“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 life-long 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 is calm, superior above you still.