"Good looks are nothing, Christina," said Robert severely. "Beauty is not a moral quality."
"People who are good-looking get on in this world. I notice that. I wish I was bonnie."
"You are well enough, Christina," said Mrs. Campbell. "If you cannot talk more sensibly, keep quiet."
Christina with a wronged, grieved look subsided, and Mrs. Robertson"s reception for the conscientious youth, under the Argyle protection, furnished the conversation until the cloth was drawn, and the ladies had trifled awhile with their walnuts and raisins. Then Campbell rose, drank the gla.s.s of wine that had been standing before him, and said:
"I am going to the library to smoke half-an-hour. Then, mother, you and the girls will join me there. I have something important to tell you."
He did not wait for an answer, and his mother was furious at the request. "Did you notice his tone, Isabel?" she inquired. "His words sounded more like a command than a request. It is adding insult to injury to summon me to his room--for n.o.body goes to the library but himself--to hear the thing he has to tell. I shall go to my own room, and he can come there and tell me his important news."
"Mother, why not send for him to return here in half-an-hour?"
This proposal was acceptable, and in half-an-hour Jepson was sent with "Mrs. Campbell"s compliments, and she hopes Mr. Campbell will return to the dining-room, as she feels unable to bear the smell of tobacco to-night."
Mr. Campbell uttered two words in a low voice which sounded like "Confound it!" but he bid Jepson tell Mrs. Campbell "he would return to the dining-room immediately." Upon hearing which, Mrs. Campbell took a reclining position on the sofa, and on her face there was the satisfied, close-mouthed smile of one who compliments herself on winning the first move.
CHAPTER II
PREPARING FOR THE BRIDE
Campbell returned to the dining-room pleasantly enough. He placed his chair at his mother"s side, and asked: "Are you feeling ill, mother?"
"Rather, Robert, and the library is objectionable to me, since you began to smoke there. In fact, I have long been prejudiced against the room, for your father had a trick of sending for me to come there, whenever he was compelled to tell me of some misfortune. Consequently, I have a.s.sociated the library with calamity, and I did not wish to hear your important news there."
"Calamity? No, no! My news is altogether happy and delightful. Mother, I am going to be married in October, to the loveliest woman in the world, and she is as good and clever as she is beautiful."
"Married! May I ask after the lady"s name?"
"Theodora Newton. Her father is the Methodist preacher at Kendal, a town in Westmoreland."
"England?"
"Yes."
"She is an Englishwoman?"
"Of course!"
"I might have known it. I never knew a Scotchwoman called Theodora."
"It is a good name and suits her to perfection. Her father belongs to the Northumberland Newtons, a fine old family."
"It may be. I never heard of them. You say he is a Methodist preacher?"
"A remarkable preacher. I heard him last Sunday."
"Robert Campbell! Have you fairly forgotten yourself? Methodists are Arminians, and Arminians I hold in utter abomination, as every good Calvinist should."
"I know nothing about such subjects. This generation, mother, is getting hold of more tolerant ideas. But it makes no matter to me what creed Theodora believes in. I should love her just the same even if she were a Roman Catholic."
"A man in love, Robert, suffers from a temporary collapse o" good sense.
But when I hear you say things like that, I think you are mad entirely."
"No, mother. I never was so happy in all my five senses as I am now. The world was never so beautiful, and life never so desirable, as since I loved Theodora."
"Doubtless you think she is a nonsuch, but I call your case one of lamentable self-pleasing. To the lures of what you consider a beautiful woman, you are sacrificing your n.o.blest feelings and traditions. Don"t deceive yourself. Was there not in all Scotland a girl of your own race and faith, good enough for you to marry?"
"I never saw one I wanted to marry."
"I might mention Jane Dalkeith."
"You need not. I would not marry Jane if she was the only woman in the world!"
"You prefer above all others an Englishwoman and a Methodist?"
"Decidedly."
"You have made up your mind to marry this doubly objectionable woman?"
"Positively, some time next October."
"And what is to become of me, and your sisters?"
"That is what I wish to understand."
"I have my dower-house in Saltcoats, but it is small and uncomfortable.
If I go there, I shall have to leave the Kirk I have sat in for thirty-seven years, the minister who is dear and profitable to me, all the friends I have in the world, and the numerous----"
"Mother, I wish you to do none of these things. This house is large enough for us all. The south half, which you now occupy, you can retain for yourself and my sisters. I shall refurnish, as Theodora desires, the northern half, and if you will continue the management of the house and table, we can all surely eat in our present dining-room. There will only be one more to cater for, and I will allow liberally for that in the weekly sum for your expenditure. Theodora is no housekeeper and does not pretend to be. She is immensely clever and intellectual, and has been a professor in a large Methodist College for girls."
"You will be a speculation to all who know you."
"I am not caring a penny piece. They can speculate all they choose to. I shall meanwhile be extremely indifferent. I have come at last, mother, to understand that in a great love there is great happiness. The whole soul can take shelter there."
"The soul takes shelter in nothing and in no one related to this earth.
That is some of last Sabbath"s teaching, I suppose."
"Yes," he answered. "I was at Theodora"s side all last Sunday and I learned this lesson in the sweetest way imaginable."
"I wish you to talk modestly before your sisters, and I do not like to hear the Sabbath called Sunday."
Robert laughed and answered: "Well, mother, we have so little sunshine in Scotland, we really cannot speak of any day as Sunday."
"You may laugh, Robert, but such things are related to spiritual ordinances, and are not joking matters."