“Deed, laddie, and ye were just admiring nothing at a’ aboot me,” retorted the plain-spoken Scotswoman, but quite good-naturedly.
The answer made opportunity for the girl to express her stifled feelings, and under cover of it she went off into the hearty merry peal of laughter whose main cause was the dialogue she had overheard between Dick Selmes and her unattractive retainer.
“You have been here before, I suppose, Miss Hesketh?” began Dick.
The other stared.
“Oh, I see,” she said. “But my name isn’t Hesketh—it’s Brandon. Mr Hesketh is my uncle on my mother’s side.”
“Of course. But, as you most likely know, your uncle is a man of few words, and, beyond mentioning the fact that you were coming, gave us no further information. He didn’t even tell us your name. Naturally I didn’t like to appear inquisitive.”
“Naturally,” assented the other; and again the laugh struggled in her eyes, evoked by the recollection of the comical situation for which that lack of inquisitiveness was responsible. “But now—as you have the advantage of me—I have told you who I am, suppose you tell me who you are.”
There was a sweet, sunny frankness about this girl, an utter absence of self-consciousness that made Dick stare. Did they grow many like her in this strange, fascinating country, he wondered? As he told her his identity a new interest came into her eyes, but wholly unsuspected by himself.
“Ay, and is yon Dick Selmes?”
The interruption proceeded from the wielder of the duster, in the further corner of the room.