It was only the entrance of two little girls; one of them blooming and ruddy, with radiant golden hair. The other paler, with a little frock of black silk, and eyes like the night—wistful, spiritual, dark.
“What ails Jacky?” said the new comer.
“Oh, if ye please, Miss Lilie,” said Bessie eagerly, “we werena meaning ony ill; we only laughed.”
Lilie slid gently within Jacky’s arm—drew down the hand which supported her head, and whispered in her ear—the arm of Mr. Sinclair quivering all this time most strangely, as it leaned upon his friend’s.
“Dinna be angry,” whispered Lilie; “I want you to say Alice Brand. Mary never heard it; never mind them. Say Alice Brand to Mary and me.”
“Oh! ay, Jacky,” echoed Bessie and Johnnie together, “say Alice Brand; it’s a real bonnie thing.”
Jacky was mollified; after a brief pause, caressing Lilie, she began the ballad. Little Mary Ferguson, with the fire-light gleaming in her golden hair, stood, leaning on the shoulder of her favorite Flora. Lilie was at Jacky’s knee, lifting up her face of earnest childish interest, and listening with all her might. Without, in the darkness stood the stranger, eagerly looking in, and holding Archibald’s arm.
The first notes of Alice Aytoun’s song were sounding up stairs. Archibald Sutherland stood still, but with eyes that wandered somewhat, and a considerable weariness. This was a most strange freak of Mr. Sinclair’s—he could not comprehend it.
Her story possessed Jacky and inspired her. She rose as it swelled to its climax, and spoke louder.—
“It was between the night and day
When the Fairy folk have power
That I fell down in a sinful fray,
And twixt life and death was snatched away,
To the joyless, elfin bower.