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Jessy had been the original object of this gentleman's gallantry; but she met with a new and richer lover, and of course jilted him. Sally, who was in haste to be married, took undisguised pains to fix the ensign; and she thought she was sure of him. But to proceed with our story.
The question was decided it was too late to replace the letter now. She could not remember what they talked about during the next half-hour, but she took her part, until Nairn came in, and she contrived to have a word with him before leaving. Mrs. Nairn had gone out to give some instructions about supper, and when Evelyn followed her, Jessy turned to Nairn. "Mr.
Preston for some time years, I believe, and has at last chosen to break it off, and has used the Gibson girl I forget her name, as a cat's-paw, and made both her and herself the town's talk the butt for all the gossip of Hollingford? I remember when I was young there was a girl called Jilting Jessy. You'll have to watch over your young lady, or she will get some such name.
After supper Maria and her aunt went into the other side of the house, and Aunt Maria, who had been waxing fairly explosive, told the tale of poor little Jessy Ramsey going to school with no undergarments. "It's a shame!" said Eunice, who was herself nervous and easily aroused to indignation. She sat up straight and the hollows on her thin cheeks blazed, and her thin New England mouth tightened.
At first reading the letter, Fanny was pleased to find that her lover did not, like Jilting Jessy, change his mind the moment that his situation was altered; but, upon looking over it again, she could not help considering that such an undutiful son was not likely to make a very good husband; and she thought even that Wild Will seemed to be more and more in love with her than ever, from the spirit of opposition; for he had not been much attached to her, till his mother, as he said, set herself against the match.
"Was she?" responded Vane in a very casual manner; and Evelyn, for no reason that she was willing to recognize, was pleased. She had not been mistaken. Jessy Horsfield was in the automobile, and she had had a few moments in which to study Vane and his companion. The man's look and the girl's expression had struck her as significant; and her lips set in an ominously tight line as the car sped on.
Jessy Horsfield was about his own age; tall and slight in figure, with regular features, a rather colorless face, and eyes of a cold, light blue. There was, however, something striking in her appearance, and Vane was gratified by her graciousness to him.
The full moon was rising, and all at once all the girl's sweet light of youthful romance appeared again above her mental horizon. She felt that it would be almost heaven to walk with George Ramsey in that delicious moonlight, in the clear, frosty air, and take little Jessy Ramsey her gifts.
Nairn followed Jessy's retreating figure with distrustful eyes. "Weel," he drawled, "I'm thinking yon besom may have had a hand in the thing." A few minutes later Jessy, standing where the light of a big lamp streamed down upon her through the boughs of a leafless maple, bade Vane farewell at her brother's gate.
"There's nothing to cry about. Mind you keep them nice. Have you got a bureau-drawer you can put them in? those you haven't on? Don't cry. That's silly." "I 'ain't got no bureau," sobbed Jessy. "But " "Haven't any," corrected Maria. "Haven't any bureau-drawer," said the child. "But I got a box what somethin' " "That something," said Maria.
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