Miss Leslie grows suddenly, and to Ruby it seems unaccountably, as red as her own red frock. But for all that the little girl cannot help thinking that she does not look altogether ill-pleased. Mrs. Kirke smiles in rather an embarrassed way.
“Have you been long in Scotland, Ruby?” the young lady questions, as though desirous of changing the subject.
“We came about the beginning of December,” Ruby returns. And then she too puts rather an irrelevant question: “Are you May?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am May,” Miss Leslie answers, laughing in spite of herself. “But how did you know my name, Ruby?”
“Jack told her, I suppose. Was that it, Ruby?” says Jack’s mother. “And this is a child, May, who, when she is told a thing, never forgets it. Isn’t that so, little girlie?”
“No, but Jack didn’t tell me,” Ruby answers, lifting wide eyes to her hostess. “I just guessed that you must be May whenever I came in, and then I heard auntie call you it.” For at Mrs. Kirke’s own request, the little girl has conferred upon her this familiar title. “I’ve got a dolly called after you,” goes on the child with sweet candour. “May Kirke’s her name, and Jack says it’s the prettiest name he ever heard, ‘May Kirke,’ I mean. For you see the dolly came from Jack, and when I could only call her half after him, I called her the other half after you.”
“But, my dear little girl, how did you know my name?” May asks in some amazement. Her eyes are sparkling as she puts the question. No one could accuse May Leslie of being dreamy now.
“It was on the card,” Ruby announces, triumphantly. Well is it for Jack that he is not at hand to hear all these disclosures. “Jack left it behind him at Glengarry when he stayed a night with us, and your name was on it. Then I knew some other little girl must have given it to Jack. I didn’t know then that she would be big and grown-up like you.”
“Ruby! Ruby! I am afraid that you are a sad little tell-tale,” Mrs. Kirke says. It is rather a sore point with her that this pink-and-white girl should have slighted her only son so far as to refuse his hand and heart. Poor Jack, he had had more sorrows to bear than Walter’s death when he left the land of his birth at that sad time. In the fond mother’s eyes May is not half good enough for her darling son; but May’s offence is none the more to be condoned on that account.
“I must really be going, Mrs. Kirke,” the young lady says, rising. She cannot bear that any more of Ruby’s revelations, however welcome to her own ears, shall be made in the presence of Jack’s mother. “I have inflicted quite a visitation upon you as it is. You will come and see me, darling, won’t you?” this to Ruby. “Ask Mrs. Kirke if she will be so kind as to bring you some day.”