"My name's George Gordon."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Are you any relation to Lord Byron?"
"Certainly not, I'm glad to say," he remarked decidedly. "We're quite another lot of Gordons. It's a big clan, you know. We're the Dumfrieshire Gordons. The poet was a gloomy sort of chap, wasn't he?"
Jane-Anne stood still, and gazed at the Gordon at her side with great indignation.
"Gloomy," she repeated; "sad, if you like, sometimes, but very witty and amusing; have you read his letters?"
George Gordon hung his head; the brown eyes looking up into his were so grave and accusing.
"I'm afraid I know very little about him," he said humbly; "perhaps he was an ancestor of yours—I'm awfully sorry——"
Again Jane-Anne laughed, and he thought she had the prettiest laugh. "Do you only defend people when they are your relations?" she asked. "I admire Lord Byron's poetry, and I am grateful to him because he gave his life for my country—but he's not the least little bit of an ancestor. I don't think I've got any."
"That must be rather jolly, because then you can play off your own bat, and people aren't always expecting things of you because your great-great-uncle did something or other last century."
"Oh, I'd like them if I'd got them," she said; "but as I haven't—it's no use fretting. Have you a great many?"