“Come your ways in, sir,” she said, briskly, “and help me with my work.”
This I had been very glad to do, but that I knew her father was waiting for me above.
“Right willingly,” said I, “but Earlstoun himself desires my presence aloft in his chamber.”
She gave her shoulders a dainty little shrug in the foreign manner she had learned from her cousin Kate of Lochinvar.
“I think,” she said, “that the job at which ye would find my father can be managed without your assistance.”
So in the great chamber I abode very gratefully. And with the best will in the world I set myself to the fetching and carrying of dishes, the spreading of table-cloths fine as the driven snow. And all the time my heart beat fast within me. For I had never before been so near this maid of the great folk, nor so much as touched the robe that rustled about her, sweet and dainty.
And I do not deny (surely I may write it here) that the doing of these things afforded me many thrills of heart, the like of which I have not experienced ofttimes even on other and higher occasions.
And as I helped the Lady Mary, or pretended to help her rather, she continued to converse sweetly and comfortably to me. But all as it had been my sister Anna speaking—a thousand miles from any thought of love. Her eyes beneath the long dark lashes remained cool and quiet.
“I am glad,” she said, “that ye have played the man, and withstood your enemies even to the last extremity.”
“I could do no other,” I made answer.