The sound of a little movement in the dining-room from which all this time she had heard the murmur of the voices, the tinkle of the glasses, made her pause and start. It was the ladies withdrawing to the parlour. She thought with a little gasp that they would find the children scorching their cheeks on the hearthrug, instead of being sent off to bed as should have been done, and held her breath expecting every moment the call of “Kirsteen!” which was her mother’s appeal against fate. But either the general license of the great family event, or the sedative effect of her mouthful of champagne and glass of toddy, or the effect of Aunt Eelen’s conversation which put her always on her defence whatever was the subject, had subdued Mrs. Douglas: there came no call, and Kirsteen, though with a slightly divided attention, and one ear anxiously intent upon what was going on indoors, pursued her thoughts. It gave them a more vivid sweetness that they were so entirely her own, a secret which she might carry safely without any one suspecting its existence under cover of everything that was habitual and visible. It would be her life, whatever was going on outside. When she was dull--and life was often dull at Drumcarro--when her mother was more exacting than usual, her father more rough, Mary and the children more exasperating, she would retire into herself and hear the whisper in her heart, “Will ye wait till I come back?”--it would be like a spell she said to herself--just like a spell; the clouds would disperse and the sun break out, and her heart would float forth upon that golden stream.
The sound of a heavy yet soft step aroused Kirsteen at this moment from her dreams; but she was set at ease by the sight of a great whiteness which she at once identified as Marg’ret’s apron coming slowly round the corner of the house. “I just thought I would find you here,” said Marg’ret. “It’s natural in me after that warm kitchen and a’ the pots and pans, to want a breath of air--but what are you doing here with your bare neck, and nothing on your head? I’m just warning you for ever, you’ll yet your death of cold.”
“I could not bear it any longer,” said Kirsteen, “the talking and all the faces and the smell of the toddy.”