“Oh, what has come over him when he used to be so friendly? Can it be that he is angry at Leola’s suggestion that he should court me?” sighed the poor thing, deprecatingly.
It would have been well indeed if she had been listening, as Bennett suspected, for then she might have been able to inform Leola of the perils that threatened her in the joining of forces of Wizard Hermann and his worldly-wise sister, but she had only been loitering about the hall in hopes of a little interview when he came out, and tears of disappointment brimmed over in her kind gray eyes, when he passed her with so indifferent a greeting.
As she followed to the door and watched him galloping away toward home, she saw the carriage coming with the Stirlings, and ran to tell Leola the news.
CHAPTER IX.
WHAT THE ROBINS HEARD.
By-and-by, when Jessie removed the dust of travel, and freshened herself up with a dainty blue gown that just matched her sky-blue eyes, the two girls strolled out upon the lawn, and presently found seats in the favorite rose-arbor, where the robins, nesting overhead, made a mighty twittering in vain protest against their unwelcome intrusion.
“It is because you are a stranger, Jessie,” laughed Leola. “It is quite different when Ray and I come here together—they treat us quite as if we belonged to the Robin family.”
“Who is Ray?” asked Jessie, curiously.
Leola could not help blushing furiously, but she said, as carelessly as she could:
“Oh, only one of our neighbors!”