Marg’ret was drying her eyes with her apron, and the sound of a sob, which she had not time to restrain, breathed into the air as Mary came upon her. “Oh, what a start ye gave me!” she answered as soon as she could recover her voice.
“Where is Kirsteen?” said Mary again. “You cannot conceal it from me,--where is she, and what have ye done with her? I will not tell upon you if you will explain it to me.”
“Kirsteen--what is all this stir about Kirsteen? She will just have gane up the hill or down the linn, or maybe she’ll have gone to see her old auntie at the toun.” Here Marg’ret betrayed herself by a heave of her solid shoulders that showed she was weeping, though she attempted with a broken laugh to conceal the fact “It’s no so many--diversions--the poor thing has.”
“You know where she is, Marg’ret--and ye’ve helped her to get away.”
“Me!” cried Marg’ret, with convulsive indignation; then she made a great effort to recover herself. “How should I ken where she is? Yes, I do that! She’s on her way home no doubt over the hillside--or down the loch coming back.”
“You’ll perhaps tell me then what you’re greetin’ for?”
“I have plenty of things to make me greet,” Marg’ret said; then after a pause--“Who said I was greetin’? I just canna be fashed with endless questions, and the haill family rantin’ and ravin’. Ye can go and find your sister for yourself.”
“And so I will--or at least I’ll satisfy myself,” said Mary with a determination which, though mild and quiet, was not less assured than the bold resolutions of Kirsteen. She went softly up stairs and proceeded to visit her sister’s room, where her keen perceptions soon showed her a certain amount of disarray. “She cannot have two gowns on her back, both the blue and the brown,” said Mary to herself. “She would never put on her spencer and bonnet to go out on the hillside. She would not have taken that little box with her that she keeps her treasures in and that aye stands by her bedside, had she only gone to see Auntie Eelen. She’s just gone away--and there is an end of it.” Mary stood reflecting for some time after she came to this decision. It did not distress her for the moment, but lit a spark of invention, a keener light than usual in her mild brown eyes that never had been full of light like Kirsteen’s. After a few minutes of consideration, she went to her own room and dressed herself carefully to go out--carefully but not too well, not with the spencer, the Sunday garment, which Kirsteen had taken. Mary put on an old cloth pelisse, and a brown bonnet which was not her best. “I am not going on a journey, I will only be about the doors,” she said to herself.