Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/194

 if the child was a girl, it was to be Delight, and if it was a boy it must be Ivan, after him. And Gran held to it though she thought it an unchristian sort of name but she used to say afterwards that it just suited me."

"It does. Now, then, tell me how you got to Heaslips."

She poured out the story of her quarrel with Jimmy, of Bastien's asking her inside his room a moment to see some trinkets he had brought from Africa, of Mrs. Jessop's finding them. (Here Kirke smiled grimly, remembering his own part in the discovery.) She told of the terrible night she had spent with the storm raging outside and Mrs. Jessop watching her door the long hours through, of her departure, of her meeting with the fishmonger, of her life at the Heaslips.

"Weel," commented Kirke, "you've managed to pack an extraordinary lot of experience into a brief while. We haven't been exactly dull in Brancepeth, either."

"Please, tell me about Jimmy?"

"Jimmy!" answered Kirke laconically, flicking the mare's shoulder neatly with the whip, so that she plunged forward. "Ah, he's gone. Went the day after you did."

"Gone!" She was aghast. She clutched her basket, fearing she would let it fall in her agitation. "Gone! But where? Why?"

Kirke grinned at her with amusement.

"Why, to sairch for you, to be sure. When Mrs. Jessop told in the morning that she'd sent you packing, Jim had already gone to his work, but as soon as he came in for his dinner he haird the news and he raised a fine to-do. He told the old geerl she was no better than a murderess to send a lass like you into a city all alone. Bastien ordered him to leave the house. Bastien and I had words, for he'd got it into his silly head that I had set Mrs. Jessop after you. Annie and Pearl were crying. The cook