“And you thought the new partner fancied himself too big a man to know you,” said Charlie. “And that’s the reason you took umbrage at him, and told your sister he was—ahem, Harry?”
Miss Elphinstone’s laugh recalled Charlie to a sense of propriety, and Harry looked more foolish than ever. But Mr Ruthven did not seem to notice what they were saying.
“I never should have known you. I see your father’s look in you now—and you have your elder sister’s eyes. Why did you not write to me as you promised?”
“We did write—Norman and I both, and afterwards Graeme. We never heard a word from you.”
“You forget, it was not decided where you were to settle when I left you. You promised to write and tell me. I wrote several times to your father’s friend in C—, but I never heard from him.”
“He died soon after we arrived,” said Harry.
“And afterward I heard of a Reverend Mr Elliott in the western part of New York, and went a day’s journey thinking I had found you all at last. But I found this Mr Elliott was a very young man, an Englishman—a fine fellow, too. But I was greatly disappointed.”
Harry’s eyes grew to look more like Graeme’s than ever, as they met Allan’s downward gaze.
“I can’t tell you how many Mr Elliotts I have written to, and then I heard of your father’s death, Harry, and that your sisters had gone home again to Scotland. I gave up all hope then, till last winter, when I heard of a young Elliott, an engineer—Norman, too—and when I went in search of him, he was away from home; then I went another fifty miles to be disappointed again. They told me he had a sister in a school at C—, but Rose never could have grown into the fair, blue-eyed little lady I found there, and I knew it could not be either of the others, so I only said I was sorry not to see her brother, and went away.”
Harry listened eagerly.