"Yes, dear, I'm coming," the lady called, in response to Elsie's message. "Don't walk so heavily, child!" she exclaimed, as Elsie ran downstairs. "I do not know what sort of manners they have taught you at that wretched school. Bring your hat down, dear; then we shall be all ready to start. You will see that the luggage is in readiness, Mrs. Alexander," she added to the woman, who was at that moment coming out of the room.
"Yes, ma'am, certainly. And the fly will be round at a quarter to ten punctually."
The lady thanked her very sweetly; she was leading Duncan by the hand. He had on his overcoat, and held his cap in his hand. Elsie concluded at once that this was because he had no jacket, and wondered why the lady had not provided one for him as well as clothes for her. The child was looking pale and heavy, and, Elsie thought, unhappy.
All the time they were at breakfast the lady and gentleman talked about the weather, and the long journey they were going to take, and such things, just, Elsie thought, as if Mrs. Alexander were outside listening. Elsie was considerably bewildered by the way they spoke of her and Duncan.
"Effie is not so much grown as I would have thought," the lady remarked to the gentleman, who seemed to be her brother.
"She is very much tanned, and her hands are as brown as berries," he replied.
"Ah! that is the natural result of such a country life," the lady returned. "She has perfect health."
"Donald does not look so well."
Elsie could make nothing of this strange conversation, but she supposed that the lady wished her and Duncan to be taken for some other children who were not there. Still this was puzzling, for where could the other children be?
Duncan ate very little, and seemed to take that more because he was frightened to leave what had been given him than for any hunger.