“If I am greetin’ it’s for pleasure,” said Anne, “to hear about my mother and all of them and to see my bonny Kirsteen.”
“She has grown up a fine girl,” said the doctor looking at her with a professional glance and approving the youthful vigour and spirit which were perhaps more conspicuous in Kirsteen than delicacy of form and grace. Her indignation under this inspection may be supposed. She got up hastily freeing herself from Anne’s hold.
“I must not be late,” she said, “there’s Mrs. Macgregor waiting.”
“Tell the lass to bring the tea, Anne—if your sister is with friends—”
“I’m telling her that her place is here,” cried Anne; “it is no friends, it is just old Jean Macgregor who is very respectable, but not the person for Kirsteen. And we have a spare room,” she added with pride. “The doctor will hear of none of your concealed beds or dark closets to sleep in. He insists on having a spare room for a friend. And where is there such a friend as your own sister? We will send Jean to bring your things, Kirsteen.”
Kirsteen put a stern negation upon this proposal. “Besides,” she said, “it would be no advantage, for I am going on to London without delay.”
“To London?” cried the doctor. “That’s a long journey for ye by yourself. Are you really going alone?”
“I’m told,” said Kirsteen composedly, “that the guards are very attentive, and that nobody meddles with one that respects herself. I have no fear.”
“Well, perhaps there is no fear—not what ye can call fear; for, as you say, a woman is her own best protector, and few men are such fools as to go too far when there’s no response. But, my dear young lady, it’s a long journey and a weary journey; I wonder that Drumcarro trusted you to go alone; he might have spared a maid, if not a man to go with ye.” The doctor’s weakness led him to enhance the importance of Drumcarro as if it were a simple matter to send a maid or a man.
“Oh, but Kirsteen says,” Anne began, remembering the strange avowal, which she did not at all understand, that her sister had made. Kirsteen took the words out of her mouth.