"It's small thanks to any one but Mr. Dane. He was no too particular to help a poor man, ye see."
"Was that it?" asked Rae, a trifle awkwardly. "You are surely not turning back, Miss Chatterton!"
Lilian was certainly about to retreat; but being a young woman of spirit, she determined to make the best of it when the man, opening another door, announced:
"Miss Chatterton an' the minister to see ye, Mary."
She entered the poorly furnished room the next moment, but saw nothing of its interior, for her eyes were fixed upon the sick girl, who lay on a dilapidated sofa. Rae noticed the contrast between his companion and the seamstress. Miss Chatterton was a very dainty figure in costly furs, and the slight trace of haughtiness became her. The seamstress was pale, and hollow in face, with the sign of poverty stamped upon her, for the faded shawl about her shoulders and the little ragged garment told the same story.
Rae soon became conscious that there was a latent hostility between the women, and he felt it incumbent on him to break the silence.
"I am glad to see you better," he said; "but you should not work too soon. You must lie still and recover completely, because there are a number of customers waiting for you. Mrs. Gordon told me she was keeping quite a large order back until you were fit to undertake it."
Lilian had been present when, by dint of dogged persistence, the reverend gentleman had secured a reluctant promise to employ his protégée, and she wondered whether all his sex, without exception, could be deluded by a pretty face. She was forced to admit that men of uncultivated taste might consider Miss Johnstone pretty.
"Poor folk cannot afford to be idle long, an' my wee sisters cannot go ragged," replied the sick girl. "Still, I'm no complaining. Jim has helped me bravely, and we're winning through a hard winter well, thanks to the gentleman who befriended him."
Rae observed that the speaker flashed a glance at Miss Chatterton, whose face remained icily indifferent. Feeling that the situation was becoming strained, he turned toward the boy.