Suddenly he looked pale, and his breath caught itself.
"I said Wee Elspeth, Wee Brown Elspeth.

She was only a child who played with me," I stammered, "when I was little." He pulled himself together almost instantly, though the color did not come back to his face at once and his voice was not steady for a few seconds.

But he laughed outright at himself.
"I beg your pardon," he apologized.

"I have been ill and am rather nervous.

I thought you said something you could not possibly have said.