"I found him keeping master company in the library when I came downstairs this morning. Some one had brought him in the course of the night. He has been playing about on the moors a good part of the day--not, of course, without some one to look after him--and came to bed thoroughly tired out. What a dear little gentleman he is! Not a bit like many children I've known, but trying to make friends with everybody. I suppose, miss, that you won't have any objection to sharing this room with him to-night?"
Miss Baynard was startled. "But I have not seen Mr. Ellerslie yet," she objected. "When his message reached me, my only aim was to lose no time in getting here, and certainly I had no thought or intention of staying the night at Rockmount."
"But consider the lateness of the hour, miss; and you would hardly care, I should think, to have the child wakened in order to take him a long journey in the middle of the night."
"No, I certainly should not care for that. But when I left home I did not know that Evan had been found, and that I was going to see him; only that Mr. Ellerslie had a message of some kind for me which concerned him."
"Well, miss, master certainly expects you to stay till morning, and asked me hours ago to arrange accordingly. But most likely he will speak to you himself about it. And now, if you are ready, we will go downstairs."
But Nell could not go without another kiss. "He is not left alone while he sleeps," remarked Mrs. Dobson as they left the room; "my niece watches by him."
Downstairs Miss Baynard found the table laid for one person, and three minutes later a dainty little supper was brought in.
"When shall I see Mr. Ellerslie?" she asked, as the housekeeper was on the point of leaving the room.
"He will do himself the honor of waiting upon you in the course of half an hour."
It was very rarely that Nell's appetite failed her, and her long ride through the night air had, if anything, tended to sharpen it on the present occasion. She was a healthy English girl, who came of a healthy stock. She hardly knew that she had such things as nerves. She was neither hysterical, nor anæmic, nor introspective. No fin-de-siècle questions troubled her, because the century was yet in its infancy. She was a warm-hearted, warm-blooded creature, somewhat too impulsive perhaps, and too easily led away by her own generous instincts, and although an existence such as hers would nowadays be regarded as intolerably narrow and antiquated, yet was her life an exemplar of several of those minor if homely virtues with which so many of our up-to-date young women profess to be, and probably are, wholly unacquainted, and to regard with silent contempt. At any rate, Miss Baynard did full justice to her supper.