“Oh! if ye please, Miss Anne—” exclaimed Jacky.
Jacky held up the card—”Mr. James Aytoun.” “If ye please, Miss Anne, I think it’ll be Miss Alice’s brother.”
Anne hastened forward to tell Mrs. Catherine, somewhat disturbed by the information. She feared for Lewis. Lewis was not so confident in the truth of these letters as she, and might, betray his doubt to Alice Aytoun’s brother, a lawyer, skilled in discerning those signs of truth in the telling of a story, which Lewis would lack in his narrative.
Jacky stole back to the library: the fire was getting low, she persuaded herself, and while she improved it, she could steal long glances at the stranger, and decide that he was “like Miss Alice, only no half so bonnie.” When the mending of the fire was complete, she slid into a corner, and began to restore various misplaced books. James watched her for a minute or two with some amusement. Alice had spoken of this dark, singular, elfin girl. She lingered so long that he forgot her. At last a voice alarmed him, close at his ear.
“If ye please—”
He looked up—Jacky was emboldened.
“If ye please—Miss Alice—”
“What about Miss Alice?” asked James, kindly.
“Just, is she quite well, Sir?” said Jacky, abashed.