Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years AgoOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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Kirsteen: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Domestic fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
She had, however, quite recovered herself before Kirsteen appeared in
the show-room to answer the summons, and advanced rustling in all her
new ribbons to meet her sister. “Oh, Kirsteen, is that you? Oh, are you
really here? I thought I could not be deceived about Miss Jean
harbouring ye and helping ye, but I did not think I would just find ye
in a moment like this.”
“Yes,” said Kirsteen, “I am here, and I have been here ever since I left
home.”
“Ye have turned quite English, Kirsteen, in the time ye’ve been away.”
“Have I? It’s perhaps difficult to avoid it--if ye have anything of an
ear for music.” This was perhaps an unkind thing to say, for it was
well-known in the family that Mary had no ear for music and could not
“turn a tune” to save her life. With a compunction Kirsteen turned to a
more natural subject. “And how is my mother?”
“Oh,” said Mary, “she is just wonderfully well for her. The marriage was
a great divert to her, settling how it was to be and the clothes and
everything. She was dressed herself in a new gown that Glendochart
presented to her for the occasion, with white ribbons in her cap, and
looking just very well. ‘It’s easy to see where ye get your looks from,’
Henry said to me: which I thought was a very pretty compliment to both
of us, for if ever a man was pleased with his wife’s looks it should be
on his wedding-day.”
“Very likely,” said Kirsteen drily, “but I have no experience. I got
your letter, with an account of what you had on.”
“Yes, it was considered very becoming,” said Mary. “And Jeanie was just
beautiful in a white frock; I will have her with me at Glendochart when
she gets a little older, and bring her out, and maybe take her to
Edinburgh for a winter that she may have every advantage. I would like
her to make a grand marriage, and there is nothing more likely when
she’s seen as she ought to be in a house like Glendochart.”
“I have yet to learn,” said Kirsteen with dilating nostrils and
quivering lips (for she too intended Jeanie to make a great match, and
to marry well, but under her own auspices not her sister’s), “I have yet
to learn that a Campbell who is the Duke’s clanswoman can give credit to
a Douglas that comes of the first family of her own name.”
“Maybe you think too,” said Mary with all the force of ridicule founded
on fact, “that the house of Drumcarro is a good place for letting a
young thing see the world.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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