"It is not my fault," cried the girl, half amused, half apologetic. "I tell you only, Janet, what Miss Barbara said. Perhaps it was to get rid of me, to send me indoors out of the way."
"Naething more likely," said the housekeeper. "She canna be fashed with strangers when her ain are at her hand."
"Woman!" cried Agnes, from the landing, "how dare you say sae of my mistress? You'll never mind, Miss Nora. Come up here, my bonnie young leddy, and you'll have a grand sight of him among the trees."
"Ay, glower at him," said Janet, as she went away. "You wouldna be so muckle ta'en up with them if ye kent as much about men as me."
"Na, you'll pay no attention," said Agnes anxiously; "it's no' real malice--just she thinks she has mair experience. And so she has mair experience--the only marriet woman in the house. There's your mamma, with a bonnie family, takes nothing upon her, no more than if she was a single person; but Janet has it a' her ain way. Stand you here, Miss Nora, at this corner, and you'll have a grand sight of him. He's behind the big bourtree-bush; but in a moment--in a moment----"
"I don't want to see Mr Erskine," said Nora, laughing. "I have seen him; most likely I shall see him at lunch. He is just like other people,--like dozens of gentlemen----"
"Eh, but when you think that you never ken what may happen--that _yon_ may be the man, for all we ken!"
When Agnes thus put into words the idea which had (she would not deny it to herself) glanced through Nora's own mind, she was so hypocritical as to laugh, as at a great piece of absurdity--but at the same time so honest as to blush.
"I believe you are always thinking of--that sort of thing," she said.
"Awfu' often, Miss Nora," said Agnes, unabashed,--"especially when there's young folk about; and after a', is there onything that's sae important? There's me and the mistress, we've stood aloof from a' that; but I canna think it's been for oor happiness. Her--it was her ain doing; but me--it's a very strange thing to say: I've kent many that were far from my superiors--as far as a person can judge--that have had twa-three offers; but me, I never had it in my power. You'll think it a very strange thing, Miss Nora?"
"I know," said Nora; "and you so pretty. It is quite extraordinary." This was the reply that Agnes expected to her favourite confession. She was pretty still at fifty,--slim and straight, with delicate features, and that ivory complexion which we associate with refinement and good blood; and the old waiting-woman knew how to _faire valoir_ her fine person and features. She was dressed delicately in a black gown, with a white kerchief of spotless net--like a lady, everybody said. She shook her head with a smile of melancholy consciousness.