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
“Oh, I wish I had seen them,” said Jeanie.
“Whisht, whisht. I’ve seen diamonds many a time, but I never thought
them like pieces of light. They’re more like bits of glass, which I have
seen just as bonny. And who was it you danced with most, Kirsteen? You
have not given us a list like Mary.”
“I danced with Glendochart,” said Kirsteen, looking down a little. “I
stood a long time just looking about me. When you are dancing you cannot
see the rest of the ball, and it was very bonny. Glendochart took me
into the tea-room and showed me all the pictures and things.”
“But Lord John never looked in that fixed way at you?”
“No,” said Kirsteen very shortly, perceiving that it was inexpedient to
repeat the little episode of Lord John.
“Then ye were not so much taken notice of as Mary?” cried Jeanie with
disappointment.
“But she spoke to the Duke--or at least he spoke to Glendochart when
Kirsteen was on his arm--and there was Lady Chatty that made great
friends with her,” said Mary with benevolence, not to leave her sister
quite in the background. But there was a momentary pause of
disappointment, for they all felt that Lady Chatty was not so
suggestive--had not in her name so many possibilities as Lord John.
“I hear of nothing but Glendochart,” said Mrs. Douglas; “if he is the
man I mind upon, he will be the same age as your father; and what was he
doing dancing and hanging about the like of you, a man at his time of
life?”
Mary gave a little laugh, and repeated, “He was Kirsteen’s one.”
“What is the meaning of that, Kirsteen?”
“The meaning of it is that Glendochart, tho’ he is old, is a real
gentleman,” said Kirsteen; “and he saw that we were strangers and
neglected, and nobody looking the way we were on--”
At this there was an outcry that drowned the rest of the sentence.
Strangers, the daughters of Drumcarro!--neglected when Mary had just
said how attentive everybody had been! “You are just in one of your ill
keys, Kirsteen,” said her mother.
“No,” said Mary, “but she’s looking for him to-morrow: for my father has
asked him, and she is feared you will not like him when ye see him. But
my opinion is, though he is old, that he is still a very personable
man.”
CHAPTER XI.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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