Out in the Forty-Five Part 4

"Well, I suppose it is," said I; "I am not quite seventeen yet."

"You dear little thing!" said Cecilia, imprisoning my hand. "What is Miss Drummond's father?"

"A minister," said I.

"A Scotch Presbyterian, I suppose?" she said, turning up her nose. I did not think she looked any prettier for it.

"Well," said I, "I suppose he is."

"And Mr Angus--what do they mean to make of him, do you know?"

"Flora hopes he will be a minister too. His father wishes it; but she is not sure that Angus likes the notion himself."

"Dear me! I should think not," said Cecilia, "He is fit for something far better."

"What can be better?" I answered.

"You have such charming ideas!" replied Cecilia. She put in another word, which I never heard before, and I don't know what it means. She brought it with her from the South, I suppose. Unso--unsophy--no, unsophisticated--I think that was it. It sounded uncommon long and fine, I know.

"I suppose Scotch ministers have not much money?" continued Cecilia.

"I don't know--I think not," I answered. "But I rather fancy my Uncle Drummond has a little of his own."

Cecilia darted another look at me, and then dropped her eyes as if she were studying the gra.s.s.

"And Mr Keith?" she said presently, "is he a relation?"

"I don't know much about him," said I, "only what I have heard Flora say. He is no relation of theirs, I believe. I think he is the squire's son."

"The squire's son!" cried Cecilia, in a more interested tone. "And who is the squire?--is he rich?--where is the place?"

"As to who he is," said I, "he is Mr Keith, I suppose. I don't know a bit whether he is rich or poor. I forget the name of the place--I think it is Abbotsmuir, or something like that. Either an abbot or a monk has something to do with it."

"And you don't know if Mr Keith is a rich man?" said Cecilia, I thought in rather a disappointed tone.

"No, I don't," said I. "I can ask Flora, if you want to know."

"Not for the world!" cried Cecilia, laying her hand again on mine.

"Don't on any account let Miss Drummond know that I asked you such a question. If you like to ask from yourself, you know--well, that is another matter; but not from me, on any consideration."

"I don't understand you, Miss...o...b..rne," said I.

"No, you dear little thing, I believe you don't understand me," said Cecilia, kissing me. "What pretty hair you have, and how nice you keep it, to be sure!--so smooth and glossy! Come, had we not better be going down, do you think?"

So down we came, and found dinner ready; and I do not think I ever thought of it again till I was going to bed. Then I said to Flora,--"Do you like Cecilia Osborne?"

"I--think we had better not talk about people, Cary, if you please."

But there was such a pause where I have drawn that long stroke, that I am sure that was not what she intended to say at first.

"Then you don't," said I, making a hit at the truth, and, I think, hitting it in the bull's eye. "Well, no more do I."

Flora looked at me, but did not speak. Oh, how different her look is from Cecilia's sudden flashes!

"She has been trying to pump me, I am sure, about you and Angus, and Mr Keith," said I; "and I think it is quite as well I knew so little."

"What about?" said Flora.

"Oh, about money, mostly," said I. "Whether Uncle had much money, and if Mr Keith was a rich man, and all on like that. I can't bear girls who are always thinking about money."

Flora drew a long breath. "That is it, is it?" she said, in a low voice, as she tied her nightcap, but it was rather as if she were speaking to herself than to me. "Cary, perhaps I had better answer you.

I am afraid Miss...o...b..rne is a very dangerous girl; and she would be more so than she is if she were a shade more clever, so as to hide her cards a little better. Don't tell her anything you can help."

"But what shall I say if she asks me again? because she wanted me not to tell you that she had asked, but to get to know as if I wanted it myself."

"Tell her to ask me," said Flora, with more spirit than I had expected from her.

When Cecilia began again (as she did) asking me the same sort of things, I said to her, "Why don't you ask Cousin Flora instead of me? She knows so much more about it than I do."

Cecilia put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me.

"Because I like to ask you," said she, "and I should not like to ask her."

My Aunt Kezia was just coming into the room.

"Miss Cecilia, my dear," said she, "do you always think what you like?"

"Of course, Mrs Kezia," said Cecilia, smiling at her.

"Then you will be a very useless woman," said my aunt, "and not a very happy one neither."

"Happy--ah!" said Cecilia, with a long sigh. "This world is not the place to find happiness."

"No, it isn't," said my Aunt Kezia, "for people who spend all their time hunting for it. It is a deal better to let happiness hunt for you. You don't go the right way to get it, child."

"I do not, indeed!" answered Cecilia, with a very sorrowful look. "Ah, Mrs Kezia, 'the heart knoweth his own bitterness.' That is Scripture, I believe."

"Yes, it does," said my aunt, "and it makes a deal of it, too."

"Oh dear, Mrs Kezia!" cried Cecilia. "How could anybody make unhappiness?"

"If you don't, you are the first girl I have met of your sort," saith my Aunt Kezia, turning down the hem of a kerchief. Then, when she came to the end of the hem, she looked up at Cecilia. "My dear, there is a lesson we all have to learn, and the sooner you learn it, the better and happier woman you will be. The end of selfishness is not pleasure, but pain. You don't think so, do you? Ah, but you will find as you go through life, that always you are not only better, but happier, with G.o.d's blessing on the thing you don't like, than without it on the thing you do. Ay, it always turns to ashes in your mouth when you will have the quails instead of the manna. I've noted many a time--for when I was a girl, and later than that, I was as self-willed as any of you--that sometimes when I have set my heart upon a thing, and would have it, then, if I may speak it with reverence, G.o.d has given way to me. Like a father with an obstinate child, He has said to me, as it were, 'Poor foolish child! You will have this glittering piece of mischief. Well, have your way: and when you have cut yourself badly with it, and are bleeding and smarting as I did not wish to see you, come back to your Father and tell Him all about it, and be healed and comforted.' Ah dear me, the dullest of us is quite as clever as she need be in making rods for her own back. And then, if our Father keep us from hurting ourselves, and won't let us have the bright knife to cut our fingers with, how we do mewl and whine, to be sure! We are just a set of silly babes, my dear--the best of us."

"My Aunt Dorothea once told me," said I, "that the Papists have what they call 'exercises of detachment.' Perhaps you would think them good things, Aunt Kezia. For instance, if an abbess sees a nun who seems to have a fancy for any little thing particularly, she will take it from her and give it to somebody else."

"Eh, poor foolish things!" said Aunt Kezia. "Bits of children playing with the Father's tools! They are more like to hurt themselves a deal than to get His work done. Ay, G.o.d has His exercises of detachment, and they are far harder than man's. He knows how to do it. He can lay a finger right on the core of your heart, the very spot where it hurts worst. Men can seldom do that. They would sometimes if they could, I believe; but they cannot, except G.o.d guides them to it. Many's the time I've been asked, with a deal of hesitation and apology, to do a thing that did not cost me a farthing's worth of grief or labour; and as lightly as could be, to do another which would have gone far to break either my back or my heart. Different folks see things in such different ways. I'll be bound, now, if each of us were asked to pick out for one another the thing in this house that each cared most about, we should well-nigh all of us guess wrong. We know so little of each other's inmost hearts. That little kingdom, your own heart, is a thing that you must keep to yourself; you can't let another into it. You can bring him to the gate, and let him peep in, and show him a few of your treasures; but you cannot give him the freedom of the city. Depend upon it, you would think very differently of me from what you do, and I should think differently of each of you, if we could see each other's inmost hearts."

"Better or worse, Mrs Kezia?" said Cecilia.