“Yes, and mamma!” cries Ruby. “I’m to go to see him in Scotland. Jack says so, in Green—Green——I can’t remember the name of the place; but it’s where they build ships, beside the river.”
“Ruby!” her step-mother remonstrates, horror-stricken. “Who’s Jack?”
“Him!” cries Ruby, triumphantly, a fat forefinger denoting her new-found friend. “He said I was to call him Jack,” explains the little girl. “Didn’t you, Jack?”
“Of course I did,” that young man says good-naturedly. “And promised to send you a doll for doing it, the very best that Greenock or Glasgow can supply.”
It is evident that the pair have vowed eternal friendship—a friendship which only grows as the afternoon goes on.
When Mr. Thorne comes home he insists that the young Scotchman shall stay the night, which Jack Kirke is nothing loth to do. Ruby even does him the honour of introducing him to both her dolls and to her bleaching green, and presents him with supreme dignity to Jenny as “Mr. Kirke, a gentleman from Scotland.”
“I wish next Christmas wasn’t so far away, Jack,” Ruby says that evening as they sit on the verandah. “It’s such a long time till ever we see you again.”
“And yet you never saw me before this morning,” says the young man, laughing. He is both pleased and flattered by the affection which the little lady has seen fit to shower upon him. “And I dare say that by this time to-morrow you will have forgotten that there is such a person in existence,” Jack adds teasingly.
“We won’t ever forget you,” Ruby protests loyally. “Will we, mamma? He’s just the nicest ‘stranger’ that ever came to Glengarry since we came.”
“There’s a decided compliment for you, Mr. Kirke,” laughs Ruby’s father. “I’m getting quite jealous of your attentions, little woman. It is well you are not a little older, or Mr. Kirke might find them very much too marked.”