‘I saw the difference before you were out of the boat,’ said Jean. Bless her—the bonnie lamb! She’s like a rose, and so she has ay been since the day she came into this world. If ever there was a bairn that brought a blessing——’
‘You did not tell me when you wrote,’ said Isabel, hastily, ‘that Mr. John and Ailie had come to Ardnamore.’
Jean had given a perceptible start at the beginning of the sentence, as if she feared to be questioned; but recovered herself as soon as she heard these names. ‘I scarcely kent myself,’ she said; ‘I wouldna believe it till I saw Ailie at the kirk. Eh, she’s changed. Me that minds what she was——’
‘Does she look—as if she were happy?’ said Isabel, feeling her own voice flutter like a sigh through the dark.
‘She looks—like a spirit; no like a woman,’ said Jean; ‘ye should have seen the folk how struck they all were. Some thought she would be giving herself airs noo she’s come home to her ain, and some thought she would be currying favour to make folk forget, and some——’
‘Oh, never mind what they thought,’ said Isabel, ‘tell me about herself.’
‘Eh, Isabel, you would have been struck! She was as white as a woman cut out of stane, and a’ dressed in white, which was awfu’ strange to see. She went no to the Ardnamore pew, but to her auld seat, and knelt down at the very prayers when a’body else was standing. But the strangest of all was the look in her e’en. You would have thought she had never seen one that was there in all her life before.’
‘But oh,’ cried Isabel, the tears coming to her eyes, ‘it was not pride.’
‘No, it wasna pride,’ said Jean; ‘there was some that said it was, but no one that looked at her close like me. I dinna like to say what I thought myself. There’s been mad folk in the Ardnamore family for many a generation; but then Ailie’s no one of the Ardnamore family except by her marriage, and that wouldna affect her; but——’
‘I am going to see her to-morrow,’ said Isabel.