“And when is it going to be?” Miss Dempster said.

The ladies had come to call in their best gowns. Miss Beenie’s was puce, an excellent silk of the kind Mrs. Primrose chose for wear—and Miss Dempster’s was black satin, a little shiny by reason of its years, but good, no material better. These dresses were not brought out for every occasion; but to-day was exceptional. They did not approve of Effie’s engagement, yet there was no doubt but it was a great event. They had been absent from home for about three weeks, so that their congratulations came late.

“I don’t know what you mean by it; there is nothing going to be,” said Effie, very red and angry. She had consented, it was true, in a way; but she had not yet learnt to contemplate any practical consequences, and the question made her indignant. Her temper had been tried by a great many questions, and by a desire to enter into her confidence, and to hear a great deal about Fred, and how it all came about, which her chief friend Mary Johnston and some others had manifested. She had nothing to say to them about Fred, and she could not herself tell how it all came about; but it seemed the last drop in Effie’s cup when she was asked when it was to be.

“I should say your father and Mrs. Ogilvie would see to that; they are not the kind of persons to let a young man shilly-shally,” said Miss Dempster. “It is a grand match, and I wish ye joy, my dear. Still, I would like to hear a little more about it: for money embarked in business is no inheritance; it’s just here to-day and gone to-morrow. I hope your worthy father will be particular about the settlements. He should have things very tight tied down. I will speak to him myself.”

“My sister has such a head for business,” Miss Beenie said. “Anybody might make a fool of me: but the man that would take in Sarah, I do not think he is yet born.”

“No, I am not an easy one to take in,” said Miss Dempster. “Those that have seen as much of the ways of the world as I have, seldom are. I am not meaning that there would be any evil intention: but a man is led into speculation, or something happens to his ships, or he has his money all shut up in ventures. I would have a certain portion realized and settled, whatever might happen, if it was me.”

“And have you begun to think of your things, Effie?” Miss Beenie said.

At this Miss Effie jumped up from her chair, ready to cry, her countenance all ablaze with indignation and annoyance.

“I think you want to torment me,” she cried. “What things should I have to think of? I wish you would just let me be. What do I know about all that? I want only to be let alone. There is nothing going to happen to me.”

“Dear me, what is this?” said Mrs. Ogilvie coming in, “Effie in one of her tantrums and speaking loud to Miss Dempster! I hope you will never mind; she is just a little off her head with all the excitement and the flattery, and finding herself so important. Effie, will you go and see that Rory is not troubling papa? Take him up to the nursery or out to the garden. It’s a fine afternoon, and a turn in the garden would do him no harm, nor you either, for you’re looking a little flushed. She is just the most impracticable thing I ever had in my hands,” she added, when Effie, very glad to be released, escaped out of the room. “She will not hear a word. You would think it was just philandering, and no serious thought of what’s to follow in her head at all.”

“It would be a pity,” said Miss Dempster, “if it was the same on the other side. Young men are very content to amuse themselves if they’re let do it; they like nothing better than to love and to ride away.”

“You’ll be pleased to hear,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, responding instantly to this challenge “that it’s very, very different on the other side. Poor Fred, I am just very sorry for him. He cannot bring her to the point. She slips out of it, or she runs away. He tells me she will never say anything to him, but just ‘It is very nice now—or—we are very well as we are.’ He is anxious to be settled, poor young man, and nothing can be more liberal than what he proposes. But Effie is just very trying. She thinks life is to be all fun, and no changes. To be sure there are allowances to be made for a girl that is so happy at home as Effie is, and has so many good friends.”

“Maybe her heart is not in it,” said Miss Dempster; “I have always thought that our connection, young Ronald Sutherland——”

“It’s a dreadful thing,” cried Miss Beenie, “to force a young creature’s affections. If she were to have, poor bit thing, another Eemage in her mind——”

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, provoked. She would have liked to shake them, the old cats! as she afterwards said. But she was wise in her generation, and knew that to quarrel was always bad policy. “What Eemage could there be?” she said with a laugh. “Effie is just full of fancies, and slips through your fingers whenever you would bring her to look at anything in earnest; but that is all. No, no, there is no Eemage, unless it was just whim and fancy. As for Ronald, she never gave him a thought, nor anybody else. She is like a little wild thing, and to catch her and put the noose round her is not easy; but as for Eemage!” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, exaggerating the pronunciation of poor Miss Beenie, which was certainly old fashioned. The old ladies naturally did not share her laughter. They looked at each other, and rose and shook out their rustling silken skirts.

“There is no human person,” said Miss Dempster, “that is beyond the possibility of a mistake; and my sister and me, we may be mistaken. But you will never make me believe that girlie’s heart is in it. Eemage or no eemage, I’m saying nothing. Beenie is just a trifle romantic. She may be wrong. But I give you my opinion; that girlie’s heart’s not in it: and nothing will persuade me to the contrary. Effie is a delicate bit creature. There are many things that the strong might never mind, but that she could not bear. It’s an awful responsibility, Mrs. Ogilvie.”

“I will take the responsibility,” said that lady, growing angry, as was natural. “I am not aware that it’s a thing any person has to do with except her father and me.”

“If you take it upon that tone—Beenie, we will say good-day.”

“Good-day to ye, Mrs. Ogilvie. I am sure I hope no harm will come of it; but it’s an awfu’ responsibility,” Miss Beenie said, following her sister to the door. And we dare not guess what high words might have followed had not the ladies, in going out, crossed Mr. Moubray coming in. They would fain have stopped him to convey their doubts, but Mrs. Ogilvie had followed them to the hall in the extreme politeness of a quarrel, and they could not do this under her very eyes. Uncle John perceived, with the skilled perceptions of a clergyman, that there was a storm in the air.

“What is the matter?” he said, as he followed her back to the drawing-room. “Is it about Effie? But, of course, that is the only topic now.”

“Oh, you may be sure it’s about Effie. And all her own doing, and I wish you would speak to her. It is my opinion that she cares for nobody but you. Sometimes she will mind what her Uncle John says to her.”

“Poor little Effie! often I hope; and you too, who have always been kind to her.”

“I have tried,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, sitting down and taking out her handkerchief. She appeared to be about to indulge herself in the luxury of tears: she looked hard at that piece of cambric, as though determining the spot which was to be applied to her eyes—and then she changed her mind.

“But I know it is a difficult position,” she said briskly. “I think it very likely, in Effie’s place, that I should not have liked a stepmother myself. But then you would think she would be pleased with her new prospects, and glad to get into her own house out of my way. If that was the case I would think it very natural. But no. I am just in that state about her that I don’t know what I am doing. Here is a grand marriage for her, as you cannot deny, and she has accepted the man. But if either he or any one of us says a word about marriage, or her trousseau, or anything, she is just off in a moment. I am terrified every day for a quarrel: for who can say how long a young man’s patience may last?”

“He has not had so very long to wait, nor much trial of his patience,” said Uncle John, who was sensitive on Effie’s account, and ready to take offence.

“No; he has perhaps not had long to wait. But there is nothing to wait for. His father is willing to make all the settlements we can desire: and Fred is a partner, and gets his share. He’s as independent as a man can be. And there’s no occasion for delay. But she will not hear a word of it. I just don’t know what to make of her. She likes him well enough for all I can see; but marriage she will not hear of. And if it is to be at the New Year, which is what he desires, and us in November now—I just ask you how are we ever to be ready when she will not give the least attention, or so much as hear a word about her clothes?”

“Oh, her clothes!” said Mr. Moubray, with a man’s disdain.

“You may think little of them, but I think a great deal. It is all very well for gentlemen that have not got it to do. But what would her father say to me, or the world in general, or even yourself, if I let her go to her husband’s house with a poor providing, or fewer things than other brides? Whose fault would everybody say that was? And besides it’s like a silly thing, not like a reasonable young woman. I wish you would speak to her. If there is one thing that weighs with Effie, it is the thought of what her Uncle John will say.”

“But what do you want me to say?” asked the minister. His mind was more in sympathy with Effie’s reluctance than with the haste of the others. There was nothing to be said against Fred Dirom. He was irreproachable, he was rich, he was willing to live within reach. Every circumstance was favourable to him.

But Mr. Moubray thought the young man might very well be content with what he had got, and spare his Effie a little longer to those whose love for her was far older at least, if not profounder, than his. The minister had something of the soreness of a man who is being robbed in the name of love.

Love! forty thousand lovers, he thought, reversing Hamlet’s sentiment, could not have made up the sum of the love he bore his little girl. Marriage is the happiest state, no doubt: but yet, perhaps a man has a more sensitive shrinking from transplanting the innocent creature he loves into that world of life matured than even a mother has. He did not like the idea that his Effie should pass into that further chapter of existence, and become, not as the gods, knowing good and evil, but as himself, or any other. He loved her ignorance, her absence of all consciousness, her freedom of childhood. It is true she was no longer a child; and she loved—did she love? Perhaps secretly in his heart he was better pleased to think that she had been drawn by sympathy, by her reluctance that any one should suffer, and by the impulse and influence of everybody about her, rather than by any passion on her own side, into these toils.

“What do you want me to say?” He was a little softened towards the stepmother, who acknowledged honestly (she was on the whole a true sort of woman, meaning no harm) the close tie, almost closer than any other, which bound Effie to him. And he would not fail to Mrs. Ogilvie’s trust if he could help it; but what was he to say?

Effie was in the garden when Uncle John went out. She had interpreted her stepmother’s commission about Rory to mean that she was not wanted, and she had been glad to escape from the old ladies and all their questions and remarks. She was coming back from the wood with a handful of withered leaves and lichens when her uncle joined her. Effie had been seized with a fit of impatience of the baskets of flowers which Fred was always bringing. She preferred her bouquet of red and yellow leaves, which every day it was getting more difficult to find. This gave Mr. Moubray the opening he wanted.

“You are surely perverse,” he said, “my little Effie, to gather all these things, which your father would call rubbitch, when you have so many beautiful flowers inside.”

“I cannot bear those grand flowers,” said Effie, “they are all made out of wax, I think, and they have all the same scent. Oh, I know they are beautiful! They are too beautiful, they are made up things, they are not like nature. In winter I like the leaves best.”

“You will soon have no leaves, and what will you do then? and, my dear, your life is to be spent among these bonnie things. You are not to have the thorns and the thistles, but the roses and the lilies, Effie; and you must get used to them. It is generally a lesson very easily learnt.”

To this Effie made no reply. After a while she began to show that the late autumn leaves, if not a matter of opposition, were not particularly dear to her—for she pulled them to pieces, unconsciously dropping a twig now and then, as she went on. And when she spoke, it was apparently with the intention of changing the subject.

“Is it really true,” she said, “that Eric is coming home for Christmas? He said nothing about it in his last letter. How do they know?”

“There is such a thing as the telegraph, Effie. You know why he is coming. He is coming for your marriage.”

Effie gave a start and quick recoil.

“But that is not going to be—oh, not yet, not for a long time.”

“I thought that everybody wished it to take place at the New Year.”

“Not me,” said the girl. She took no care at all now of the leaves she had gathered with so much trouble, but strewed the ground with them as if for a procession to pass.

“Uncle John,” she went on quickly and tremulously, “why should it be soon? I am quite young. Sometimes I feel just like a little child, though I may not be so very young in years.”

“Nineteen!”

“Yes, I know it is not very young. I shall be twenty next year. At twenty you understand things better; you are a great deal more responsible. Why should there be any hurry? He is young too. You might help me to make them all see it. Everything is nice enough as it is now. Why should we go and alter, and make it all different? Oh, I wish you would speak to them, Uncle John.”

“My dear, your stepmother has just given me a commission to bring you over to their way of thinking. I am so loth to lose you that my heart takes your side: but, Effie——”

“To lose me!” she cried, flinging away the “rubbitch” altogether, and seizing his arm with both her hands. “Oh no, no, that can never be!”

“No, it will never be: and yet it will be as soon as you’re married: and there is a puzzle for you, my bonnie dear. The worst of it is that you will be quite content, and see that it is natural it should be so: but I will not be content. That is what people call the course of nature. But for all that, I am not going to plead for myself. Effie, the change has begun already. A little while ago, and there was no man in the world that had any right to interfere with your own wishes: but now you know the thing is done. It is as much done as if you had been married for years. You must now not think only of what pleases yourself, but of what pleases him.”

Effie was silent for some time, and went slowly along clinging to her uncle’s arm. At last she said in a low tone, “But he is pleased. He said he would try to please me; that was all that was said.”

Uncle John shook his head.

“That may be all that is said, and it is all a young man thinks when he is in love. But, my dear, that means that you must please him. Everything is reciprocal in this world. And the moment you give your consent that he is to please you, you pledge yourself to consider and please him.”

“But he is pleased. Oh! he says he will do whatever I wish.”

“That is if you will do what he wishes, Effie. For what he wishes is what it all means, my dear. And the moment you put your hand in his, it is right that he should strive to have you, and fight and struggle to have you, and never be content till he has got you. I would myself think him a poor creature if he thought anything else.”

There was another pause, and then Effie said, clasping more closely her uncle’s arm, “But it would be soon enough in a year or two—after there was time to think. Why should there be a hurry? After I am twenty I would have more sense; it would not be so hard. I could understand better. Surely that’s very reasonable, Uncle John.”

“Too reasonable,” he said, shaking his head. “Effie, lift up your eyes and look me in the face. Are you sure that you are happy, my little woman? Look me in the face.”