'
'If that is all the difference, it is little credit I can claim for
having created her.'
My mother sees that I need soothing. 'That is far from being all
the difference,' she would say eagerly. 'There's my silk, for
instance. Though I say it mysel, there's not a better silk in the
valley of Strathmore. Had Jess a silk of any kind - not to speak
of a silk like that?'
'Well, she had no silk, but you remember how she got that cloak
with beads.'
'An eleven and a bit! Hoots, what was that to boast of! I tell
you, every single yard of my silk cost - '
'Mother, that is the very way Jess spoke about her cloak!'
She lets this pass, perhaps without hearing it, for solicitude
about her silk has hurried her to the wardrobe where it hangs.
'Ah, mother, I am afraid that was very like Jess!'
'How could it be like her when she didna even have a wardrobe? I
tell you what, if there had been a real Jess and she had boasted to
me about her cloak with beads, I would have said to her in a
careless sort of voice, "Step across with me, Jess and I'll let you
see something that is hanging in my wardrobe." That would have
lowered her pride!'
'I don't believe that is what you would have done, mother.'
Then a sweeter expression would come into her face. 'No,' she
would say reflectively, 'it's not.'
'What would you have done? I think I know.'
'You canna know.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110