The scream brought her mother and Miss Trim hurriedly into the room. They stared in speechless amazement, and rubbed their eyes, but they could not rub the house of Angus Macdonald off the knoll.
“There comes Ian in the punt,” said Cora; “he will explain it.”
“He seems to be miserable enough about it if one may judge from the expression of his face,” observed Miss Trim.
Poor Ian was indeed profoundly miserable. The excitement of the recent event over, his mind insisted on reverting to his forlorn condition. “So near,” he thought, “and yet to miss her! Old Ravenshaw could not refuse her to me now, but of what avail is his consent without Elsie’s? Ah, Lambert! you’re a lucky fellow, and it is shameful in me to wish it were otherwise when it makes Elsie happy.”
Ian now tried to act philosophically, but it would not do. In the upper room he gave the ladies a brief account of his adventure. He spoke in a cold, passionless manner, without looking once at Elsie. Of course, he did not reveal the motives that had influenced him. When he had finished he rose abruptly to leave.
“Don’t go yet,” said Mrs Ravenshaw, “there’s a bit of carpentering that I want done, and there is not a man left at the house to do it. The last gale loosened some of the shingles on the roof, and one of them slipped down to-day, so that the place leaks.—Go, Elsie, and show him the shingle near the attic window.”
Ian looked at Elsie, and his resolves vanished like smoke. He went meekly to the attic.
“You are much changed,” said Elsie, “since you went on this trip.”
“Changed? Not for the worse, I hope,” said Ian.
“Well, scarcely for the better,” returned the girl with a smile. “See, here is the window, and the loose shingle is close to the sill. You won’t require to go out on the roof. There is father’s tool-box. If you want anything some of us will be in the room below. You may call, or come down.”