“I wish you were going home with me, Christie!”
“I wish I was, indeed! I wish I had spoken to Mrs Lee before! But I couldna leave her, John, till she got some one else, she is so delicate now. Sometimes I think I never could get courage to leave her at all, if she were to ask me to stay.”
“Ay, lass; but there’s more to be said about that. They’ll think at home that you’re forgetting them, if I tell them what you say.”
Christie laughed.
“I’m not afraid. I don’t think it would be right to leave her now; and seeing you has given me courage for another month at least. You can tell Effie that.”
“I shall have two or three things to tell her besides that,” said John, looking down on her with the grave smile which she liked so much to see. “I shall be sorry to tell her how pale and ill you look,” he added, his face growing grave as he looked.
“Oh, that’s only because I am tired just now; and besides, I was always ‘a pale-faced thing,’ as Aunt Elsie used to say. You are not to vex Effie by making her think that I am not well,” she said, eagerly. “I have not been used to walking far, lately, and I get tired very soon.”
They were entering the large square at the moment, and John said:
“Can we go in there among the trees? I see seats there. Let us sit down and rest a while.”
“Oh, yes! I have been here before. Nothing reminds me so much of home as the flickering of these shadows—not even the leaves themselves. And how sweet the flowers are! Do you ken, John, I didna see the leaves this year till they were full-grown? I can hardly believe that the spring has come and gone again.”