"In the summer she can be wheeled out. She is a hopeless little invalid, and will never be strong."
"How sad!"
For a moment, Jean forgot herself in the thought of such a fate.
Presently she asked quietly—
"Do you mind telling me who you are? Do you live at Strathglen?"
The stranger laughed.
"I ought to have introduced myself. I am nobody particular. I am Mrs. Gordon's first cousin, and am her general adviser, confidant, and physician. I live about three miles off, and consider Sunnie my favourite patient. I hope you will find her an interesting subject. Her mother is very keen about her picture."
"I will do my best," said Jean. Then she relapsed into silence. They drove on, reached the fir-wood, and now their road lay right through the midst of it. Jean roused herself out of her torpor, when she saw the sun setting like a ball of fire behind the pines. It marked with its red-gold rays, the outline of the slender sterns, and seemed to be running like liquid gold along the carpet of brown cones underfoot.
"Oh how lovely!" she exclaimed. "Please drive slowly."
But her companion never slackened the speed of his horse.