The Guinea Stamp: A Tale of Modern GlasgowSwan, Annie S.
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The Guinea Stamp: A Tale of Modern Glasgow
Swan, Annie S.
Glasgow (Scotland) -- Fiction
Gladys was rather disappointed, perceiving that it was not likely she
would get much help from the experience of Teen.
'I think that is rather strange, but perhaps it is quite right, and it
is only I who am strange. But, tell me, do you think a girl always can
know just at once whether she cares enough for a man to marry him?'
'I dinna ken; there's different kinds o' mairriages,' said Teen
philosophically. 'I dinna think there's onything in real life like the
love in "Lord Bellew's Bride," unless among the gentry.'
'Do you really think not?' asked Gladys, with a slight wistfulness. 'I
have not read "Lord Bellew," of course, but I do believe there is that
kind of love which would give up all, and dare and suffer anything. I
should not like to marry without it.'
'Dinna, then,' replied Teen quite coolly. Nevertheless, as she looked at
the sweet face rendered so grave and earnest by the intensity of her
thought, her eye became more and more troubled.
'Among oor kind o' folk there's a' kind o' mairriages,' she began. 'Some
lassies mairry thinkin' they'll hae an easier time an' a man to work for
them, an' they sometimes fin' oot they've only ta'en somebody to keep;
some mairry for spite, an' some because they'd raither dee than be auld
maids. I dinna think, mysel', love--if there be sic a thing--has ony
thing to do wi't.'
It was rather a cynical doctrine, but Teen implicitly believed what she
was saying.
'Are _you_ thinkin' on mairryin'?' she asked then; and, without waiting
for an answer, continued in rather a hurried, troubled way, 'I wadna if
I were you--at least, for a while. Wait or ye see what turns up. Ye'll
never be better than ye are, an' men are jist men. I wadna gie a brass
fardin' for the best o' them.'
Gladys did not resent this plain expression of opinion, because she
perceived that a genuine kindliness prompted it.
'I am quite sure I shall not marry for a very long time,' Gladys
replied; then they fell to talking over the other subject, which was so
interesting to them both.
Underneath all her cynical philosophy there was real kindness as well as
shrewd common-sense in the little seamstress. She was in some respects
one of the best advisers Gladys could possibly have taken into her
confidence.
These sweet, restful days were a benediction to the weary, half-starved
heart of the city girl, and under their benign influence she became a
different creature. Little Miss Peck, who adored Gladys, sometimes
observed, with a smile of approval, the grateful, pathetic look in
Teen's large solemn eyes when they followed the sweet young creature who
had shown her a glimpse of the sunny side of life. It was not a glimpse,
however, which Gladys intended to be merely transient. She had in view a
scheme which was to be of permanent value to the poor little seamstress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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