“I never saw such a big one, Master,” said Janet rather doubtfully, as if, after all, she distrusted its gleaming, pearly depth and richly ornamented frame. “I hope it won’t make her vain. She is very bonny, but it may not do her any good to know it.”
“It won’t harm her,” said Eric confidently. “When a belief in her ugliness hasn’t spoiled a girl a belief in her beauty won’t.”
But Janet did not understand epigrams. She carefully removed a little dust from the polished surface, and frowned meditatively at the by no means beautiful reflection she saw therein.
“I cannot think what made Kilmeny suppose she was ugly, Master.”
“Her mother told her she was,” said Eric, rather bitterly.
“Ah!” Janet shot a quick glance at the picture of her sister. “Was that it? Margaret was a strange woman, Master. I suppose she thought her own beauty had been a snare to her. She WAS bonny. That picture doesn’t do her justice. I never liked it. It was taken before she was--before she met Ronald Fraser. We none of us thought it very like her at the time. But, Master, three years later it was like her--oh, it was like her then! That very look came in her face.”
“Kilmeny doesn’t resemble her mother,” remarked Eric, glancing at the picture with the same feeling of mingled fascination and distaste with which he always regarded it. “Does she look like her father?”
“No, not a great deal, though some of her ways are very like his. She looks like her grandmother--Margaret’s mother, Master. Her name was Kilmeny too, and she was a handsome, sweet woman. I was very fond of my stepmother, Master. When she died she gave her baby to me, and asked me to be a mother to it. Ah well, I tried; but I couldn’t fence the sorrow out of Margaret’s life, and it sometimes comes to my mind that maybe I’ll not be able to fence it out of Kilmeny’s either.”
“You’ll do your best, I do not doubt. But maybe it will be through you that sorrow will come to her after all.”
“Not through any fault of mine, Aunt Janet.”
“No, no, I’m not saying it will be your fault. But my heart misgives me at times. Oh, I dare say I am only a foolish old woman, Master. Go your ways and bring your lass here to look at your plaything when you like. I’ll not make or meddle with it.”