"What poor fellow?" she inquired, with lifted eyebrows, and with scarcely so much as a blush. Necessity lent her self-control.
"What poor fellow? O now, Jessie, Jessie, as if you didn't know! The idea of pretending!" ejaculated Miss Sophy, shaking a pair of scissors at her. "And such friends as you and he are too!"
"He hasn't been here long enough," Jessie replied, with a coolness which astonished herself, though, indeed, her cheeks were no longer cool. "I like him, of course, but not so much as the old Vicar yet."
"Dear me! She means the Vicar, sister," in an audible aside.
"But we mean poor young Jack Groates, Jessie. How is he getting on?" asked the older sister with an indulgent smile.
"O well enough, I dare say," responded Jessie indifferently. "I'm too busy to go and ask; but they say he'll be walking soon."
"Brave young fellow."
"Was he? Other people were brave too. Aunt Barbara said he had no business to go at all."
"My dear Jessie!" ejaculated one sister.
And "Jessie, my dear!" echoed the other.