Alice drew herself up, and was half inclined to be angry; but glancing up to Marjory’s face, ended in laughing, blushing and wondering.
“And yet that must have been very unsatisfactory too,” said Marjory, smoothing Alice’s fair hair as she would have done a child’s, “for then, I had been certainly thirled to Falcon’s Craig to take care of you both—to see that Ralph was not too rough with you, and that you were too gentle with him. No, we must have some one who can hold the reins. Altogether you have chosen better for yourself, little Alice—Lewis will take care of you. But who shall I get to manage Ralph?”
“Perhaps Anne will,” suggested Alice wickedly.
Anne was full three-and-twenty, and she was not even engaged! Little Alice, with a touch of girlish generosity, felt the superiority of her own position almost painful.
“Hush, little girl,” said the prompt Marjory. “Anne is not a horsewoman; besides I won’t endanger a friend’s interest, even for the sake of getting Ralph off my hands. Anne is—”
“Oh! is Anne engaged?—is Anne engaged?” cried little Alice, clapping her hands. Alice had been a good deal troubled by this same want of an engagement for Anne, and had even been secretly cogitating, in her own mind, whether it might not be possible to direct the attention of her grave brother James to the manifold good qualities of Lewis’s sister.
“Now, pray, do you two brides leave me undisturbed in my humble quietness,” said Anne, good-humoredly. “Why there is Jeanie Coulter to be married next week—and then yourselves—if I do not hold my ground, there will not be a single representative left of the young womanhood of Strathoran and that is a calamity to be avoided by all means. I must really go to Esther Fleming’s now. Do you go with me, Marjory?”
Marjory assented, and they left the Tower; instead of going directly to Esther Fleming’s house, Anne went round by the mill. On reaching Mrs. Melder’s, they found that good woman standing, with a puzzled look, before her table, on which lay a parcel, which Anne had sent with Jacky, of mourning for the child. Lilie herself stood by, regarding the little black frock, in which she was dressed, with a look of childish gravity. The mourning chilled the little heart, though after being convinced that nothing ailed papa, mamma, or Lawrie, Lilie, in Anne’s bed-chamber, the previous night, had heard of her uncle’s death, with only that still awe natural to the blythe little spirit, “feeling its life in every vein.” She did not know the strange uncle Patrick, who was dead. It only subdued the gay voice a very little, and sent some sad speculations into the childish head—a place where grave speculations are rife enough sometimes, whether we of the elder generation discern them or no.
When Anne and Marjory approached the door, the child ran to meet them. “Oh, aunt Anne—my aunt Anne!”
Marjory Falconer looked puzzled—she had not heard this part of Anne’s story.