"I wish you wouldn't go, Elsie," he said to her presently.
"Most likely I shall," Elsie replied. "Mind you tell no tales. We must be quick home now. Come along; I shall have to think of ever so many things before we go, so you'll have plenty o' time to know whether you'll come or stay behind. Oh, I know I shall be a real lady, Duncan, an' have bonny clothes. Of course I shouldn't like fetching milk an' things when I'm a little lady born. Isn't it a shame, Duncan?"
"I dunno; I don't mind," Duncan then said.
"Give me the atlas," Elsie said; "I must get away an' have a goodish look at it when we get in, for you must be quite sure and take it back this afternoon."
But Elsie was not to "get away," for Mrs. MacDougall was waiting at the gate with a basket by her side.
"You've been loiterin' again," she cried briskly. "I've been waitin' this half-hour for you to take these beans down to the shop. Here's a bit o' bread you can eat along the road, an' you'll have just to make haste."
Elsie cast a defiant glance at the basket as she took it slowly up. She knew too well its destination. The neatly tied-up bundles of young well-grown beans lying on the fresh cabbage-leaves would be one of the attractions of the village shop. A day or two ago all the plums that were ripe had gone the same way, to the children's disgust. Mrs. MacDougall was a clever gardener, and had a ready sale for her small stock of produce. To-day Elsie and Duncan would get no dinner beyond the bit of bread. That was the result of their loitering. They had lost the valuable time through their talk over the letter.
But Elsie quite lost sight of the fact that she alone was responsible for losing it, and was very angry about it.
"I have quite decided," she said to Duncan. "This is what I'll do; to England I will go!"
(To be continued.)