One and all were pleasant and
natural, ready to laugh and ready with a certain quiet solemnity
when that was called for by the subject of our talk. Life, since
the fall in wages, had begun to appear to them with a more serious
air. The stripling girl would sometimes laugh at me in a
provocative and not unadmiring manner, if I judge aright; and one
of the grandmothers, who was my great friend of the party, gave me
many a sharp word of judgment on my sketches, my heresy, or even my
arguments, and gave them with a wry mouth and a humorous twinkle in
her eye that were eminently Scottish. But the rest used me with a
certain reverence, as something come from afar and not entirely
human. Nothing would put them at their ease but the irresistible
gaiety of my native tongue. Between the old lady and myself I
think there was a real attachment. She was never weary of sitting
to me for her portrait, in her best cap and brigand hat, and with
all her wrinkles tidily composed, and though she never failed to
repudiate the result, she would always insist upon another trial.
It was as good as a play to see her sitting in judgment over the
last. 'No, no,' she would say, 'that is not it. I am old, to be
sure, but I am better-looking than that. We must try again.' When
I was about to leave she bade me good-bye for this life in a
somewhat touching manner.
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