," said he, "are you mad at anything?"

He gained at least this much, that she instantly stared at him.

"If you aren't angry with me, why should you act crusty?" he urged. "You
aren't half as pleasant as t'other day."

Eliza had not prepared herself for this free speaking, and her mind was
one that moved slowly.

"I must take the children home," she said. "I'm not angry. I wasn't
pleasant that I know of."

"You ought to be pleasant, any way; for I'm your best friend."

Eliza was not witty, and she really could not think of an answer to this
astonishing assertion. Again she looked at him in simple surprise.

"Well, yes, I am; although you don't know it. There isn't man round
Turriffs who has the least idea in the world where you are, for your
friends left you asleep when they came out with the old gentleman; when
I twigged how you got off I never told a word. Your father had been
seen" (here he winked) "near Dalhousie, wandering round! But they won't
find you unless I tell them, and I won't."

"Won't find me unless you tell them," repeated Eliza slowly, the utmost
astonishment in her tone. "Who?"

So vague and great was the wonder in her voice that he brought his eyes
to interrogate hers in sudden surprise. He saw only simple and strong
interest on the face of a simple and strong country girl. He had
expected a different response and a different expression.

He put his tongue in the side of his cheek with the air of an
uncontrolled boy who has played a trump-card in vain. "Say," said he,
"didn't you, though?"

"Didn't I?" said Eliza, and after a minute she said, "What?"

The young man looked at her and smiled. His smile suggested a cunning
recognition that she was deceiving him by pretended dulness.

At this Eliza looked excessively offended, and, with her head aloft,
began to push on the little sleigh with the baby in it.

"Beg your pardon, ma'am," he said with sudden humility, but with a
certain lingering in his voice as if he could not relinquish his former
idea as suddenly as he wished to appear to do. "I see I've made a
mistake."

Eliza hesitated in her onward movement. "But what was it you were going
to tell about me?" She spoke as if she had merely then remembered how
the conversation began.

His recantation was now complete. "Nothing; oh, nothing. T'was just my
fun, miss."

She surveyed him with earnest disapprobation.

"You're not a very sensible young man, I'm afraid."

She said this se