"I was told to call him Uncle 'William,'" Elsie replied, "and the lady 'Mamma.'"
The girl laughed to herself heartily—a sort of suppressed chuckle, which could scarcely have been heard outside the door. "Well, that's a queer dodge! I suppose she made out that she was his sister; and she was dressed like a widow, and he's her husband all the time, which I know very well. She passes, then, as a widow with two children, does she?"
"I suppose so," Elsie replied, scarcely understanding what the girl was talking about.
"She's deep, she is," the girl continued; "and lots of money always, hasn't she? rings too, and bracelets, and all sorts of things."
"She had at first all those things, and I've seen a lot of money in her purse."
"Well, would you think she once lived in Stony Close along of us, and was only a poor girl like me, though always a dashing one, with a handsome face of her own?" the girl asked. "They think I'm so stupid, but I ain't quite so stupid as I look. I don't forget. I wasn't as old as you are when Lucy Murdoch was married, but I remember it. What were you doing on that road when she found you?" she asked suddenly.
"We had run away from home," Elsie replied falteringly, for at the thought of home she felt ready to cry.
"My goodness! you can't be the two children what was lost off a moor somewhere up Deeside."
"How did you know it?" Elsie cried eagerly. "Has mother been here?"
"Oh, no! It's posted up at the police station," the girl replied. "They always have all such things up there: a description of you, and everything. Your mother goes and tells the police, and they has it printed, and sends it about everywhere. Lucy Murdoch is after the reward, I'll be bound!"