“Is this your little girl, Mr Snow?” said Mr Elliott, taking the child’s hand in his. Emily looked in his face as gravely and quietly as she had been looking at the children all the afternoon.
“Yes; she’s your Marian’s age, and looks a little like her, too. Don’t you think so Mrs Nasmyth?”
Janet, thus appealed to, looked kindly at the child.
“She might, if she had any flesh on her bones,” said she.
“Well, she don’t look ragged, that’s a fact,” said her father.
The cold, which had brought the roses to the cheeks of the little Elliotts, had given Emily a blue, pinched look, which it made her father’s heart ache to see.
“The bairn’s cold. Let her come in and warm herself,” said Janet, promptly. There was a chorus of entreaties from the children.
“Well, I don’t know as I ought to wait. My horses don’t like to stand much,” said Mr Snow.
“Never mind waiting. If it’s too far for us to take her home, you can come down for her in the evening.”
Emily looked at her father wistfully.