Conflicting emotions turned Bel's face scarlet as she advanced to meet
them; the most casual observer could not have failed to see that dismay
predominated, and Sandy Bruce was no casual observer; nothing escaped
his keen glance and keener intuition, and it was almost with a wicked
twinkle in his little hazel eyes that he said, still shaking off the
snow, stamping and puffing: "Eh, but ye were not lookin' for me,
teacher! The minister was sent for to go to old Elspie Breadalbane,
who's dyin' the morn; and I happened by as he was startin', an' he made
me promise to come i' his place; an' I picked up my friend Dalgetty here
a few miles back, wi' his horse flounderin' i' the drifts. Except for me
ye'd ha' had no board at all here to-day; so I hope ye'll give me no bad
welcome."
As he spoke he was studying her face, where the color came and went like
waves; not a thought in the girl's heart he did not read. "Poor little
lassie!" he was thinking to himself. "She's shaking in her shoes with
fear o' me. I'll not put her out. She's a dainty blossom of a girl.
What's kept her from being trodden down by these Wissan Bridge
racketers, I'd like to know.
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