Mrs. Maclahan had wisely disappeared.
Miss Loder sat down by the fire, and took Christina on her lap.
"I have had an adventure," she continued, trying to put the child at ease, for she was literally shaking from head to foot. "And after it was over, I said to myself, 'I know what Christina will be like! She is Scotch, so she will have red hair flying over her shoulders in wildest confusion; she will be a large fat girl, with long legs and short frocks: a perfect tomboy!' Wasn't that a funny picture I drew of you?"
Christina began to smile.
Miss Loder continued:
"I don't wonder at my adventure now. Fancy! Two highwaymen with black masks and pistols stopped the carriage, and wouldn't let me come on until I had promised to be kind to you!"
"Oh!" gasped Christina. "Who were they? Weren't you dreadfully frightened?"
"I tried not to be. I was just hoping that my small pupil would be kind to me, so it was funny, wasn't it?"
"Were they big men?"
"Rather little men. One had curls."