"Write to me soon, Jeanie, or I shall remain in the agonising apprehension that this has fallen into wrong hands—Address simply to L. S., under cover, to the Reverend George Whiterose, in the Minster-Close, York. He thinks I correspond with some of my noble Jacobite relations who are in Scotland. How high-church and jacobitical zeal would burn in his checks, if he knew he was the agent, not of Euphemia Setoun, of the honourable house of Winton, but of E. D., daughter of a Cameronian cowfeeder!—Jeanie, I can laugh yet sometimes—but God protect you from such mirth.—My father—I mean your father, would say it was like the idle crackling of thorns; but the thorns keep their poignancy, they remain unconsumed. Farewell, my dearest Jeanie—Do not show this even to Mr. Butler, much less to any one else. I have every respect for him, but his principles are over strict, and my case will not endure severe handling.—I rest your affectionate sister, E."
In this long letter there was much to surprise as well as to distress Mrs. Butler. That Effie—her sister Effie, should be mingling freely in society, and apparently on not unequal terms, with the Duke of Argyle, sounded like something so extraordinary, that she even doubted if she read truly. Not was it less marvellous, that, in the space of four years, her education should have made such progress. Jeanie's humility readily allowed that Effie had always, when she chose it, been smarter at her book than she herself was, but then she was very idle, and, upon the whole, had made much less proficiency. Love, or fear, or necessity, however, had proved an able school-mistress, and completely supplied all her deficiencies.
What Jeanie least liked in the tone of the letter, was a smothered degree of egotism. "We should have heard little about her," said Jeanie to herself, "but that she was feared the Duke might come to learn wha she was, and a' about her puir friends here; but Effie, puir thing, aye looks her ain way, and folk that do that think mair o' themselves than of their neighbours.—I am no clear about keeping her siller," she added, taking up a L50 note which had fallen out of the paper to the floor. "We hae eneugh, and it looks unco like theftboot, or hushmoney, as they ca' it; she might hae been sure that I wad say naething wad harm her, for a' the gowd in Lunnon. And I maun tell the minister about it. I dinna see that she suld be sae feared for her ain bonny bargain o' a gudeman, and that I shouldna reverence Mr. Butler just as much; and sae I'll e'en tell him, when that tippling body the Captain has ta'en boat in the morning.—But I wonder at my ain state of mind," she added, turning back, after she had made a step or two to the door to join the gentlemen; "surely I am no sic a fule as to be angry that Effie's a braw lady, while I am only a minister's wife?—and yet I am as petted as a bairn, when I should bless God, that has redeemed her from shame, and poverty, and guilt, as ower likely she might hae been plunged into."
Sitting down upon a stool at the foot of the bed, she folded her arms upon her bosom, saying within herself, "From this place will I not rise till I am in a better frame of mind;" and so placed, by dint of tearing the veil from the motives of her little temporary spleen against her sister, she compelled herself to be ashamed of them, and to view as blessings the advantages of her sister's lot, while its embarrassments were the necessary consequences of errors long since committed. And thus she fairly vanquished the feeling of pique which she naturally enough entertained, at seeing Effie, so long the object of her care and her pity, soar suddenly so high above her in life, as to reckon amongst the chief objects of her apprehension the risk of their relationship being discovered.