“Well,” said the father sharply, “and what have you to do with the young ladies? Go away with you to your kitchen, and heat your girdle and make your scones. That’s your vocation. The young ladies I tell ye are no concern of yours.”
“Whose concern should they be when neither father nor mother take ony heed?” said Marg’ret “Maister Douglas, how do you think your bonnie lads would have come through if they had been left like that and nobody caring? There’s Miss Kirsteen is just as clever and just as good as any one o’ them; but what is the poor thing’s life worth if she’s never to see a thing, nor meet a person out of Drumcarro House? Ye ken yoursel’ there’s little company in Drumcarro House--you sitting here and the mistress maybe in her bed, and neither kin nor friend to say a pleasant word. Lord bless us a’! I’m twice her age and mair: but I would loup ower the linn the first dark day, if I was like that lassie without the sight of a face or the sound of a voice of my ain kind.”
“You’re just an auld fool,” said Drumcarro, “the lassie is as well off as any lassie needs to be. Kirsteen--oh ay, I mind now, ye have always made a pet of Kirsteen. It’s maybe that that has given her her bold tongue and set that spark in her eye.”
“Na,” said Marg’ret, “it was just her Maker did that, to make her ane of the first in the land if them she belongs to dinna shut her up in a lonesome glen in a dull hoose. But naebody shall say I’m speaking for Kirsteen alone; there’s your bonny little Jeanie that will just be a beauty. Where she got it I canna tell, ony mair than I can tell where Kirsteen got her grand spirit and yon light in her ee. No from her poor mother, that was a bonny bit thing in her day, but never like that. Jeanie will be just the flower o’ the haill country-side, if ye can ca’ it a country-side that’s a’ howkit out into glens and tangled with thae lochs and hills. If she were in a mair open country there’s no a place from Ayr to Dumfries but would hear of her for her beauty in twa or three years’ time. Ye may say beauty’s but skin deep, and I’m saying nothing to the contrary; but it’s awfu’ pleasant to the sight of men; and I’ll just tell you this, Drumcarro--though it’s maybe no a thing that’s fit for me to say--there’s no a great man in a’ the land that bairn mightna marry if she had justice done her. And maybe that will move ye, if naething else will.”