“I wanted to hear of my mother. I hoped she would be coming soon,” returned Agnes, evading a direct answer.
“Perhaps she will be here before long; this letter was long on the way and might well have been outrun by one travelling more swiftly than the bearer who stopped often along the way. Now your news, Nancy. Were you harmed by the freshet? and isn’t it marvellous that Jimmy O’Neill should have come back?”
“It is marvellous, and he is marvellous, the same old roystering Jimmy, for all his adventures. And it is so strange to see him with no hair on his head after being used to that bushy poll of his. Polly is so happy that she is noisier than ever; indeed, Jeanie, betwixt Polly and Jimmy and the bairns there is little quiet to be had anywhere unless one goes off into the woods.”
“But do you like quiet?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then what’s come over you, Nancy Kennedy? You were a regular hoyden when last I saw you, and you to be talking of liking quiet.” And Jeanie laughed.
“Did you hear about Honey?” Agnes asked, not noticing the laugh.
“What Honey? Whose Honey?”
“Muirhead’s Honey, the little child who was saved from the flood.”
“Law, no; at least I did hear some such tale, but it passed out of my mind at the news of Jimmy’s return.”