He put it over her head as he spoke, and she blushed deeply, but did not refuse it.
“And, Elsie,” he added, in a deeper voice, drawing her nearer, “will you accept the hunter?”
“No,” answered Elsie, with such an arch smile; “but I would accept the schoolmaster if he were not going away to Canada for—”
She did not finish the sentence, because something shut her mouth.
“You’re taking a very long time to that shingle,” called Mrs Ravenshaw from below. “Have you got everything you want, Ian?”
“Yes,” replied Ian promptly; “I’ve got all that the world contains.”
“What’s that you say?”
“It will soon be done now, mother,” cried Elsie, breaking away with a soft laugh, and hurrying down-stairs.
She was right. A few minutes sufficed to put the loose shingle to rights, and then Ian descended to the room below.
“What a time you have been about it!” said Cora, with a suspicious glance at the young man’s face; “and how flushed you are! I had no idea that fixing a loose shingle was such hard work.”