O. Douglas

“ When the news of Jean's fortune broke over Priorsford, tea-parties had no lack of material for conversation.
Miss Watson and Miss Teenie, much more excited than Jean herself, ranged gaily round the circle of their acquaintances, drank innumerable cups of tea, and discussed the matter in all its bearings.
"Isn't it strange to think of Miss Jean as an heiress? Such a plain little thing—in her clothes, I mean, for she has a bit sweet wee face. I don't know how she'll ever do in a great big house with butlers and things. I expect she'll leave The Rigs now. It's no place for an heiress. ”

“ You and I aren't attracted to Jean, but there's no use denying most people are. And what's more, they keep on liking her. She isn't a person people get easily tired of. I wish I knew her secret. I suppose it is charm—a thing that can't be acquired."
"What nonsense, Muriel! I wonder to hear you. I'd like to know who has charm if you haven't. It is a silly word anyway."
Muriel shook her head. "It's no good posing when we are by ourselves. As a family we totally lack charm. ”

“ She may make a success of being a rich woman! She has certainly made a success of being a poor one."
"I think," said Augusta, in her gentle voice, "that Peter Reid was a wise man to leave his money to Jean. Only the people who have been poor know how to give, and Jean has imagination and an understanding heart. Haven't you noticed what a wonderful way she has with the poor people? She is always welcome in the cottages.... And think what a delight she will have in spending money on the boys! But I hope Pamela Reston will do as she had planned and carry Jean off for a real holiday. ”

“ I've often thought how I would relish a tea-party at the Watsons'! Your father used to have a saying about it being better to be at the head of the commonalty than at the tail of the gentry, and I know it's true. Mrs. Duff-Whalley of The Towers would be a big body at the Miss Watsons' tea-parties, and I know fine I'm only tolerated at the Tweedies' and the Olivers' and all the others."
"Poor Mother! You've been splendid!"
"If you aren't happy, what does anything matter? I'm fair disheartened, I tell you. I believe you're right. Money isn't much of a blessing. ”

“ The doing without is good for both body and soul, but the great possessions are apt to harden our hearts and make our souls small and meagre. Who would have thought that little Jean would have had the hard hap to become heir to them. ”

“ And so I talked of all the gaieties I was going to, of the new clothes I was getting, of the smart people we know, and all the time I was despising myself for a fool, for what did Jean care! She sat there with her mind full of books and poetry and those boys she is so absurdly devoted to; it was nothing to her how much I bucked; and this fortune won't change her. Money is nothing——"
Mrs. Duff-Whalley gasped despairingly to hear her cherished daughter talking, as she thought, rank treason.
"Oh, Muriel, how you can! ”

“ Gordon—well, it doesn't matter so much for a man, but you can see his friends don't really care about him much. They take his hospitality and say he isn't a bad sort. They know he is a snob, and when he tries to be funny he is often offensive, poor Gordon! I've got a pretty face, and I play games well, so I am tolerated, but I have hardly one real friend. ”

“ Mrs. Hope put up her glasses to regard her daughter.
"Dear me, Augusta, am I hearing right? Who is more severe than you on the mad women who dance, and sup, and frivol their money away? But there's something in what you say. The bairn needs a playtime.... To think that Jeannie Laidlaw's son should change the whole of Jean's life. Preposterous!"
Mrs. Duff-Whalley was having tea with Mrs. Jowett when the news was broken to her. It was a party, but only, as Mrs. Duff-Whalley herself would have put it, "a purely local affair," meaning some people on the Hill. ”

“ Muriel and I go off to London on Friday en route for the south. It will be pleasant to have a change and meet some interesting people. Muriel was just saying it's a cabbage's life we live in Priorsford. I often wonder we stay here...."
Mrs. Duff-Whalley went home a very angry woman. After dinner, sitting with Muriel before the fire in the glittering drawing-room, she discussed the matter.
"I know what'll be the end of it," she said. "You saw what a fuss Miss Reston made of Jean the other day when we called? Depend upon it, she knew the money was coming. ”

“ Jowett, distributing brusque nods to the women present. "What I want is a bit of thick string." (His wife's delicate drawing-room hardly seemed the place to look for such a thing.) "No, no tea, my dear. I told you I wanted a bit of thick string.... Yes, let's hope it won't spoil Jean, but I think it's almost sure to. Fortune hunters, too. Bad thing for a girl to have money.... Yes, yes, I asked the servants and Chart brought me the string basket, but it was all thin stuff. I'll lose the post, but it's always the way. Every day more rushed than another. ”

“ Yes, rather far-fetched, I agree, but Fate is often like a novelette.
"Mr. Peter Reid had meant to ask the Jardines to leave The Rigs and let him settle there, but—there must have been a soft part somewhere in the hard little man—he hadn't the heart to do it when he found how attached they were to the place. ”

“ Miss Jean's gaun to be upsides wi' the best o' them! Puir lamb, puir lamb! I hope the siller 'll bring her happiness, but I doot it ... I yince kent some folk that got a fortune left them. He was a beadle in the U.F. Kirk at Kirkcaple, a dacent man wi' a wife and dochter, an' by some queer chance they came into a heap o' siller, an' a hoose—a mansion hoose, ye ken. They never did mair guid, puir bodies. The hoose was that big that the only kinda cosy place they could see to sit in was the butler's pantry, an' they took to drink, fair for want o' anything else to dae. ”