“And this is Wat,” goes on Jack, thus effectually silencing the question which he sees hovering on Ruby’s lips.
“I like him, too,” Ruby cries, with shining eyes. “Look, Aunt Lena, isn’t he nice? Doesn’t he look nice and kind?”
There is just the faintest resemblance to the living brother in the pictured face upon the card, for in his day Walter Kirke must indeed have been a handsome man. But about the whole face a tinge of sadness rests. In the far-away land of heaven God has wiped away all tears for ever from the eyes of Jack’s brother. In His likeness Walter Kirke has awakened, and is satisfied for ever.
“How do you do, Mr. Kirke?” says Ruby’s mother, fluttering into the room. Nowadays Mrs. Thorne is a very different woman from the languid invalid of the Glengarry days. The excitement and bustle of town life have done much to bring back her accustomed spirits, and she looks more like pretty Dolly Templeton of the old days than she has done since her marriage. “Will is just coming. We have been out calling on a few friends, and got detained. Isn’t it a regular Christmas day? I hope that you will be able to spend some time with us, now that you are here.”
“I have just been telling Miss Templeton that I have promised to eat my Christmas dinner in Greenock,” Jack Kirke returns, with a smile. “Business took me north, or I shouldn’t have been away from home in such weather as this, and I thought it would be a good plan to break my journey in Edinburgh, and see how my Australian friends were getting on. My mother intends writing you herself; but she bids me say that if you can spare a few days for us in Greenock, we shall be more than pleased. I rather suspect, Ruby, that she has heard so much of you, that she is desirous of making your acquaintance on her own account, and discovering what sort of young lady it is who has taken her son’s heart so completely by storm.”
“Oh, and, Jack,” cries Ruby, “I’ve got May with me. Your dolly, you know. I thought it would be nice to let her see bonnie Scotland again, seeing she came from it, just as I did when I was ever so little. Can’t I bring her to Greenock when I come? Because, seeing she is called after you, she ought really and truly to come and visit you. Oughtn’t she?” questions Ruby, looking up into the face of May’s donor with very wide brown eyes.
“Of course,” Jack returns gravely. “It would never do to leave May behind in Edinburgh.” He lingers over the name almost lovingly; but Ruby does not notice that then.
“Dad,” Ruby cries as her father comes into the room, “do you know what? We’re all to go to Greenock to stay with Jack. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Not very flattering to us that you are in such a hurry to get away from us, Ruby,” observes Miss Templeton, with a slight smile. “Whatever else you have accomplished, Mr. Kirke, you seem to have stolen one young lady’s heart at least away.”
“I like him,” murmurs Ruby, stroking Jack’s hair in rather a babyish way she has. “I wouldn’t like never to go back to Glengarry, because I like Glengarry; but I should like to stay always in Scotland because Jack’s here.”