"Poor girl! And is she much changed?" asked Mrs. Butler.
"She's no that changed that I wudna know her," said Janet, "and that's all. She has no color in her cheeks nor mirth in her een; and instead of her merry laugh, that set everybody off, she's just got a little faint smile that's mair sad than onything else."
"Of course she's weak; she's had a bad fever, and she's now come off a long journey," said Tony, in a sort of rough discontented voice.
"Ay," muttered Janet; "but I doubt she 'll never be the same she was."
"To be sure you do," broke in Tony, rudely. "You would n't belong to your county here if you did n't look at the blackest side of everything. This end of our island is as cheerful in its population as it is in scenery; and whenever we have n't a death in a cabin, we stroll out to see if there's no sign of a shipwreck on the coast."
"No such a thing, Master Tony. He that made us made us like ither folk; and we 're no worse or better than our neighbors."
"What about the letters, Janet? Did you tell the postmaster that they 're very irregular down here?" asked Mrs. Butler.
"I did, ma'am, and he said ye 're no warse off than others; that when the Lord sends floods, and the waters rise, human means is a' that we have; and if the boy couldna swim, the leather bag wi' the letters would hae gi'en him little help."
"And could n't he have told ye all that without canting--"
"Tony! Tony!" broke in his mother, reprovingly. "This is not the way to bear these things, and I will not hear it."
"Don't be angry, little mother," said he, taking her hand between both his own. "I know how rough and ill-tempered I have grown of late; and though it frets me sorely, I can no more throw it off than I could a fever."
"You 'll be soon yourself again, my poor Tony. Your dear father had his days when none dare go near him but myself; and I remember well Sir Archy Cole, who was the General, and commanded in Stirling, saying to me, 'I wish, Mrs. Butler, you would get me the sick-return off Wat's table, for he's in one of his tantrums to-day, and the adjutant has not courage to face him.' Many and many a time I laughed to myself over that."
"No, Tony," said she, with a little dry laugh, "I didn't do that; the Colonel was a good man, and a God-fearing man; but if he had thought that anything was said or done because of certain traits or marks in his own nature, he 'd have been little better than a tiger."