Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 33, December, 1873

"Well, but I have never mentioned such a thing to her—never hinted it in the remotest manner. I dare say if I had she might laugh the matter aside as too absurd."

"She will not do that," Sheila said. "If you ask her to marry you, she will marry you: I am sure of that from what I have heard, and she would be very foolish if she was not proud and glad to do that. And you—what doubt can you have, after all that you have been saying of late?"

"But you don't marry a woman merely because you admire her cleverness and kindness," he said; and then he added suddenly, "Sheila, would you do me a great favor? Mrs. Lorraine and her mother are leaving for the Continent to-night. They dine at five, and I am commissioned to ask you and your papa if you would go up with me and have some dinner with them, you know, before they start. Won't you do that, Sheila?"

The girl shook her head, without answering. She had not gone to any friend's house since her husband had left London, and that house, above all others, was calculated to awaken in her bitter recollections.

"Won't you, Sheila?" he said. "You used to go there. I know they like you very much. I have seen you very well pleased and comfortable there, and I thought you were enjoying yourself."

"Yes, that is true," she said; and then she looked up, with a strange sort of smile on her lips, "But 'what made the assembly shine?'"

That forced smile did not last long: the girl suddenly burst into tears, and rose and went away to the window. Mackenzie came into the room: he did not see his daughter was crying: "Well, Mr. Ingram, and are you coming with us to the Lewis? We cannot always be staying in London, for there will be many things wanting the looking after in Borva, as you will know ferry well. And yet Sheila she will not go back; and Mairi too, she will be forgetting the ferry sight of her own people; but if you wass coming with us, Mr. Ingram, Sheila she would come too, and it would be ferry good for her whatever."

"I have brought you another proposal. Will you take Sheila to see the Tyrol, and I will go with you?"

"The Tyrol?" said Mr. Mackenzie. "Ay, it is a ferry long way away, but if Sheila will care to go to the Tyrol—oh yes, I will go to the Tyrol or anywhere if she will go out of London, for it is not good for a young girl to be always in the one house, and no company and no variety; and I was saying to Sheila what good will she do sitting by the window and thinking over things, and crying sometimes? By Kott, it is a foolish thing for a young girl, and I will hef no more of it!"

In other circumstances Ingram would have laughed at this dreadful threat. Despite the frown on the old man's face, the sudden stamp of his foot and the vehemence of his words, Ingram knew that if Sheila had turned round and said that she wished to be shut up in a dark room for the rest of her life, the old King of Borva would have said, "Ferry well, Sheila," in the meekest way, and would have been satisfied if only he could share her imprisonment with her.

"But first of all, Mr. Mackenzie, I have another proposal to make to you," Ingram said; and then he urged upon Sheila's father to accept Mrs. Lorraine's invitation.

Mr. Mackenzie was nothing loath: Sheila was living by far too monotonous a life. He went over to the window to her and said, "Sheila, my lass, you was going nowhere else this evening; and it would be ferry convenient to go with Mr. Ingram, and he would see his friends away, and we could go to a theatre then. And it is no new thing for you to go to fine houses and see other people; but it is new to me, and you wass saying what a beautiful house it wass many a time, and I hef wished to see it. And the people they are ferry kind, Sheila, to send me an invitation; and if they wass to come to the Lewis, what would you think if you asked them to come to your house and they paid no heed to it? Now, it is after four, Sheila, and if you wass to get ready now—"

"Yes, I will go and get ready, papa," she said.

Ingram had a vague consciousness that he was taking Sheila up to introduce to her Mrs. Lorraine in a new character. Would Sheila look at the woman she used to fear and dislike in a wholly different fashion, and be prepared to adorn her with all the graces which he had so often described to her? Ingram hoped that Sheila would get to like Mrs. Lorraine, and that by and by a better acquaintance between them might lead to a warm and friendly intimacy. Somehow, he felt that if Sheila would betray such a liking—if she would come to him and say honestly that she was rejoiced he meant to marry—all his doubts would be cleared away. Sheila had already said pretty nearly as much as that, but then it followed what she understood to be an announcement of his approaching marriage, and of course the girl's kindly nature at once suggested a few pretty speeches. Sheila now knew that nothing was settled: after looking at Mrs. Lorraine in the light of these new possibilities, would she come to him and counsel him to go on and challenge a decision?

Mr. Mackenzie received with a grave dignity and politeness the more than friendly welcome given him both by Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, and in view of their approaching tour he gave them to understand that he had himself established somewhat familiar relations with foreign countries by reason of his meeting with the ships and sailors hailing from those distant shores. He displayed a profound knowledge of the habits and customs and of the natural products of many remote lands which were much farther afield than a little bit of inland Germany. He represented the island of Borva, indeed, as a sort of lighthouse from which you could survey pretty nearly all the countries of the world, and broadly hinted that so far from insular prejudice being the fruit of living in such a place, a general intercourse with diverse peoples tended to widen the understanding and throw light on the various social experiments that had been made by the lawgivers, the philanthropists, the philosophers of the world.

It seemed to Sheila, as she sat and listened, that the pale, calm and clear-eyed young lady opposite her was not quite so self-possessed as usual. She seemed shy and a little self-conscious. Did she suspect that she was being observed, Sheila wondered? and the reason? When dinner was announced she took Sheila's arm, and allowed Mr. Ingram to follow them, protesting, into the other room, but there was much more of embarrassment and timidity than of an audacious mischief in her look. She was very kind indeed to Sheila, but she had wholly abandoned that air of maternal patronage which she used to assume toward the girl. She seemed to wish to be more friendly and confidential with her, and indeed scarcely spoke a word to Ingram during dinner, so persistently did she talk to Sheila, who sat next her.

Ingram got vexed. "Mrs. Lorraine," he said, "you seem to forget that this is a solemn occasion. You ask us to a farewell banquet, but instead of observing the proper ceremonies you pass the time in talking about fancy-work and music, and other ordinary, every—day trifles."

"What are the ceremonies?" she said.

"Well," he answered, "you need not occupy the time with crochet—"

"Mrs. Lavender and I are very well pleased to talk about trifles."

"But I am not," he said bluntly, "and I am not going to be shut out by a conspiracy. Come, let us talk about your journey."

"Will my lord give his commands as to the point at which we shall start the conversation?"

"You may skip the Channel."

"I wish I could," she remarked with a sigh.

"We shall land you in Paris. How are we to know that you have arrived safely?"

She looked embarrassed for a moment, and then said, "If it is of any consequence for you to know, I shall be writing in any case to Mrs. Lavender about some little private matter."

Ingram did not receive this promise with any great show of delight. "You see," he said, somewhat glumly, "if I am to meet you anywhere, I should like to know the various stages of your route, so that I could guard against our missing each other."

"You have decided to go, then?"

Ingram, not looking at her, but looking at Sheila, said, "Yes;" and Sheila, despite all her efforts, could not help glancing up with a brief smile and blush of pleasure that were quite visible to everybody.

Mrs. Lorraine struck in with a sort of nervous haste: "Oh, that will be very pleasant for mamma, for she gets rather tired of me at times when we are traveling. Two women who always read the same sort of books, and have the same opinions about the people they meet, and have precisely the same tastes in everything, are not very amusing companions for each other. You want a little discussion thrown in."

"And if we meet Mr. Ingram we are sure to have that," Mrs. Kavanagh said benignly.

"And you want somebody to give you new opinions and put things differently, you know. I am sure mamma will be most kind to you if you can make it convenient to spend a few days with us, Mr. Ingram."

"And I have been trying to persuade Mr. Mackenzie and this young lady to come also," said Ingram.

"Oh, that would be delightful!" Mrs. Lorraine cried, suddenly taking Sheila's hand. "You will come, won't you? We should have such a pleasant party. I am sure your papa would be most interested; and we are not tied to any route: we should go wherever you pleased."

She would have gone on beseeching and advising, but she saw something in Sheila's face which told her that all her efforts would be unavailing.

"It is very kind of you," Sheila said, "but I do not think I can go to the Tyrol."

"Then you shall go back to the Lewis, Sheila," her father said.

"I cannot go back to the Lewis, papa," she said simply; and at this point Ingram, perceiving how painful the discussion was for the girl, suddenly called attention to the hour, and asked Mrs. Kavanagh if all her portmanteaus were strapped up.

They drove in a body down to the station, and Mr. Ingram was most assiduous in supplying the two travelers with an abundance of everything they could not possibly want. He got them a reading-lamp, though both of them declared they never read in a train. He got them some eau-de-cologne, though they had plenty in their traveling-case. He purchased for them an amount of miscellaneous literature that would have been of benefit to a hospital, provided the patients were strong enough to bear it. And then he bade them good-bye at least half a dozen times as the train was slowly moving out of the station, and made the most solemn vows about meeting them at Bregenz.

"Now, Sheila," he said, "shall we go to the theatre?"

"I do not care to go unless you wish," was the answer.

"She does not care to go anywhere now," her father said; and then the girl, seeing that he was rather distressed about her apparent want of interest, pulled herself together and said cheerfully, "Is it not too late to go to a theatre? And I am sure we could be very comfortable at home. Mairi, she will think it unkind if we go to the theatre by ourselves."

"Mairi!" said her father impatiently, for he never lost an opportunity of indirectly justifying Lavender. Mairi has more sense than you, Sheila, and she knows that a servant-lass has to stay at home, and she knows that she is ferry different from you; and she is a ferry good girl whatever, and hass no pride, and she does not expect nonsense in going about and such things."

"I am quite sure, papa, you would rather go home and sit down and have a talk with Mr. Ingram, and a pipe and a little whisky, than go to any theatre."

"What I would do! And what I would like!" said her father in a vexed way. "Sheila, you have no more sense as a lass that wass still at the school. I want you to go to the theatre and amuse yourself, instead of sitting in the house and thinking, thinking, thinking. And all for what?"

"But if one has something to be sorry for, is it not better to think of it?"

"And what hef you to be sorry for?" said her father in amazement, and forgetting that, in his diplomatic fashion, he had been accustoming Sheila to the notion that she too might have erred grievously and been in part responsible for all that had occurred.

"I have a great deal to be sorry for, papa," she said; and then she renewed her entreaties that her two companions should abandon their notion of going to a theatre, and resolve to spend the rest of the evening in what she consented to call her home.

After all, they found a comfortable little company when they sat round the fire, which had been lit for cheerfulness rather than for warmth, and Ingram at least was in a particularly pleasant mood. For Sheila had seized the opportunity, when her father had gone out of the room for a few minutes, to say suddenly, "Oh, my dear friend, if you care for her, you have a great happiness before you."

"Why, Sheila!" he said, staring.