"Look here," Elsie exclaimed, "I was weeding my bit of garden just under the kitchen window yesterday, and granny was sitting at the window, yet never saw me. She was reading some old letters, peering at them ever so hard through her spectacles, and talking to herself all the time. I expect she'd taken them out of mother's drawer, for she kept on looking round to see if any one was coming, and the best of it was I was watching all the time, and she never knew it. I saw her put one piece of paper down on the window-sill; she was saying very funny things to herself. 'Meg shouldn't have done it; she wouldn't take my advice. Ah! she'll rue it some day, I well believe,' and all on like that. Of course Meg means mother, and I was just wondering what it was she was talking about, when the wind blew quite a puff, and blew the piece of paper right on to my garden. I was just going to peep at it, and see what it was mother shouldn't have done. Then granny gets up, and goes peering all round to see where the paper's gone. She pulled all the cushions out of the chair, and turned up the matting, and looked over her letters ever so many times, and never noticed that it had blown out of the window. Presently I put my head through the window, and cried out, 'What's the matter, granny?' 'It's only I've dropped a little bit of paper, my dear,' she says to me. 'Just come and see if your young eyes can find it.' I went in and looked all round. Of course I didn't find it, and I was almost dying of laughing all the time."
"And have you got it now, Elsie?" Duncan asked, with wide eyes.
"Yes, I have," Elsie replied shortly; "and it's much more interesting than I thought it would be. It's about you and me."
"You and me?" echoed Duncan, who was of a matter-of-fact mind, and was always content with things just as he found them.
"Yes, stupid," said Elsie, crossly; "I always said mother favoured Robbie, and so she does. Why he has new things much oftener than you, and you're older too. Do you and me have boots and stockings for week-a-days? then why should Robbie? Don't you wonder why mother pets him so?"
"No," Duncan answered truthfully. "He's ever so much more babyish than me."
"Well, I say it's a shame," continued Elsie. "Look at this old sun-bonnet. Do you think I ought to wear such a thing as that? Didn't I always say I'd love a long feather like the ladies at the manse? and why shouldn't I have one, and a silk pelisse, and gloves upon my hands, and sweet little shoes for walking in?"
"Why, you'd be just a lady," Duncan said.
Elsie laughed a pleased soft laugh. "A lady, just a bonny lady," she said over to herself; "and wouldn't you love to be a little laird, Duncan?"
"I don't know what it's like, Elsie," Duncan said thoughtfully.