A few minutes later she came down in the ancient pelisse which she found comfortable after the exertions of the day. She had taught Cecilia something of the activity which, though now a part of most well-bred women’s lives, was then almost an eccentricity. The female part of the little society which filled Kaims in the winter months nodded its ‘dressed’ head over its cards and teacups in polished dismay at the effect such ways would surely have on the young women; at other times one might hardly have guessed at the lurking solicitude in so many womanly bosoms; for, though unwilling, for many reasons, to disagree with Lady Eliza, their owners were apt, with the curious reasoning of their sex, to take her adopted daughter as a kind of insult to themselves. It was their opinion that Miss Cecilia Raeburn, though a sweet young lady, would, of course, find the world a _very_ different place when her ladyship’s time should come, and they only hoped she was sensible of the debt she owed her; these quiet-looking girls were often very sly. With prudent eyes the matrons congratulated themselves and each other that their own Carolines and Amelias were ‘less unlike other people,’ and had defined, if modest, prospects; and such of the Carolines and Amelias who chanced to be privily listening would smirk in secure and conscious unison. Even Miss Hersey Robertson, who mixed a little in these circles, was inclined to be critical.
The advent of a possible husband, though he would present in himself the solution of all difficulties, had only vaguely entered Lady Eliza’s mind. Like many parents, she supposed that the girl would ‘marry some day,’ and, had anyone questioned the probability in her presence, it is likely that she would have been very angry. Fullarton, who was consulted on every subject, had realized that the life at Morphie was an unnatural one for Cecilia and spoken his mind to some purpose. He suggested that she should pass a winter in Edinburgh, and, though Lady Eliza refused stubbornly to plunge into a society to whose customs she felt herself unable to conform, it was arranged by him that a favourite cousin, widow of the late Lord Advocate of Scotland, should receive the girl. This lady, who was childless, and longed for someone to accompany her to those routs and parties dear to her soul, found in her kinsman’s suggestion something wellnigh providential. So kind a welcome did she extend, that her charge, whose pleasure in the arrangement had been but a mixed business, set out with an almost cheerful spirit.