Kirsteen took her young sister’s face between her hands—“An ill man could have no power but what he got from you. Jeanie, Jeanie, has he got your heart?”
“Oh, how can you tell, you that have never been tried?” cried the girl drawing herself out of her sister’s hold. Little Jeanie had her experience too. “No, he has not got my heart; but he gives me no rest night nor day, he sends me letters—I might put them in the fire. But there’s little to keep you living at Drumcarro—and I read them, I canna help it. And then he’s waiting for me about the door whenever I stir. And his tongue would wile the bird off the tree. And he’s not like the rough men you see, young Glenbowie or the like of that, he’s a fine grand gentleman. And oh, Kirsteen, take me with you! take me away! For my father’s one that will not understand, and Jamie is but a laddie, and even Marg’ret!—And how am I to fight and stand all alone by myself?”
The girl’s eyes were full of tears and her face of trouble. She held fast by Kirsteen’s hand as if by an anchor of salvation. “He has not got my heart,” she said, “but oh, I canna trust my head. He wiles me away. And there’s nobody in the world, nobody else, that is heeding what becomes of me, or where I go, unless it’s maybe you, Kirsteen. Oh, take me with you, Kirsteen! for I cannot trust myself and live here.”
“Jeanie, Jeanie, ye love this man.”
“No,” cried the girl rising to her feet. “No! no! If it was my last word, No! but I’m lone, lone in the house, and nobody to speak a word, and him with his flattering tongue. And oh, Kirsteen, if you will do anything for Jeanie, take her away.”
“There is nothing I would not do for Jeanie,” said the elder sister, drawing her again to her arms. “My dear, there was one I saw in London before I came away.”
“One you saw in London?”
“That had his heart set upon my little sister, one I could serve with my life.”
Jeanie’s agitated face was again covered with a burning blush. She withdrew herself from Kirsteen’s arm. “How can I tell who ye might see in London. It’s far, far from here.”
“And maybe you never thought upon him, though his heart is set on you.”