The girls were somewhat later in rising on the morning after the party than usual, and when they got up, they found that Peggy was out on one of those errands that Jane and Elsie had been accustomed to do for her. She had got into very good custom, from her real skill and punctuality, even in the short time that she had tried her luck in Edinburgh; and this week she had had more work than she could manage. On these occasions she used to get the assistance of a very poor woman who lived at a considerable distance, who had once been a neighbour of her sister Bessie's, and had been kind to Willie when he was in his last illness. Jane, sometimes with and sometimes without Elsie, had always gone to tell this woman about the work, but on this occasion Peggy had to take the long walk herself—not that she grudged it—for to put half-a-crown in poor Lizzie Marr's pocket was worth a good deal of trouble and fatigue.
She had returned about twelve o'clock, when the girls were getting ready to join their cousin in their promised walk, and just as she got to the top of the stairs, a man's foot was heard at the bottom. They were going for their bonnets, when a sharp tap was heard at the door, and Peggy opened it, and they beheld, not Francis, but Mr. Brandon.
"Well, Peggy," said he, "how are you? I thought I could not be mistaken in those elbows. I have followed you from Prince's Street all this long way, but you would never turn round, and I could not outstrip you, for you know we bushmen are no great walkers, and you always were a wonderful 'Walker' in every sense of the word. And how are you again, Peggy?"
Peggy shook hands with her old master, and gazed at him with great surprise.
"Surely, these are not the bairns you used to speak of?" said Mr. Brandon, looking at the Misses Melville with astonishment quite equal to hers.
"No; the bairns are all at the school—all but Tam—and he's at his trade, but they will be here for their dinners directly. These are two young ladies that have taken a room off me. They are no so well off as they should be, more's the pity," said Peggy, lowering her voice.
"I met them last night at a party. How do you do, Miss Melville?" said he, shaking hands with Elsie first, and then with Jane.
"But what brought you here on this day?" said Peggy.
"Just your elbows, Peggy. I was coming to see you at any rate, but I did not think you were here. You must have shifted your quarters. Here is your address," said Mr. Brandon, taking out his pocket-book—"'Peggy Walker, at Mr. Thomas Lowrie's, Swinton, ——shire.' I was going to see you to-morrow, but you have saved me a journey to no purpose."
"I brought the bairns into the town for better schooling, and on account of Tam; and grandfather finds it agrees brawly with him, too. Grandfather," said Peggy, raising her voice, "this is Master Brandon that you have heard me speak about whiles—the first master I had in Australia."
Grandfather expressed his sense of the politeness of Mr. Brandon in coming all that way to see Peggy. Not but what she was a good lass, and worth going a long journey to have a crack with.
"Well, Peggy," said Mr. Brandon, taking a seat near the fire, "and how do you like this cold country after so many years in a hot one?"
"The winters are not so bad, but the springs are worse to stand. But if a body's moving and stirring about they can aye keep heat in them."
"If moving and stirring can keep you warm you will never be cold. But, Peggy, you will want to hear the news."
"Indeed do I," said Peggy; "the diggings are going on as brisk as ever, I suppose?"
"Just as brisk, and sheep as dear, and wool steady; so, you see, I've taken a holiday."
"But you're going back again?"
"I must go back, for I have not made my fortune yet. But, by-the-by, it is a great pity that you left Melbourne when you did. You would have been a wealthy woman if you had stayed. There's Powell—was he married before you went?"
"Ay, he was. I heard word of it in Melbourne."
"Well, he's as flourishing as possible; he will soon be richer than me. On his own account now. Bought a flock and run, for an old song; cured the sheep; and is now on the highway to wealth. Ah! Peggy, why were you not Mrs Powell?"
"It was not to be," said Peggy, calmly; "but has he any bairns?"
"Two, Peggy; and he is very proud of them."
"Ay, ay; a man has need to be proud and pleased with his own. And the wife?"
"Oh, she's a nice enough person. Getting a little uppish now; but not the manager you are," said Mr. Brandon. "More given to dress and show, and that sort of thing. But I have a message for you from Mr. Talbot, the lawyer, you know, though I dare say he has written to you on the same subject."
"My man of business," said Peggy, with a little pride. "I have not heard from him for a long time."
"He is very sorry indeed, that you let the tenant have a right of purchase to your shop."
"Oh, it is not of much consequence—he never was a saving body; I don't think he will ever raise the 250 pounds."
"Will he not?—when the place is worth 2,500 pounds now; if he borrows the money, he will carry out the purchase, and thus you lose the chance of making a little fortune. He, of course, will keep it on till the end of the lease, at the low rent he has it at, and then take it up for the price specified. You cannot think how vexed I felt to hear you had let this property slip through your fingers."
"It is a pity," said Peggy. "It would really have been a providing for the bairns; but they must just provide for themselves. I am, at least, putting them in the way of doing it. The rent comes in regular enough, and is a help; and the 250 pounds will come in some time, and set us up in some way of doing."
"250 pounds is not the sum it used to be," said Mr. Brandon; "but, in your hands, I have no doubt it will be turned to good account."
"Here come the bairns now," said Peggy, as the quick, noisy steps of the heavily-shod children were heard clattering up the stairs.
"I will now see what you have made so many sacrifices for. Name them as they come in."
"Tom, Jamie, Nancy, Jessie, Willie."
"A fine lot of youngsters, upon my word, and sure to make good colonists." And, as he said this, Mr. Brandon saw a tear stand in the eye of the devoted aunt at his praises of her orphan charge.
"God be praised, they have their health; and on the whole they are good bairns, though a thought noisy whiles," said she.
"There's a gentleman at the stairfoot," said Tom. "He says he has come for you and your sister, Miss Melville, and as it was our dinner-time, he would not come up."
"Bid him walk upstairs, for the dinner's no ready. Mr. Brandon was aye rather an off-put to work, and ye'll no get your dinner for a good quarter of an hour yet."
"We are quite ready," said Jane; "We will go at once. It is our cousin, who was to call for us."
"We may go out to play then for a bit?" said Willie.
"If ye'll no go far, and be sure to be in time for the school."
Francis came up, to be surprised at the sight of Mr. Brandon, and to receive a hurried explanation of his presence at Peggy Walker's, and then they went for a walk. By daylight he was struck more with the change that had shown itself in both of his cousins, and with the poor home they had to live in. Jane's proposal on the previous night to go to Mrs. Dunn's had distressed him more than any other of her projects, and yet he could do nothing to prevent it, unless by making the sacrifice which my young lady readers think he should have made long ago, and given up the estate to marry his cousin. "All for love, and the world well lost," is a fascinating course of procedure in books and on the stage, but in real life there are a good many things to be considered. It was only lately that Francis had discovered how very dear Jane was to him. If such a woman had come across his path when he was in the bank with his 250 pounds a-year, with any reasonable chance of obtaining her, he would have exerted every effort and made every sacrifice to gain such a companion for life. He would have given up all his more expensive bachelor habits—his book-buying, and his public amusements, and thought domestic happiness cheaply purchased by such privations. And if Jane could have shared his brighter fortune, he would have offered his hand and heart long before. But now, even supposing that he had contracted no expensive habits, and he found that he had—that he liked the handsome fortune, and the luxuries annexed to it—it was not his own personal gratification that he was required to give up, but the duties, and the opportunities for usefulness that Jane so highly prized for him. He could not even expect to take as good a position in the world as he had quitted. His place at the Bank of Scotland was filled up, and the quixotic step he thought of taking was not likely to recommend him to business people. And he must prepare not only for providing for a wife and family, but for Elsie, too; and until this day Elsie had shrunk from him, and he had rather despised her; but during their walk he saw the affectionate and sincere nature of Jane's sister. He thought that he could not only offer her a home, but that he had some prospect of making it a happy one, which is by far the most important thing in such matters, and he gradually brought himself to believe that it was right he should make the sacrifice. Other opportunities of usefulness might open themselves in some other sphere; he would give up Cross Hall to the benevolent societies if Jane would only consent to be his wife. The cousinship he thought no objection; they were both very healthy in body and in mind, and as unlike each other in temperament and constitution as if they were not related. Neither Jane nor Elsie was likely to keep her health at a sedentary employment; it was the daily long walk that had kept them so well as they were. It was not right to undervalue private happiness, after all, for any public object whatever. Here was the best and dearest woman in the world suffering daily, both in herself and through her sister, and he could make her happy; he knew that he could do that. If she refused, however, it would interfere with the warm friendship that he knew to be her greatest comfort and his own most precious possession; but she could not, she would not refuse him. He saw the kind look of her eyes; and felt convinced that though Jane believed it was only friendship, the knowledge that she was all the world to him would change it into love. And then to begin life afresh; no longer solitary; no longer unloved; could he not conquer difficulties even greater than he had ever to contend with? He did not pay proper attention at the theatre that night. Jane and her sister were delighted with the performance, and forgot their daily life in the mimic world before them; but he was building such castles in the air all the time that he was not able to criticise the play or the acting, but left that to Elsie, who certainly did it very well.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg