“No,” cried the girl rising to her feet. “No! no! If it was my last word, No! but I’m lone, lone in the house, and nobody to speak a word, and him with his flattering tongue. And oh, Kirsteen, if you will do anything for Jeanie, take her away.” “There is nothing I would not do for Jeanie,” said the elder sister, drawing her again to her arms. “My dear, there was one I saw in London before I came away.” “One you saw in London?” “That had his heart set upon my little sister, one I could serve with my life.” Jeanie’s agitated face was again covered with a burning blush. She withdrew herself from Kirsteen’s arm. “How can I tell who ye might see in London. It’s far, far from here.” “And maybe you never thought upon him, though his heart is set on you.” Jeanie turned from red to pale. She trembled, drawing herself from within her sister’s arm. “How can I tell who it is!” she said with an indignation which made her breathless, “when you never tell me? And there has never been any person--oh, never any person!” Her eyes were unquiet, seeking Kirsteen’s face, then withdrawn hurriedly not to meet her look; her hands were nervously clasping and unclasping in her lap. “Men,” she cried, “never care! I’ve read it in books and I know it’s true. They look at you and they speak and speak, and follow you about, and then when their time is come they go away, and you hear of them no more.” “Where have you learned all this, my poor little Jeanie,” said Kirsteen tenderly, “for ye seem to have knowledge of things that are beyond me?” “We learn the things that come our way,” said the girl. Her lips quivered, she was too much agitated to keep still. “Who would that be that you saw in London?” she asked with a forced, almost mocking smile. “He has been in India since then, and wherever there was fighting. His name is Major Gordon.” Kirsteen was conscious once more of the grudge in her heart at Gordon’s life and promotion, and the title she had given him; but she had no time for thought. For Jeanie rose up from her side in a passion of mingled feeling, anger and indignation and wistfulness and pain. “How dared he speak?” she cried. “How dared he name my name? Him! that came when I was but a bairn, and then rode away!” “Jeanie!” “Oh! I thought you understood,” cried Jeanie in a kind of frenzy. “I thought you would know, but you’ve aye had peace in your heart though ye think you’re so wise. There has nobody ever come and gone and made ye feel ye were a fool and unwomanly, and all that Marg’ret says. You have never known what it was to have your heart burnt like hot irons on it, and to scorn yourself, and feel that ye were the poorest thing on earth! To let a man think that, and then to see him ride away!”