“And July, little girl—you are glad to see Menie Laurie again?”
But July makes a long pause—July is always timid of speaking to her brother.
“Menie is not Menie now,” said July thoughtfully. “She never looks like what she used to look at Burnside.”
“What has changed her?” At last Randall began to look interested.
Another long pause, and then July startled him with a burst of tears. “She never looks like what she used to look at Burnside,” repeated Menie’s little friend, with timid sobs, “but aye thinks, thinks, and has trouble in her face night and day.”
The brother and sister were in the room alone. Randall turned round with impatience. “What a foolish little creature you are, July. Menie does not cry like you for every little matter; Menie has nothing to trouble her.”
“It’s no me, Randall,” said little July, meekly. “If I cry, I just canna help it, and it’s nae matter; but, oh, I wish you would speak to Menie—for something’s vexing her.”
“I am sure you will excuse me for leaving you so long,” said the sprightly voice of Miss Annie Laurie, entering the room. “What! crying, July darling? Have we not used her well, Mr Home?—but my poor friend Mrs Laurie has just got a very unpleasant letter, and I have been sitting with her to comfort her.”
Randall made no reply, unless the smile of indifference which came to his lips, the careless turning away of his head, might be supposed to answer; for Randall did not think it necessary to pretend any interest in Mrs Laurie.
But just then he caught a momentary glimpse of some one stealing across the farthest corner of the lawn, behind a group of shrubs. Randall could not mistake the figure; and it seemed to pause there, where it was completely hidden, except to the keen eye which had watched it thither, and still saw a flutter of drapery through the leaves.