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And as Janet and Christina were not the bread winners, and did not know the exact state of the Binnie finances, they felt obliged to follow Andrew's example. Of course, all Christina's little extravagances of wedding preparations were peremptorily stopped. There would be no silk wedding gown now. It began to look, as if there would be no wedding at all.
All these wonders had to be shouted again and again to Grandpa on Christina's return, and he always ended the recital by clapping her on the back and declaring, "Och, och, indeed, and it is our own electric light that will be back again, and it will jist be darkness when she is away."
She repeated the promise to herself many times as she went bravely about the kitchen and barnyard. "Something will happen some day!" But she often added, "But, oh, my, I do wish it would hurry up and happen soon." And then something did happen; an event that vitally affected all Christina's future.
But after she began to make her court a sort of home for art and letters it ceased to be the sort of court that Sweden was prepared for. Christina's subjects were still rude and lacking in accomplishments; therefore she had to summon men of genius from other countries, especially from France and Italy.
It was not fashionable, nor indeed hardly permissible, for any one to build a house on a plan grander than the traditional fisher cottage; but Christina's, though no larger than her neighbours', had the modern convenience of many little closets and presses, and these Janet filled with homespun napery, linseys, and patch-work, so that never a young lass in Pittendurie began life under such full and happy circumstances.
If in poor Christina's strangely commingled nature there was circle within circle, and depth beneath depth, it was to be believed that Mary Garland, though she did not amuse herself with dropping stones into her soul, and waiting to hear them fall, laid quite as many sources of spiritual life under contribution.
"And, lest I should forget so sacred an obligation, I began to put my vow into execution right then and there. "Afterward the old folks were called in, and I told them my whole story. And I said to them, moreover, that there was storm and danger ahead; that the great convulsion might come any day; and so it is agreed that we are to be married, at Christina's home, the day after to-morrow.
"I have sent him up to bed," said Theobald, as he returned to the drawing- room, "and now, Christina, I think we will have the servants in to prayers," and he rang the bell for them, red-handed as he was. The man-servant William came and set the chairs for the maids, and presently they filed in. First Christina's maid, then the cook, then the housemaid, then William, and then the coachman.
For a loud musical voice arose from the field just beyond the brow of the hill, Gavin was ploughing the back meadow and singing, and the song made Christina's heart heat hotly: "Will ye gang to the Hielan's, Leezie Lindsay? Will ye gang to the Hielan's wi' me?" Hidden by the hill, and the screening bushes, she slipped away and took a devious course down the valley.
His scent for possible mischief was tolerably keen; so was Christina's, and it is likely that if either of them detected in him or herself the first faint symptoms of a want of faith they were nipped no less peremptorily in the bud, than signs of self-will in Ernest were and I should imagine more successfully.
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