“And enough to trim you from top to toe,” said Grace, solemnly. Bell coming in jealously on some pretence, saw them, with their hands uplifted and eyes gleaming, and approached to see what the cause of so much emotion might be.
“Eh!” said Bell, “the heap o’ things that us poor folk miss for want o’ kennin’. Is that something awfu’ grand now, leddies, that makes you look so fain?”
“It is a most lovely piece of lace,” cried Mrs. Jean. “Venice point; though I fear, Bell, you will not know what that means. Every little bit done by the needle--you will understand that. Look at all those little sprays.”
“Eh, leddies,” said Bell. “Ye ken what the fishwife says in ane o’ Sir Walter’s novels--‘It’s no fish you’re buyin’, but men’s lives.’ Eh, what heaps o’ poor women’s een must be workit into that auld rag. But it was my late lady’s a’ the same. I’ve seen her wear it, and many a time she’s told me the same story. So it will be Miss Margret’s part o’ her fortune,” said the old house-keeper, with malicious demureness. This discouraged the investigators considerably.
“I never saw it before,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “but then I knew but little of the late Lady Leslie; of course, if it was her mother’s it must be Margaret’s. Fold it up and put it aside, Grace. Was this Lady Leslie’s too?”
“Na, I canna say; I never saw that before,” said Bell, overwhelmed. “Eh, that was never made by woman’s fingers. It must be shaped out o’ the gossamer in the autumn mornings, or the foam of the sea.”
But Bell’s presence disturbed the inquiry; it was not until she was called away to see to Sir Ludovic’s beef-tea that they fully rallied to their work.
“I don’t believe a word of what that old woman says. Lady Leslie, indeed! Lady Leslie was not five-and-twenty when she died, poor thing. Stand out of the way, Grace, don’t come so close. You may be sure you shall see it all--and no girl understands lace. It might be her mother’s? Dear me, what a memory you have got, Grace! She had no mother. She would never have married poor papa if there had been a mother to look after her. Thank Providence, Margaret will be better off. This affliction,” said Mrs. Bellingham, with solemnity, “which is so sad for all of us, will not be without its good side for poor little neglected Margaret. Though whether it is not too late to make any change in her--”