These last words took away Miss Catherine’s breath. She was lost in amaze at the curious innocent dignity and cunning and utter unconsciousness of Isabel’s self-dependence. She felt herself rebuked by the girl who stood so pale before her, who was so resolute and superior and certain of what she said. Had the circumstances been different, she would have laughed at the naïve skill with which her attempts were baffled. But it was not a moment to laugh, as Isabel had said.
‘Well, well; you will not hear anything I have to say,’ she said, ‘but there may come a time when you will be glad of my counsel. And when that time comes it shall not be denied you. Come to the House and see me when you’re able, Isabel, for the sake of the past. You need not be afraid. I’ll keep silent and give you no advice.’
‘I will always be thankful for your advice,’ cried the unconscious girl, ‘more thankful than I can tell--for who have I to look to now? I would thank you, on my knees, if ye would always tell me what I ought to do.’
Miss Catherine could not restrain a smile; but Isabel’s earnestness and good faith shone out of her serious eyes.
‘If you bid me counsel you in the general, and then turn away from every single thing I say, how can I help you?’ she said, ‘But, my dear, I’ll not stay now--go out and take some exercise, and do not sit brooding here. Jean will take care of you, and the fresh air will do you good.’
‘I was thinking to take a turn--on the braes--where it’s quiet,’ faltered Isabel. Perhaps she was afraid to meet Miss Catherine’s eye; she swerved aside a little so as not to face her, and paused, and then sought refuge in tears, she could not have told why.
‘Eh, but these bairns are strange creatures,’ Miss Catherine said to herself as she left the cottage. ‘Me to think she would be too broken with her grief to mind what she did. But no! for all so young as she is, as fixed in her ways as if she knew the world from beginning to end like an A B C; going her own gait and thinking her own thoughts, and how to have her own way. And not a fortnight yet since my poor Margaret was laid beneath the sod. These creatures nowadays never know what sorrow means. They think of themselves when _we_ would have broken our hearts. And me that was always so fond of that wilful Bell!’