Miss Gordon sighed. William never knew where the children were. "Did you forget it's Saturday?" she inquired. "Elizabeth always spends Saturday afternoon with Mrs. MacAllister," she explained to the young man.
"Mrs. MacAllister is very much attached to Elizabeth," she added, feeling very kindly just now toward her most trying child.
"Lizzie always does her home-work over there," ventured Archie, "'cause Charles Stuart does her sums for her." John gave the speaker a warning kick. Archie was only seven and extremely indiscreet, but John was twelve and knew that whatever a Gordon might do or say to his sister in the bosom of his own family, he must uphold her before all outsiders, and particularly in the presence of a school-teacher.
But the school-teacher was in a very happy unprofessional frame of mind. "Never mind," he said, "Lizzie will beat you all at something, some day!"
He knew that a good word for the little sister always brought an approving light into the blue eyes across the table. Annie smiled radiantly.
"What is Lizzie best at?" she inquired with sweet anxiety.
Young Mr. Coulson looked at his plate and thought desperately. To discover any subject in which Lizzie Gordon was efficient was enough to confound any teacher. Then he remembered the caricatures of himself he had discovered on her slate.
"She has a remarkable talent for drawing," he said generously.
Annie beamed still brighter, and Miss Gordon glanced at him approvingly. She really did hope the story about the tavern-keeper was not true.
"Perhaps Elizabeth will be a great artist some day," she suggested.