again.

"Shall I speak to him about Geordie? Shall I tell him how he went away?" But he did not know her thoughts, and fancied she was grieving about her sister.

"My dear, it is hard on you for the moment. But it is not like losing your sister altogether."

"Papa! It is not May I am thinking about. It is--Geordie. Oh, papa, papa!"

"My dear," said her father after a pause, "it will do no good to think of one who thinks so little of us. Think of him! We maun ay do that, whether we will or no'. But I whiles think he maun be dead. He could not surely have forgotten us so utterly."

His last words were almost a cry, and he turned his face away.

"Papa!" said Jean with a gasp, and in another moment she would have told him all. But before she could add a word he was gone--not back by the path to the house, but through the wood the other way, slowly and heavily with his head bowed down. Jean looked after him with a sick heart.

"It is my mother he is thinking of, as well as his son. Oh! I wish I hadna spoken?"

She sat down in a misery of doubt and longing, not sure whether she were glad or sorry that he had given her no chance to say more. How little and light her own anxieties looked in the presence of her father's sorrow! The silence and self-restraint, which day after day kept all token of suffering out of sight, made it all the more painful and pitiful to see when it would have its way! Miss Jean, his sister, had seen him more than once moved from his silent acceptance of pain and loss, but his daughter had never seen this, and she was greatly startled, and sat sick at heart with the thought that there was no help for his trouble.

For even if she were to tell him now that her brother had gone to sea in the "John Seaton," there would hardly be comfort in that; for it was more than time that the ship were in port, and though no one openly acknowledged that there was cause for anxiety, in secret many feared that all might not be well with her. No, she must not tell him. The new suspense would be more than he could bear, Jean thought; and she must wait, and bear her burden a little longer alone.

The tears that she could not keep back, did not lighten her heart as a girl's tears are supposed to do, and though she checked them, with the thought that she must not let their traces be seen in the house, they came in a flood when she found her sister's arms clasped about her neck and her face hidden on her breast. But she struggled against her emotion for her sister's sake, and kissed and congratulated her, and then comforted her as their mother might have done. And May smiled again in a little while--indeed what cause had she to cry at all, she asked herself, for surely there never was a happier girl than she.

And they both looked bright enough when they came down to dinner, and so did their father. Jean wondered and asked herself whether the sight of his moved face and the sound of his breaking voice, had not come to her in a dream.

He only came in at the last moment, and if he guessed from May's shy looks that something had happened to her, he took no notice, and every thing went on as usual, though a little effort was needed against the silence which fell on them now and then.

Of course after dinner, the girls went to the parlour and young Corbett went with them; and when, by and by, their father and Mr Manners came in to get some tea, Jean knew that May's fate was decided, as far as her father's consent to her marriage could decide it.

Pretty May blushed and dimpled and cried a little when her father came and kissed her and "clappet" her softly on her shoulder, and in rather an uncertain voice bade "G.o.d bless her."

Then Mr Manners brought her to Jean. "Will you give me your sister?"

said he gravely. "Since she seems to have given herself to you, I may as well," said Jean kissing her sister and keeping back the tears that were wonderfully ready to-night.

"And remember your first word was a promise to stand my friend."

"Only I don't think you seem to stand in need of a friend just now,"

said Jean laughing.

"Ah! but I may need one before all is done. And you have promised."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

MR DAWSON'S WILL.

It would doubtless have been agreeable to Mr Dawson had Mr Manners been a richer man than he seemed to be, but he did not allow even to Miss Jean, that this want of money was a serious drawback to the satisfaction he felt in consenting to his daughter's marriage.

"He is a man whom I like much, and money is a secondary consideration,"

said he.

"That's true," said Miss Jean.

"Not that he is without means, and he has a good professional income.

They will do very well. It is true I havena kenned him long, as ye say; and I dare say ye think I have been in haste with my consent. But just wait a wee. He'll ha'e your good word. For ye ken a man when ye see him."

"If they truly love one another--that is the chief thing."

Mr Dawson laughed.

"They do that."

"And what does Jean say?"

"She'll tell you herself. There has been little time to say any thing.

He is to be brought over to see you to-day. I wished to send for you, but Jean said it was more becoming that he should come to you. Jean has her ain notions about most things."

"Ay, she has that."

"And ye'll come hame with them to Saughleas? There are two or three things that I would like to have a word with you about. And ye'll be sure to come."

But Miss Jean did not promise. She liked best to be at Saughleas when there were no strangers there, she said. Mr Dawson was ready to resent her calling Mr Manners a stranger, so she said nothing. The matter could be decided afterwards.

Probably Jean was only thinking of what was due to her aunt, when she insisted on taking their new friend to make her acquaintance in her own house. But it was a wise thing to do for other reasons than Miss Jean's "dignity," which her niece might very well have left to take care of itself.

The house was like herself,--quiet, simple, unpretending, but with a marked character of its own; and no one could fail to be impressed with his first glimpse of Miss Jean, sitting in her quaint parlour, with its shelves of brown old books, its great work-basket, and its window looking to the sea. She was an old woman now, and not very strong; but the inward calm which earthly trouble had no power to disturb, had kept disfiguring wrinkles from her face, and the soft wavy hair that showed under her full-bordered cap was still more brown than grey.

Some who had known Miss Jean all her life declared that she was far more beautiful at sixty than she had ever been in her youth. And naturally enough. For a life of glad service to a loving Master, a helpful, hopeful, self-forgetful doing of good as opportunity is given, for His sake, tell on the countenance as on the character; and the grave cheerfulness, the trustful peace that rested on the old woman's face were beautiful to those who had eyes to see.

It was not May, but Miss Dawson, who came with the visitor that morning.

"Auntie Jean, I have brought Mr Manners to see you," said she coming in unannounced.

Miss Jean received them kindly, but with a certain gravity.

"Yes, your father has been here. He told me who was coming," said she, and her eyes sought Jean's gravely and earnestly. Jean nodded and smiled, carrying her aunt's look to the face of Mr Manners.

"Yes, auntie, that is the way of it." Then Miss Jean gave him her hand again. "The Lord keep and guide you both. And the Lord deal with you as ye shall deal with the bairn that is willing to leave her father's house to go with you."

"Amen!" said Mr Manners, and he stooped and touched with his lips the soft wrinkled hand that had been offered him.

They had not very much to say to one another for a while. It was Jean who kept up the talk for a little, remarking upon the "bonny day," and the flowers that were coming out earlier than usual, and on the sea, which was seen at its best to-day, she said, a sparkling blue that faded to pale green and grey in the distance.

"You have a wide view of it here," said Mr Manners who was leaning against the ledge looking out.