“Weel, Jean. I’m thinkin’ ye’d better oot wi’ it.”
“Is Tillie no goin’ to bring in the tea? It’s past the hour. I see she grows slack, wantin’ me to look after her.”
“Ring for it then, Jean. I’m no for leavin’ my chair to ring for it.” So Jean pulled the cord and the tea was brought in due time, with hot scones and the unwonted addition of a bowl of roses to grace the tray.
“The posies are a greetin’ to ye, Jean; I ordered them mysel’. Weel? An’ so ye ha’na’ found him?”
“Oh, sister, my hairt’s heavy an’ sair. I canna’ thole to tell ye.”
“But ye maun do’t, an’ the sooner ye tell’t the sooner ye’ll ha’e it over.”
“He was na’ there. Oh, Ellen, Ellen! He’d gone to America! I’m afraid the Elder is right an’ Hester has gone home to get her death blow. Why were we so precipitate in lettin’ her go?”
“Jean, tell me all aboot it, an’ I’ll pit my mind to it and 434 help ye think it oot. Don’t ye leave oot a thing fra’ the time ye left me till the noo.”
Slowly Jean poured her sister’s tea and handed it to her. “Tak’ yer scones while they’re hot, Ellen. I went to the place whaur he’d been leevin’. I had the direction all right, but whan I called, I found anither man in possession. The man was an Englishman, so I got on vera weel for the speakin’. It’s little I could do with they Frenchmen. He was a dirty like man, an’ he was daubin’ away at a picture whan I opened the door an’ walked in. I said to him, ‘Whaur’s Richard’––no, no, no. I said to him, calling Richard by the name he’s been goin’ by, I said, ‘Whaur’s Robert Kater?’ He jumped up an’ began figitin’ aboot the room, settin’ me a chair an’ the like, an’ I asked again, ‘Is this the pentin’ room o’ Robert Kater?’ an’ he said, ‘It was his room, yes.’ Then he asked me was I any kin to him, an’ I told him, did he think I would come walkin’ into his place the like o’ that if I was no kin to him? An’ then he began tellin’ me a string o’ talk an’ I could na’ mak’ head nor tail o’t, so I asked again, ‘If ye’re a friend o’ his, wull ye tell me whaur he’s gone?’ an’ then he said it straight oot, ‘To Ameriky,’ an’ it fair broke my hairt.”
For a minute Jean sat and sipped her tea, and wiped the tears from her eyes; then she took up the thread of her story again.