"Why, Jeanie, what's the matter now?"
She moved away impatiently from his touch, and, as if from habit, her arm, showing white under the russet bedgown she wore, went up to the branch above her head. And there she stood once more with the ripe red berries against her ripe red lips.
"I'm sayin' I'll no be sae bonnie as yon."
"Your eyes are not quite so blue, certainly; your cheeks not quite so pink, your hair not quite so golden, nor your----"
"That's enough, sir; ye needn't fash yourself more. I'm no for sale by public roup. I was sayin' myself that I'll no be near sae bonnie as yon."
The rowan berries were being viciously stripped from their stems, and allowed to fall in a defiant patter on the ground; yet there were audible tears in the young voice.
"You little goose! I didn't know you were so vain, Jeanie," he began.
"I'm no vain," she interrupted, sharply. "It's no that, Mr. Paul. I dinna care--at least no much--but if a lassie's bonnie----" she paused suddenly and let the branch go. It swung back, sending a red shower of overripe berries pattering round the girl and the man.
"Well, Jeanie! If a lassie's bonnie?" repeated Paul Macleod, watching the rapid changes in her vivid face with amused admiration; "if a lassie's bonnie, what happens?"
She confronted him with a certain dignity new to his experience of her.