They were lingering without—the air was so very mild and balmy, as if some summer angel had broken the spell of winter for one day. Marjory leant against a tree; her clear, good face, more thoughtful than usual. Anne had seated herself on a stone seat, beside the threshold, and was bending over Lilie, and her handful of moss; while Jacky, like a brown elf, as she was called, hovered in the rear. Mrs. Catherine had not yet returned from Portoran.
“If ye please will ye go in?” asked Jacky.
“No, let us stay here, Anne,” said Miss Falconer. “Jacky, how did Mrs. Catherine go?”
“If ye please, she’s in the phaeton,” said Jacky.
“In the phaeton? oh!” exclaimed Miss Falconer, in a tone of disappointment; “and those steady wretches of ponies—there is no chance of anything happening to them—there is no hope of them running away.”
“Hope, Marjory?” said Anne.
“Yes, hope! If Mrs. Catherine could only be caught in that shut-up by-way herself. Anne, I would give anything, just to find her in it.”
“Here she comes,” said Anne, as the comfortable brown equipage, and its brisk ponies, came smartly up towards the door, driven by Archibald Sutherland. “Ask her to walk to the little gate with you, Marjory—she will do it. But be careful not to speak of it before Archibald.”
“Thank you for the caution,” said Miss Falconer, in an undertone. “I wont; but I had forgotten—”
The vehicle drew up. Mrs. Catherine alighted, and, at Marjory’s request, turned with her to the little gate, from the shady dim lane beyond which the barricaded stile was visible, which shut passengers out from the sacred enclosure of Strathoran.