But to that Wych Hazel answered nothing. The light riding skirt and jacket taken off, left her in green from head to foot. A daring colour for a brunette. But her own tint was so clear and the mossy shade of her dress was so well chosen, that the effect was extremely good. She looked like a wood nymph.

'Charming!—vraie Francaise'—said Madame, softly. 'That is a coquettish colour, my dear—are you of that character!'

'I am not sure that I know my own character yet,' Hazel said, laughing a little.

'Ah! that's dangerous. You don't know your own character?—then do you read other people's? Rollo—do you know him well?'

Mme. Lasalle was somewhat officiously but with great attention stroking into order one or two of Wych Hazel's curls which the riding had tossed.

'O, I dare say I shall make new discoveries, Mme. Lasalle.'

'He's the best creature in the world, everybody likes him; but—Oh dear! well I suppose all young men are so; they all like power. Did you notice that Miss Powder down stairs, that I introduced to you?'

'Hardly.'

'You had no time. She's a sweet creature. Oh, no, you hadn't time; but I want you to see her do-day. I have a little plan in my head.' And Mme. Lasalle left the curls and whispered with a serious face. 'She's the young lady Rollo paid so much devotion to before he went abroad. Everybody knew that; and I know he liked her; but then, you see, he went off, and nothing came of it; but it's a pity, for Mrs. Powder would have been much pleased, I know, with her large family of daughters—to be sure, she has married two of them now;—but what is worse,' (in a lower whisper) 'Annabella would have been pleased too; and she hasn't been pleased since. Now isn't it a shame?'

Wych Hazel considered the matter. With a curious feeling of disbelief in her mind, which (without in the least knowing where it came from) found its way to her face.

'I wonder she would tell of it!'

'My dear, she didn't; only one sees, one can't help it. One sees a great many disagreeable things, but it's no use to think about it. It was nothing very bad in Rollo, you know; he has that way with him, of seeming to like people; but it don't mean anything, except that he does like them. O, I know that he liked her—and I am going to make you accomplice in a little plot of mine. I won't tell you now—by and by, when you have seen Annabella a little more. I would have asked Dane to join our party to-day, but I didn't dare—I was afraid he would guess what I was at. Now, my dear, I won't keep you up here any longer. Pardon me, you are charming! If Dane sees much of you, I am afraid my fine scheming will do Annabella no good!' And shaking her head gaily, the lady ran down stairs followed by Wych Hazel.

There was a great muster then of fishing-rods and baskets; and everybody being provided, the company was marshalled forth, each lady being under the care of a gentleman, who carried her basket and rod. Wych Hazel found herself without knowing how or why, leading the march with Mr. Lasalle. He proved rather a sober companion. A sensible man, but thoroughly devoted to business, his French extraction seemed to have brought him no inheritance of grace or liveliness—unless Mme. Lasalle had acted as an absorbent and usurped it at all. He was polite, and gave good host-like attention to his fair little companion; but it was as well for her that the walk presently sufficed of itself for her entertainment. They went first across several fields, where the sun beat down freely on all their heads, and divers fences gave play to the active and useful qualities of the gentlemen. Suddenly from the last field they went down a grassy descent—and found themselves at the side of a brook.

Well, it was a good-sized brook, overhung with a fine bordering of trees that shaded and sheltered it. The ladies cried 'lovely!'—and so it was, after the sunshiny fields on a warm June morning. But this was not the fishing ground. The brook must be followed up to the woods whence it came. And soon the banks became higher and broken, the ascent steeper, the trees closer; no longer a mere fringe or veil to the fostering waters. Fields were forgotten; the brook grew wild and lively, and following its course became a matter of some difficulty. Sometimes there was no edge of footing beside the stream; they must take to the stones and rocks which broke its way, or cross it by fallen trees, and recross again. The woods made a thicket of wilderness and stillness and green beauty and shady sweetness, invaded just now by an inroad of fashion and society.

Like a sprite Wych Hazel led the van, making her way over rocks and through vine tangles and across the water, after a fashion attainable by no other feet. Mr. Lasalle had no trouble but to follow; had not even the task of hearing exclamations or being entertained; for Wych Hazel had by no means acquired that amiable habit of society which is full dress upon all occasions. To-day she was like a child out of school in her gleeful enjoyment, only very quiet. So she flitted on through the mazes of the wood and the brook, making deep remarks to herself over its dark pools, perching herself on a rock for a backward look at Miss Powder, and then darting on. The party in the rear, struggling after, eyed her in the distance with various feelings.

'The flower she trod on dipped and rose, 'And turned to look at her!—'

So quoted Metastasio Simms, who played the part of cavalier to Mme. Lasalle, and of poet and troubadour in general.

'There steals over me, Madame,' said another cavalier, 'the fairy tale remembrance of a marvellous bird with green plumage—which flitting along before the traveller did thereby allure him to his captivity. Are you pledge for Miss Kennedy's good faith?'

'I am pledged for nothing. I advise you to take care of yourself, Mr. May—I have no doubt she is dangerous. Haven't we come far enough? Do run down the line, and tell them all to stop where they are; we must not be too close upon one another. And when you come back I will reward you with another commission.'

While Mr. Simms was gone down the brook, however, Mme. Lasalle permitted the pair next below to pass her and go up to stop Mr. Lasalle and Wych Hazel from proceeding any further. So it came to pass that the highest group on the stream was composed of four instead of two; and the additional two were Stuart Nightingale and Miss Annabella Powder. Now the fishing rods were put into the ladies' hands; now the cavaliers attentively supplied their hooks with what was supposed to be bait, and performing afterwards the same office for their own, the brook presently had the appearance, or would to a bird's-eye view, of a brook in toils.

'What do we expect to catch, sir?' asked Miss Kennedy of Mr. Lasalle, as she watched his motions and dropped her own line in imitation.

'If I were a member of the firm, I should say, "all hearts," mademoiselle, without doubt.'

'For shame, Mr. Lasalle!' cried Miss Powder.

'Fish are made to be caught, mademoiselle,' said Mr. Lasalle, throwing his own line again.

'For shame, Mr. Lasalle! How many hearts do you think one lady wishes to catch?'

'No limit that I know'—said the gentleman serenely.

'Well, but—are there no other fish in this brook?' said Wych Hazel.

'Miss Kennedy makes small account of the first kind,' said Stuart, laughing. 'That sport is old already. There must be difficulty to give interest, Lasalle, you know.'

'You gentlemen are complimentary,' said Miss Powder.

'Upon my word, I said what I thought,' replied the first gentleman.

'Miss Kennedy,' called Stuart out from his post down the brook; 'should compliments be true or false, to be compliments? Miss Powder is too indignant to be judge in the case.'

'I do not see how false ones can compliment,' said the lady in green, much intent upon her line. 'There!—Mr. Lasalle—is that what you call a bite?'

It was no bite.

'But people need not know they are false?' pursued Stuart.

'Well,' said Wych Hazel, looking down at him, 'you were talking of what things are—not what they seem.'

'You may observe,' said Mr. Lasalle, 'that most people find it amusing to get bites—if only they don't know there's no fish at the end of them.' Mr. Lasalle spoke feelingly, for he had just hooked and drawn up what proved to be a bunch of weeds.

'But where there is,' said Wych hazel. 'There! Mr. Lasalle, I have got your fish!' and swung up a glittering trophy high over the gentleman's head.

'The first fish caught, I'll wager!' cried Stuart; and he looked at his watch. 'Twenty-seven minutes past twelve. Was that skill or fortune, Miss Kennedy?'

'Neither, sir,' observed Mr. Simms, who had wandered that way in search of a hook. 'There was no hope of Miss Kennedy's descending to the bed of the brook—what could the fish do but come to her? Happy trout!'

'I am afraid he feels very much like a fish out of water, nevertheless,' said Wych Hazel, eyeing her prize and her line with a demure face.

Alas! it was the beginning and ending of their good fortune for some time. Mr. Simms went back to his place; Mr. Lasalle disengaged the fish and rearranged the bait; and all four fell to work, or to watching, with renewed animation; but in vain. The rods kept their angle of suspension, unless when a tired arm moved up or down; the fishers' eyes gazed at the lines; the water went running by with a dance and a laugh; the fish laughed too, perhaps; the anglers did not. There were spicy wood smells, soft wood flutter and flap of leaves, stealing and playing sunbeams among the leaves and the tree stems; but there was too much Society around the brook, and nobody heeded all these things.

'Well, what success?' said Mme. Lasalle coming up after a while. 'What have you caught? One little fish! Poor little thing! Is that all? Well, it's luncheon time. Lasalle, I wish you'd go and see that everybody is happy at the lower end of the line; and I'll do your fishing meanwhile. Oh, Simms has almost killed me! Stuart! do take charge of that basket, will you?'

Mr. Nightingale receiving the basket from the hands of a servant, inquired of his aunt what he was to do with it.

'Mercy! open it and give us all something—I am as hungry as I can be. What have you all been doing that you haven't caught more fish? My dear,' (to Wych Hazel), 'that is all you will get till we go home; we came out to work to-day.'

And Stuart coming up, relieved her of her fishing rod, found a pleasant seat on a mossy stone, and opened his basket.

'As the fish won't bite—Miss Kennedy, will you?'

'If you please,' she said, taking a new view from her new position. 'How beautiful everything is to-day! Certainly I have learned something about brooks.'

'And something about fishing?'

'Not much.'

'The best thing about fishing,' said Stuart, after serving the other ladies and coming back to her, 'is that it gives one an appetite.'

'Oh, then you have not studied the brook.'

'Certainly not,' said he, laughing, 'or only as one studies a dictionary—to see what one can get out of it. Please tell me, what did you?'

'New thoughts,' she said. 'And new fancies. And shadows, and colours. I forgot all about the fish sometimes.'

'You are a philosopher?' said Stuart, inquisitively.

'Probably. Don't I look like one?'

He laughed again, with an unequivocal compliment in his bright eyes. He was a handsome fellow, and a gentleman from head to foot. So far at least as manners can make it.

'I do not judge from appearances. Do you care to know what I judge from?'

'Your judgment cannot have been worth much just now,' said Wych Hazel, shaking her head. 'But I am willing to hear what led it astray.'

'What led it,—not astray,—was your calm declining of all but true words of service.'

'O, had you gone back there?' she said. 'I think it takes very little philosophy to decline what one does not want.'

'Evidently. But how came you not to want what everybody else wants? There is the philosophy, you see. If you bring all things down to bare truth, you will be Diogenes in his tub presently.'

' "Bare truth!" '—said the girl. 'How people say that, as if truth were only a lay figure!'

'But think how disagreeable truth would often be, if it were not draped! Could you stand it? I beg pardon! I mean, not you, but other people!'

'I have stood it pretty often,' said the girl with a grave gesture of her head.

'Impossible! But did you believe that it was truth?'

'Too self-evident to be doubted!'

Stuart laughed, again with a very unfeigned tribute of pleasure or admiration in his face. 'It is a disagreeable truth,' said he, 'that that is not a good sandwich. Permit me to supply its place with something else. Here is cake, and nothing beside that I can see; will you have a piece of cake? It is said to be a feminine taste.'

'No, not any cake,' said Wych Hazel, her eyes searching the brook shadows. 'But I will have another sandwich, Mr. Nightingale—if there is one. At least, if there is more than one!'

'Ah,' said Stuart, 'you shall have it, and you shall not know the state of the basket. Those two people have so much to talk about, they have no time to eat!' And he took another sandwich himself.

'Is that old woman in the cottage a friend of yours?'

'I never saw her before the other day.'

'She lost no time! A little garrulous, isn't she? I made acquaintance there one day when I went in to light a cigar. I have a mind to ask you to give me the distinction I am ready to claim, of being your oldest acquaintance in these parts. I think I shall claim it yet. Let me look at the state of your hook.'

They dropped their lines in the brook again, but no fish were caught, and fish might cleverly have run away with their bait several times without being found out. The conversation was lively for some time. Stuart had sense and was amusing, and had roamed about the world enough to have a great deal to say. The pair were not agreeably interrupted after half an hour by Mme. Lasalle, who discovered that Wych Hazel was fishing where she could get nothing, and brought her down the brook to the close neighbourhood of Miss Powder, where Stuart's attentions had to be divided. But so the two girls had a chance to see something of each other; a chance which Miss Powder improved with manifest satisfaction. She was a wax-Madonna sort of beauty, with a sweet face, fair, pure, placid, but either somewhat impassive or quite self-contained in its character. Her figure was good, her few words showed her not wanting in sense or breeding.

Wych Hazel was by this time far enough out of the reserve of first meetings to let the exhilarating June air and sunshine do their work, and her voice, never raised beyond a pretty note, was ready with laugh and word and repartee. Now studying her hook, now questioning Miss Powder, now answering Mr. Nightingale, and then seriously devoted to her fishing,—she shewed the absolute sport of her young joyous nature, a thing charming in itself, even without so piquant a setting. It was no great wonder that a gentleman now and then took ground on the opposite side of the brook, and directed his eyes as if the fish would only come from that point of the shore where Miss Kennedy sat. This happened more and more, as by degrees the line of fishers was broken and the unskilled or unsuccessful, tired of watching the water, gave it up, and strolled up the brook to see who had better luck. And so few fish were the result of the day's sport, so many of the company had nothing better to do than to look at what somebody else was doing, that by degrees nearly the whole party were gathered around that spot where Wych Hazel had caught the first fish. They were relieved, perhaps, that the effort was over; perhaps the prospect of going home to dinner was encouraging; certainly the spirits of all the party were greatly enlivened by something. Mme. Lasalle's ears heard the pleasant sound of voices in full chorus of speech and laughter all the way home.

It was rather late before Madame's carriage could be ordered to take Miss Kennedy home. Mme. Lasalle herself attended her, and would suffer the attendance of no one else. A young moon was shedding a delicious light on the Lollard poplars past which Wych Hazel had cantered in the morning. It was an hour to be still an enjoy, and think; but did Mme. Lasalle ever think? She ceased not to talk. And Wych Hazel, after her day of caressing and petting and admiration, how was she? She had caught the first fish; she had been queen of the feast; she had given the first toast, she had received the first honours of every eye and ear in the company. Her host and hostess had lavished all kindness on her; ladies had smiled; and gentlemen, yes, six gentlemen had come down the steps to put her into the carriage. But if she wanted to think, Mme. Lasalle gave her no chance.

'Where shall you go to church on Sunday, my dear?' she asked on the way.

'Dr. Maryland's, of course, ma'am.'

'O, that's where we all go, of course; delightful creature that he is. And yet he rebukes every single individual thing that one does. Dear Dr. Maryland, he's so good, he don't see what is going in his own family. Do you know, it makes me unhappy when I think of it. But, my dear, that's the very thing I wanted to talk to you about,—Miss Powder, you've seen her, aren't you pleased with her?'

'She was very pleasant to me.'

'She is that to everybody, and her mother is a very fine woman. Now, my dear, you will be at your pleasure, seeing your friends at Chickaree—couldn't you contrive to bring Dane and Annabella together again?'

'I?' said Wych Hazel, surprised. 'Why, I do not know how to contrive things for myself.'

'O! I do not mean anything complicated—that never does well; but you could quite naturally, you know, give them opportunities of seeing each other pleasantly. I think if he saw her he might come round again and take up his old fancy; and you being a stranger, you know, might do it without the least difficulty or gaucherie; they would meet quite on neutral ground, for nobody would suspect that you were au fait of our country complications. I dare not stir, you see; that was the reason I could not invite Dane to our fishing to-day. I knew it wouldn't do. This was my plot for you, that I told you about—what do you think? It would be doing a kind thing, and hurting nobody, at any rate.'

It did come to Miss Kennedy's mind that Mr. Rollo was quite capable of 'contriving' his own situations; but she answered only, 'Would it, ma'am?'

'It couldn't do any harm, you know. And you are the very person to do it. And then, if your plan should succeed, it would have another good effect, to put Primrose Maryland in safety.'

If it had been daylight instead of moonlight, Mme. Lasalle might have seen the young face at her side knit itself into a very perplexed state indeed at these words; and the more Hazel thought the deeper she got.

'It would be quite natural, you know,' Mme. Lasalle went on after a pause, 'that a girl like her should be fascinated, and Rollo, without meaning to do any harm, would give her cause enough. He is fascinating you know, but he is too cool by half. Dr. Maryland, of course, never would see or understand what was going on; and Primrose is so sweet and inexperienced. I know her sister was very uneasy about it before Rollo went away—so long ago. I fancy his going was partly thanks to her care.'

Closer and closer came the dark brows together, until by degrees her extremely fancy-free thoughts took a turn. 'What a fuss! what was Mme. Lasalle talking about? "Fascinating," forsooth!—she should like to see anybody that could fascinate her.' And so the whole thing grew ludicrous, and she laughed, her soft ringing, girlish laugh.

'What a pirate he must be, Mme. Lasalle. A true Dane! Do many of that sort live on shore?'

'Take care!' said the lady in a different tone—'dangers that are slighted are the first to be run into.'

The carriage stopped at that moment, so Wych Hazel had no need to reply. She watched Mme. Lasalle drive off, took a comprehensive view of the moon for a minute, and then pirouetting round on the tips of her toes she flashed into the sitting room and favoured Mr. Falkirk with a courtesy profound enough for her grandmother.

CHAPTER XVII.

ENCHANTED GROUND.

Mr. Falkirk was sitting with the paper in the tea-room at Chickaree. A good lamplight gave him every temptation to lose himself in its manifold pages, but somehow the temptation failed. Mr. Falkirk had been walking the floor for part of the evening; going then to one of the long windows and throwing it open—there were no mosquitoes at Chickaree—to look out at the moonlight, or perhaps to listen for the sound of wheels; but the Summer stillness was only marked by the song of insects and the light stir of leaves, and Mr. Falkirk went back to his musings. His hand caressed his chin sometimes, in slow and moody deliberation. No doubt the change was a serious one, from the quiet, unquestioned care of a schoolgirl, to the guardianship of a bright, full-winged butterfly of humanity. That does not half express it. For to the airy uncertainty of butterfly motions, his ward certainly added the intense activities of a humming bird, and the jealous temper, without the useful proclivities, of a honey bee. I think Mr. Falkirk likened her to all these in his meditations; and his brows knit themselves into a persistent frown as he walked. For all that, when the wheels of Mme. Lasalle's carriage grated on the gravel sweep, Mr. Falkirk sat down to the table and the newspaper, and as Wych Hazel opened the door and walked in, Mr. Falkirk looked up sedately. Then his face unbent, a very little, but he waited for her to speak.

'Good evening, my dear Mr. Falkirk!' Mr. Falkirk was not morose, but he made little answer beyond a smile.

'I perceive you have been pining for my return, sir,' said Miss Hazel advancing airily; 'but why you do not revive when I come, that puzzles my small wits. Are you overjoyed to see me safe home, Mr. Falkirk?'

'I wait to be certified of the fact, Miss Hazel.'

She came to a low seat before him, silently crossing her arms on her lap.

'What are the developments of fortune, to-day, Miss Hazel?' said her guardian with a relaxing face.

'A number of gentlemen, sir, and one fish. Which I caught. There were some ladies, too, but they came less in my way.'

'Um! So I understand you catch all that come in your way?'

'Only the fish, sir. But you should have heard the people thereupon! One cried, "Happy fish!"—and another, "Happy Miss Kennedy!"—And yet I suppose we had both of us known more ecstatic moments.'

'And what is your impression of fishing parties, judging from this specimen?'

'O, I was amused, of course. But the brook was delicious. You know, it was all new to me, Mr. Falkirk.'

'Like the fairy-tale you wanted?' said her guardian smiling.

She smiled, too, but her answer was only a sweet, 'Are you glad to see me here, sir?'

'I am glad if you are glad, Miss Hazel. I did not suspect that any genie or enchanter had got hold of you yet.'

'Only "if," ' she said to herself. 'I wonder how it feels to have anybody care for one very much!' But no word of that came out.

'Are you glad to get home, Miss Hazel?'

'Yes, sir. The drive was rather stupid.'

'Did you come alone?'

'I had Madame in person, and with her all the unquiet ghosts of the neighbourhood, I should judge,'—added Miss Hazel thoughtfully slipping her bracelets up and down.

'Scandal, eh?' said Mr. Falkirk. 'And yet the drive was stupid!'

'Incredible, sir, is it not? But you see, I had been ever so long face to face with the brook!—'

'I do not know that I am fond of scandal,' said Mr. Falkirk; 'and yet I should like to know what particular variety of that favourite dish Madame chose to serve you with. And in the mean time, to relieve the dryness of the subject, Miss Hazel, will you give me a cup of tea?'

She sprang up, and began to busy herself at once with her home duties, but did not immediately answer his question. Until she came round to his side, bringing the fragrant and steaming cup of tea, and then apparently thoughts were too much for her, and she broke forth:

'Why don't people marry each other if they want to, Mr. Falkirk?' she said, standing still to put the question. 'And if they don't want to, why do not other people let them alone?'

Mr. Falkirk shot one of his glances at the questioner from under his dark brows, and sipped his tea.

'There might be a variety of answers given to your first query, Miss Hazel. People that want to marry each other are proverbially subject to hindrances—from the days of fairy tales down to our own.'

'They always do it in fairy tales, however.'

'They very often do it in real life,' said Mr. Falkirk gravely.

'Well, sir?—then why cannot they be left to take care of themselves, either way? It is such fudge!' she said, walking back to her place and energetically dropping sugar in her own cup.

'Who is Mme. Lasalle trying to take care of?'

'Me, last, sir. Warning me that things laughed at become dangerous. In which case I shall lead a tolerably risky life.'

'Who is Mme. Lasalle warning you against?' demanded Mr. Falkirk hastily.

'My dear sir, how excited you are over poor Mme. Lasalle! I presumed to laugh at some of her fancy sketches, and then of course she rapped me over the knuckles. Or meant it!' said Miss Hazel, slightly lifting her eyebrows.

'But I observe you do not answer me, my dear.'

'No, sir,—if you will allow me to use my own judgment, I think I had better not. Let me have your cup, Mr. Falkirk please, and I'll put more sugar in this time.'

Mr. Falkirk finished his tea and made no more observations. He was silent and thoughtful,—moody, his ward might have fancied him,—while the tea-things were cleared away, and afterwards pored over the newspaper and did not read it. At last, when silence had reigned some time, he lifted his head up and turned round to where Wych Hazel sat.

'I have been considering a difficulty, Miss Hazel; will you help me out?'

'Gladly, sir, if I can.' She had been sitting in musing idleness, going over the day perhaps, for now and then her lips curled and parted, with various expressions.

'We have come, you are aware, Miss Hazel, in the course of our progress, to the Enchanted Region;—where things are not what they seem; jewels lie hid in the soil for the finding, and treasures are at the top of the hill; but the conditions of success may be the stopping of the ears, you know; and lovely ladies by the way may turn out to be deadly enchantresses. How, in this time of dangers and possibilities, can my wisdom avail for your inexperience? that is my question. Can you tell me?'

'Truly sir,' she answered with laugh, 'to get yourself out of a difficulty, you get me in! My inexperience is totally in the dark as to what your wisdom means.'

'Precisely,' said Mr. Falkirk; 'so how shall we do? How shall I take care of you?'

'You have always known how, sir,' she answered with a grateful flash of her brown eyes.

'When I had only a little Wych Hazel to take care of, and the care depended on myself,' Mr. Falkirk said, with just an indication of a sigh stifled somewhere. 'Now I can't get along without your cooeperation, my dear.'

'Am I so much harder to manage than of old, sir? That speaks ill for me.'

'My dear, I believe I remarked that we are upon Enchanted ground. It does not speak ill for you, that you may not know a bewitched pumpkin from a good honest piece of carriage maker's work.'

'No, sir. Is it the pumpkin variety for which Mr. Rollo is to find mice?'

'I have taken care of your affairs at least,' said Mr. Falkirk gravely. 'There is nothing about them that is not sound. I wish other people did not know it so well!' he muttered.

'It is only poor little me,' said Wych Hazel. 'Never mind, sir,—in fairy tales one always comes out somehow. But I am sure I ought to be "sound" too, if care would do it.'

'Will you help me, Hazel?' said Mr. Falkirk, bending towards her and speaking her name as in the old childish days.

'Gladly, sir,—if you will shew me how. And if it is not too hard,' she said with a pretty look, well answering to her words.

'I wish you had a mother!' said Mr. Falkirk abruptly. And he turned back to the table, and for a little while that was all the answer he made; while Wych Hazel sat waiting. But then he began again.

'As I remarked before, Miss Hazel, we are come upon bewitched ground in our search after fortune. You spoke of two classes of people a while ago, if you remember—people that want to marry each other and people that don't.'

'Yes sir. Which are the most of?'

'Being upon bewitched ground, it might happen to you as to others—mind, not this year, perhaps, nor next; but it might happen—that you should find yourself in one of these two, as you intimate, large classes. Suppose it; could you, having no mother, put confidence in an old guardian?'

Very grave, very gentle Mr. Falkirk's manner and tone were; considerate of her, and very humble concerning himself.

'Why, Sir!'—she looked at him, the roses waking up in her cheeks as she caught his meaning more fully. Then her eyes fell again, and she said softly—'How do you mean, Mr. Falkirk? There is nobody in the world whom I trust as I do you.'

'I have never a doubt of that, my dear. But to make the trust avail you or me, practically, could you let me know the state of affairs?'

She moved restlessly in her chair, drawing a long breath or two.

'You say such strange things, sir. I do assure you, Mr. Falkirk, I am ensconced in the very middle of one of those classes. And that not the dangerous one,' she added with a laugh, though the flushes came very frankly. 'If that is what you are afraid of.'

'You are in about as dangerous a class as any I know,' said Mr. Falkirk, dryly; 'the class of people that everybody wants to marry. Miss Hazel, you are known to be the possessor of a very large propriety.'

'Am I, sir? And is that what makes me so attractive? I thought that there must be some explanation of so sweeping a compliment from your lips.'

A provoked little smile came upon Mr. Falkirk's lips, but they grew grave again.

'So, Miss Hazel, how are you to know the false magician from the true knight?'

'He must be a poor knight who would leave the trouble on my hands,' said the girl, with her young ideas strong upon her. 'If he does not prove himself, Mr. Falkirk, "I'll none of him!" '

'How shall a man prove to you that he does not want Chickaree and your money, my dear?'

'Instead of me. I think—I should know,' she answered slowly, so much absorbed in the question that she almost forgot its personal bearing. 'Mr. Falkirk, false and true cannot be just alike?'

'Remember that in both cases so much is true. The desire to win your favour, and therefore the effort to please, are undoubted.'

'Mr. Falkirk, you must be the assayer! Suppose you tell me now about all these people here, to begin with. I have not seen much that reminded me of magic yet,' she said with a curl of her lips.

'What people?' said Mr. Falkirk, hastily.

'What people? Oh, I forgot—you were not at Mme. Lasalle's to- day. But I thought you knew everybody here before we came.'

'I shall not be with you everywhere,' Mr. Falkirk went on; 'that would suit neither me nor you. The safe plan, Miss Hazel, would be, when you think anybody is seeking your good graces, to ask me whether he has gained mine. I will conclude nothing of your views in the matter from any such confidence. But I will ask you to trust me thus far,—and afterwards.'

'You mean, sir, whether—he has gained mine or not?'

Mr. Falkirk answered this with one of his rare smiles, shrewd and sweet, benignant, and yet with a play of something like mirth in the dark, overhung eyes. It was a look which recognized all the difficulty of the situation and the subject, for both parties.

'I am afraid the thing is unmanageable, my dear,' he said at last. 'You will rush up the hill without stopping your ears, after some fancied "golden water" at the top; and I shall come after and find you turned into some stone or other. And then you will object very much to being picked up and put in my pocket. I see it all before me.'

She laughed a little, but shyly; not quite at ease upon the subject even with him. Then rose up, gathering on her arm the light wraps she had thrown down when she came in.

'I must have been always a great deal of trouble!' she said. 'But I do not want to give you more. Mr. Falkirk, wont you kiss me and say good night to me, as you used to do in old times? That is better than any number of fastenings to your pocket, to keep me from jumping out.'

Once it had been his habit, as she said; now long disused. He did not at once answer; he, too, was gathering up a paper or two and a book from the table. But then he came where she stood, and taking her hand stooped and kissed her forehead. He did not then say good night; he kissed her and went. And the barring and bolting and locking up for the night were done with a more hurried step than usual.

CHAPTER XVIII.

COURT IN THE WOODS.

'Miss Wych—my dear—all in brown?' said Mrs. Bywank doubtfully, as her young charge was arraying herself one morning for the woodcraft. Some rain and some matters of business had delayed the occasion, and it was a good week since the fishing party.

'Harmonious, isn't it?' said Hazel.

'But, my dear—it looks—so sombre!' said Mrs. Bywank.

'Sombre?' said the girl, facing round upon her with such tinges of cheek and sparkles of eye that Mrs. Bywank laughed, too, and gave in.

'If it puts Mr. Falkirk to sleep, I can wake him up,' said Wych Hazel, busy with her loopings. 'And as for Mr. Rollo'—

'Mr. Rollo!—is he to be of the party?' said the housekeeper.

'I suppose,—really,—he is the party,' said Wych Hazel. 'Mr. Falkirk and I scarcely deserve so festive a name by ourselves.'

'And what were you going to say to Mr. Rollo?'

'O nothing much. He may go to sleep if he chooses—and can,' added Miss Wych, for the moment looking her name. But the old housekeeper looked troubled.

'My dear,' she began—'I wouldn't play off any of my pranks upon Mr. Rollo, if I were you.'

'What is the matter with Mr. Rollo, that his life must be insured?' said Wych, gravely confronting her old friend with such a face that Mrs. Bywank was again betrayed into an unwilling laugh. But she returned to the charge.

'I wouldn't, Miss Wych! Gentlemen don't understand such things.'

'I do not think Mr. Rollo seems dull,' said the girl, with a face of grave reflection. 'Now, Byo—what are you afraid I shall do?' she went on, suddenly changing her tone, and laying both hands on her old friend's shoulders.

'Why, nothing, Miss Wych, dear!—I mean,'—Mrs. Bywank hesitated.

'You mean a great deal, I see,' said Wych Hazel. 'But do not you see, Byo, I cannot hang out false colours? There is no sort of use in my pretending not to be wild, because I am.'

Mrs. Bywank looked up in the young face,—loving and anxious.

'Miss Wych,' she said, 'what men of sense disapprove, young ladies in general had better not do.'

'O, I cannot follow you there,' said Wych Hazel. 'Suppose, for instance, Mr. Rollo (I presume you mean him by "men of sense") took a kink against my brown dress?'

Not very likely, Mrs. Bywank thought, as she looked at the figure before her. If Hazel had been a wood nymph a week ago she was surely the loveliest of brown fairies to-day. But still the old housekeeper sighed.

'My dear, I know the world,' she began.

'And I don't,' said Hazel. 'I am so glad! Never fear, Byo, for to-day at least I have got Mr. Falkirk between me and mischief. And there he is this minute, wanting his breakfast.'

But to judge by the housekeeper's face as she looked after her young mistress down the stairs, that barrier was not quite all that could be wished. However, if impenetrability were enough for a barrier, Mr. Falkirk could have met any inquisitions that morning.

He came to breakfast as usual; but this morning breakfast simply meant business. He ate his toast and read his newspaper. With the ending of breakfast came Rollo. And the party presently issued forth into the woods which were to be the scene of the day's work.

The woods of Chickaree were old and fine. For many years undressed and neglected, they had come at last to a rather rampant state of anarchy and misrule. Feebler, though perhaps not less promising members were oppressed by the overtopping growth of the stronger; there was an upstart crowd of young wood; and the best intentioned trees were hurting each other's efforts, because of want of room. It was a lovely wilderness into which the party plunged, and the June morning sat in the tops of the trees and laughed down at them. Human nature could hardly help laughing back in return, so utterly joyous were sun and sky, birds and insects and trees altogether. They went first to the wilderness through which Rollo and Wych Hazel had made their way on foot one morning; lying near to the house and in the immediate region of its owner's going and coming. Herein were great white oaks lifting their heads into greater silver pines. Here were superb hemlocks threatened by a usurping growth of young deciduous trees. There were dogwoods throwing themselves across everything; and groups of maples and beeches struggling with each other. As yet the wild growth was in many instances beautiful; the damage it was doing was beyond the reach of any but an experienced eye. Here and there a cross in white chalk upon the trunk of a tree was to be seen.

The three walked slowly down through this leafy wild till they were lost in it.

'Now,' said Rollo to the little lady in brown, 'what do you think ought to be done here?'

'I should like to make ways through al this, if I could. True wildwood ways, I mean,—that one must look for and hardly find; with here and there a great clearance that should seem to have made itself. What sort of a track would a hurricane make here, for instance?'

'A hurricane!' said Mr. Falkirk, facing round upon his ward.

'Rather indiscriminate in its action,' observed Rollo.

'The clearance a hurricane makes in a forest,' Mr. Falkirk went on, 'is generally in the tree tops. The ground is left a wreck.'

'Any system of clearing that I know, brings the trees to the ground,' said Wych Hazel. 'But I mean—I like the woods dearly as they are, Mr. Falkirk; but if I meddled with them, then I would have something to shew for it. I would have thoughts instead of the trees, and vistas full of visions. If anything is cut here, it ought to be in a broad hurricane track right down to the West, where

"The wind shall seek them vainly, and the sun Gaze on the vacant space for centuries."

I do not like fussing with such woods.'

'What thought is expressed by a wide system of devastation?' asked Rollo, facing her.

'Power. Do not you like power, Mr. Rollo?' she said with a demure arch of her eyebrows.

Rollo bit his lips furtively but vigorously, and then demanded to know if Napoleon was her favourite character in history.

'No,' said Wych Hazel—'he did not know what to do with his power when he had it. A very common mistake, Mr. Rollo, you will find.'

'Don't make it,' said he, smiling.

'What are you talking about?' said Mr. Falkirk, turning round upon them. 'Miss Hazel, we are here in obedience to your wishes. What do you propose to do, now we are here? Do you know what needs doing?'

'What does, Mr. Falkirk?—in your opinion?' She came close to him, linking her hands upon his arm. 'Tell me first, and then I will tell you.'

'There must be a great many trees cut, Miss Hazel; they have grown up to crowd upon each other very mischievously. And a large quantity of saplings and underbrush must be cleared away. You see where I have begun to mark trees for the axe.'

'Truly, sir, I do! Mr. Falkirk, that bent oak is a beauty.'

'It will never make a fine tree. And the oak beside it will.'

'Well—it is to be congratulated,' said Miss Hazel, pensively. 'But what is to become of my poor woods, at that rate? There is an elm with a branch too many on one side; and a birch keeping house lovingly with a hemlock. If "woodcraft" means only such line-and-rule decimation, Mr. Falkirk—'

'I don't know what you mean by woodcraft, my dear. I mean, taking care of the woods.'

'And that means,' added Rollo, 'an intimate knowledge of their natures, and an affectionate care for their interests; a sympathetic, loving, watchful insight and forecast.'

Wych Hazel gave him a little nod of approval.

'Don't you see, sir?' she went on eagerly. 'You must have a bent tree now and then, because it is twice as interesting as the straight ones. And if you cut down all the bushes, Mr. Falkirk, you will clear me out,' she added, laughing up in his face.

'You might grant her so much, Mr. Falkirk,' said the other gentleman. 'A bent tree now and then; and all her namesakes. Certainly they ought to stand.'

M. Falkirk's answer was to take a few steps to a large white pine tree, and make a huge dash of white chalk upon its broad bole. Then he stepped back to look again. Action was more in his way than discussion to-day. Rollo began to get into the spirit of the thing; and suggested and pointed out here and there what ought to come down and what ought to be left, and the reasons, with a quick, clear insight and decision to which Mr. Falkirk invariably assented, and almost invariably in silence. Deeper and deeper into the wood they worked their way; where the shade lay dark upon the ferns and the air was cool and spicy with fragrance, and then where the sunlight came down and played at the trees' foot. For a while Wych Hazel kept pace with their steps; advising, countermanding, putting in her word generally. But by degrees she quitted the marking work, and began to flit about by herself; plunging her little fingers deep into moss beds, mimicking the squirrels, and—after her old fashion—breaking out from time to time into scraps of song. Now Mr. Falkirk's ears were delighted with the ringing chorus:

'Wooed and married and a'— 'Wooed and married and a'; 'Wasna she vera weel aff 'That was wooed, and married, and a'?

Then a complete hush seemed to betoken sudden recollection on the singer's part; that was quite too private and confidential a matter to be trilled out at the top of one's voice. Presently again, slow and clear like the tinkle of a streamlet down the rocks, came the words of Aileen Asthore:

'Even the way winds 'Come to my cave and sigh; they often bring 'Rose leaves upon their wing, 'To strew 'Over my earth, and leaves of violet blue; 'In sooth, leaves of all kinds.'

It was a very sweet kind of telegraphing; but the two gentlemen, deep in the merits of a burly red oak, took no notice how suddenly the song broke off, nor that none other came after it. And when at last they bethought themselves of the young lady truant, and stopped to listen where she might be, they heard a murmur of tongues very different indeed from the silvery tones of Wych Hazel. And somewhat hastily retracing their steps, came presently into distant view if an undoubted little court, holden easily in the woods.

Miss Kennedy, uplifted on a grey rock, was the centre thereof, and around her some six or eight gentlemen paid their devoirs in most courtier-like fashion. On the moss at her feet lay Mr. Kingsland, with no less a companion than Mr. Simms—black whiskers, white Venetian collar and all. Three or four others, whom Mr. Falkirk did not know, were lounging and laughing and paying attentions of unmistakable reality; while Stuart Nightingale, who had come up on horseback, stood nearest of all, leaning against the rock, his hat off, his horse's bridle upon his arm.

The consequence of this revelation was a temporary suspension of woodcraft, properly so called; another sort of craft, it may possibly have occurred to the actors therein, coming into requisition. Mr. Falkirk at once went forward and joined the group around the rock. More slowly Rollo's movements also in time brought him there. They could see, as they came nearer, a fine example of the power of feminine adaptation. Was this the girl to whom Mr. Falkirk had discoursed the other night? How swiftly and easily she was taking her place! And though a little downcast and blushing now and then, beneath the subtle power of eyes and tongue, yet evidently all the while gathering up the reins and learning to drive her four in hand. Over the two at her feet she was openingly queening it already; over the others—what did Wych Hazel see concerning them, that curled her lips in their soft lines of mischief? Some exquisite hot-house flowers lay in her lap, and a delicate little basket by her side held strawberries—red, white and black—such as the neglected Chickaree gardens had never seen.

'Why, there is your venerable guardian, Miss Kennedy!' drawled out Mr. Kingsland, as Mr. Falkirk came in sight. 'How charming! Patriarchal. And who is that beyond?—Dane Rollo!—as I am a Christian!'

'Evidently then, somebody else,' said Mr. May. 'Who is it, Nightingale?'

But Mr. Nightingale knew his business better than to reply; and Dane presently spoke for himself. It was the Dane of the Mountain House, courteous and careless; no fellow of these gentlemen, nor yet at all like Mr. Falkirk, a guard upon them. Mr. Falkirk's brows had unmistakeably drawn together at sight of the new comers; Rollo stood on the edge of the group, indifferent and at ease, after his wonted fashion in general society.

'You are making almost your first acquaintance with these beautiful woods?' Stuart remarked, to the little mistress of them, breaking the lull that Mr. Falkirk's arrival had produced.

'How old is your own, sir?' said Mr. Falkirk.

'I—really, I don't know—I have shot here a little; before you came, you know; when it was all waste ground.'

'I remember getting lost in them once, when I was a child,' said Wych Hazel,—'I think that was my first acquaintance. It was just before we went away. And Mr. Falkirk found me and carried me home. Do you remember, sir?'

But Mr. Falkirk was oblivious of such passages of memory in the present company. He gave no token of hearing. Instead, he cruelly asked Mr. Kingsland how farming got on this summer? And Mr. Kingsland, by way of returning good for evil, gave Mr. Falkirk a shower of reports and statistics which might have been true—they were so unhesitating. Through which rain of facts Mr. Falkirk could just catch the sound of words from Mr. May, the sense of which fell upon Miss Kennedy's ear alone. Until Rollo at her side broke the course of things.

'I beg your pardon! Miss Kennedy,' (in an aside) 'I see Primrose and her father coming. Shall I stop them?'

'Why, of course!' she said, springing to her feet, 'What a question!'

The two recumbent gentlemen rose at once.

'Do you always wear wildwood tints, Miss Kennedy?' asked Mr. Simms, looking up admiringly at the slim figure. 'I thought the other day that green was matchless, but to-day—'

'Yes,' said Wych Hazel, 'but if you would just please stand out of my way, and let me jump down. I want to see Dr. Maryland.'

The gentleman laughed and retreated, and disregarding the half dozen offered hands, Hazel sprang from her rock and stood out a step or two, shading her eyes and looking down the woodland, where Rollo had disappeared to meet the approaching carriage. The thicket was so close just here that the carriage road though not far off was invisible. Down below Rollo had caught a glimpse of the well known little green buggy creeping up the hill; and in another few minutes its occupants appeared coming through the trees. Wych Hazel had hold of their hands almost before they had sight of her.

'I thought you had given me up, Dr. Maryland,' she said, 'and were never coming to see me at all!'

'Two days,' said the Doctor benignly, 'two fair days my dear, since we took breakfast together. I have not been very delinquent. Though it seems I am not the first here. Good morning, Mr. Kingsland!—how do you do, Mr. Burr?—how do you do, Mr. Sutphen?—Mr. May? Are you holding an assembly here, my dear?' And by that time Dr. Maryland had worked round to Mr. Falkirk; and the hands of the two gentlemen closed in an earnest prolonged clasp; after the approved method gentlemen have of expressing their estimation of each other.

'Miss Kennedy is pretty sure to "hold" whoever comes near her, sir,' said Mr. Burr.

'I can certify that the "assembly" is quite powerless, Doctor— if it will be any relief to your mind,' said Mr. Kingsland. While Hazel, with Prim's hand in hers, was eagerly speaking her pleasure.

'What are you doing?' said Primrose under her breath and looking in some astonishment at the gathering.

'O, nothing—talking,—they wanted to know how I got home,' said Wych, an amused look betraying itself. Then quitting Primrose, she went forward a little to receive the farewell addresses of several gentlemen who preferred to see Miss Kennedy alone. The group began to clear away. Prim's eye watched her, in her graceful, pretty self-possession, as she met and returned the parting salutation; and then went over by some instinct to where another eye was watching her too, with a contented sparkle in its intentness. That was only a second, though. Rollo had no mind to have all the world know what he was thinking about; and even as her glance found him, his turned away. The strangers being at last disposed of, those remaining began a slow procession towards the house. But a parting word of Mr. Nightingale's must be noted.

'Any chance for a ride to the wood to-morrow?' he said, with tones so modulated that he thought his words safe. And she answered:

'O, my horses have not come. There will be little riding for me yet a while.'

'And these are the Chickaree woods?' said Dr. Maryland, as they walked on. 'How beautiful they are! Are you very happy, Hazel, in the hope of being the mistress of all this?'

'Why I thought—I call myself the mistress now, sir. Is it an uncertainty dependent on my good behaviour?' she said with a laugh.

'You know you are not of age, my dear; but I suppose Mr. Falkirk gives you the essentials of dominion. Do you feel at home yet?'

'Very much! You know, sir, I have just a little remembrance of the old time—when mamma was here—to begin with. But how heedless I am!' she said, abruptly putting the little basket which had been swinging from her hand into the hands of Dr. Maryland. 'There, sir,—will you take some refreshment by the way?' Then turning to Primrose, Miss Kennedy laid the fragrant weight of hot-house flowers upon her.

'Are these from your garden?' said Primrose, somewhat bewildered. While Dr. Maryland, putting his fingers without scruple in among the black and white strawberries, asked in an approving tone of voice: 'Have you been picking these yourself, my dear?'

'I—picked them up, sir,' said Hazel with the laugh in her voice. 'Not off the vines, however. They are hothouse flowers,' she answered to Primrose. 'When my houses are in order you shall have them every day.'

'They are very good,' said Dr. Maryland gravely, eating away. 'Where did you get them, my dear?'

'Mr. May brought them, sir,' said the girl, looking down now, and walking straight on.

'Mr. May!' echoed Dr. Maryland. 'How comes Mr. May to be bringing you strawberries? And those flowers too?' glancing over at Primrose's full hands.

'No, sir, Mr. Burr brought the flowers.'

'You are a fearful man for asking questions, sir,' said Rollo, with a flash of fun in his face.

'Questions?' said the doctor, picking out the black strawberries abstractedly,—'I've a right to ask her questions. The strawberries are good!—but I wish Mr. May had not brought them.'

'So would he, if he knew you were eating them, sir.'

'I've eaten enough of them,' said Dr. Maryland, seeming to recollect himself. 'They are very good; they are the finest strawberries I have seen.' And he handed the basket to Mr. Falkirk, who immediately passed it over to Rollo. Rollo balanced the basket on his fingers and carried it so, but put never a finger inside.

'I am afraid your head will be turned, Hazel, my dear,' said Dr. Maryland, 'if the adulation has begun so soon. What will you do when you are a little better known?'

'Ah!' said Hazel, with an indescribable intonation, 'ask Mr. Falkirk that, Dr. Maryland. Poor Mr. Falkirk! he is learning every day of his life what it is to know me "a little better!" '

'I can imagine that,' said Dr. Maryland, quite gravely. 'My dear, what a beautiful old house you have!'

The June day, however, was so alluring that they could not make up their minds to go inside. On the basket chairs in the low verandah they sat down, and looked and talked. Primrose did not talk much—she was quiet; nor Mr. Falkirk—he was taciturn; the burden of talk was chiefly borne by Wych Hazel and the Doctor. In a genial, enjoying, sympathising mood, Dr. Maryland came out in a way uncommon for him! asked questions about the woods, the property, the old house; and delighted himself in the beauty that was abroad in earth and sky.

'My dear,' he said at last to Wych Hazel, 'you have all that this world can give you. What are you going to do with it?'

'Have I?' she said, rather wistfully. 'I thought I was looking for something more. What could I do with it, sir? You know Mr. Falkirk manages everything as well as can be, now.'

'Are you looking for something more?' said Dr. Maryland, tenderly. 'What more are you looking for, Hazel?'

'Suppose I should tell you I do not quite know, myself, sir?'

'I should say, my dear, the best thing would be to find out.'

'I shall know when I find it,' said the girl. 'If I find it.'

' "To him that hath shall be given!" One of the best ways, Hazel, to find more is to make the best use of what we have.'

The girl left her seat, and kneeling down by Dr. Maryland, laid her hand on his shoulder.

'I mean,' she said, dropping her voice so that only the doctor could hear, 'not more of what people call much; but something, where I have nothing. To belong to somebody—to have somebody belong to me.'

'Ah, my dear,' said the doctor, wistfully, 'I am afraid Primrose wouldn't do.'

'I have wanted her ever since she took me in out of the rain, and did not wonder how I got wet,' said Hazel laughing but dropping her voice again.

'If you had her, my dear, you would then want something or somebody else.'

'Maybe you do not understand me, sir,' she said, a little eager to be understood, and pouring out confidences in a way as rare with her as it was complimentary to her hearer. 'I am not complaining of anybody. I know Mr. Falkirk is very fond of me—but he likes to keep me off at a respectful distance. Only a few nights ago, I was feeling particularly good, for me, and rather lonely, and I just asked him to kiss me for good night— and it made him so glum that he has hardly opened his lips to me ever since!' said Wych Hazel in an aggrieved voice.

'Perhaps Mr. Falkirk has something upon his mind, my dear!' said Dr. Maryland, with raised eyebrows and an uncommon expression of fun playing about the lines of his mouth. 'It is not always safe to conclude that coincident facts have a relation of cause and effect.'

'No—' said the girl, 'I suppose not. But I stood there all by myself and heard him turn the keys and rattle the bolts—and then I ran upstairs to find Mrs. Bywank,—and of course she couldn't speak for a toothache. And then I felt as if there was nobody in all the world—in all my world—but me!'

Dr. Maryland looked tenderly upon the young girl beside him, yet uncomprehendingly. Probably his peculiar masculine nature furnished him with no clue to her essentially feminine views of things.

'I dare say, my dear,' he said,—'I dare say! The best cure for such a state of feeling hat I know, would be to begin living for other people. You will find the world grow populous very soon. And one other cure,'—he added, his eye going away from Wych Hazel into an abstracted gaze towards the outer world;— 'when you can say, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." '

The little hand upon his shoulder stirred,—was lifted, and laid down again. Somehow she comprehended him better than he did her. Then with a sudden motion Hazel took off a luminous bracelet—one of the three she always wore, and laid it across Dr. Maryland's hand.

'Did mamma ever shew you that, sir?' she said. 'She had it made just for me. And then my wrist was so small that it would go twice round.'

It was a string of twelve stones, all different, all cut and set alike; each long parallelogram fitting rather closely to the next on either side; the hues—opaque, translucent, clouded—flashed and gleamed with every imaginable variation of colour and shade. The doctor looked at it in silence. Then spoke.

'What did she mean by it, Hazel, my dear? I do not catch the interpretation.'

She turned it a little in his hand, until the light fell on the gold framing beneath the gems, and Dr. Maryland could read the fine graven tracery:—"The first, a jasper."

'Ah!' he exclaimed with new interest, 'I see.' And he took up the chain of stones and turned it over and over, rather passed it through his fingers like a rosary, studying the stones and murmuring the names of them.

' "The wall of the city had twelve foundations," ' he said at last, giving the chain back, with a look of light and love combined; ' "and in the wall were twelve gates, and each several gate was one pearl; and the streets were gold, like unto transparent glass, and nothing that defileth shall by any means enter there, but those that are washed in the blood of the Lamb." I like that, my dear.'

His look made all the application his words did not. Presently he rose up and asked Wych Hazel if he might go into her library? A book was there, he thought, that he wanted to look at. Hazel guided him in, but then he dismissed her and she went back to Primrose on the verandah. Slowly back,—softly fingering her bright stones, soberly thinking to herself the motto upon the clasp:—"In hope of eternal life."

'What were you talking to papa about?' said Primrose, putting a loving hand into Wych Hazel's. The two other gentlemen were speaking together at a little distance. 'I thought you looked troubled; but I could not hear, for Duke was talking to me.'

'Dr. Maryland should have been the troubled one, part of the time,' said Hazel, bringing her other hand upon Prim's, 'for I asked him to give you to me.'

'What would become of him and Duke?' said Primrose smiling.

'Really, Mr. Rollo did not enter into my calculations!' said Wych Hazel, coming back with a rebound into her everyday self. 'Does he require much time and care bestowed upon him?'

'Don't you think all men do?'

'I do not know all men,' said Wych Hazel. 'Mr. Falkirk does not get it. But does Mr. Rollo live at your house?'

'Why of course, when he's here. He always did, you know. And O, Duke helps me. It is twice as easy to take care of papa, when I have him in the house, too. But Hazel, I am going to get you to help me,—in another way—if I can.'

'What way?' said Hazel. 'Then if Mr. Rollo is so helpful, he might take care of Dr. Maryland altogether, and you could come to take care of me.'

Primrose laughed.

'O men cannot get along as women can—don't you know that?' she said. 'No, I want you for my Sunday school. What's the matter?'"

These last words were caused by a diversion of the speaker's thoughts. For she had noticed, while speaking, that a man had come in haste to the place where the two gentlemen were standing; and that after a very few words Mr. Falkirk had thrown on his hat and gone down the grassy slope with the messenger; while Rollo had turned as suddenly and was coming towards them.

CHAPTER XIX.

SELF-CONTROL.

Rollo came up with the grave, business look of one who has serious matters on hand.

'A messenger has come,' he said, speaking to Wych Hazel, 'to say that one of the men has met with an accident.'

He could see how the shock struck her, but she made no exclamation, only her hands met in a tight clasp as they had done in the woods' fire. She faced him silently, waiting more words.

'I don't know yet how bad it is. I am going to see; and I will come back to you by and by.'

'Where?—and who?' she asked.

'In the wood-cutting. It is Reo.' He spoke as a man who speaks unwillingly.

Hazel gave a little cry at that, and turning suddenly flew into the house. The next thing was the flutter of her light foot outside among the trees. But, overtaken the next minute, she was stopped by a hand on her arm and held fast. However Dane spoke very gently.

'Miss Hazel!—you had better not go yourself.'

'I am going,' she said, struggling to disengage herself. 'Mr. Rollo!—'

'Stop,' he said gently and steadily. 'Miss Hazel—I shall not let you go.'

In her excitement she hardly took in more than the mere fact of his words, and dropping everything she had in her hand, Hazel took hold of his fingers and began to loosen them with her own, which had a good deal of will in them, of they were small. The immediate effect was to secure the imprisonment of both her hands in a clasp that was stronger than her's. I hardly think Rollo disliked it, for he smiled a little as he spoke:

'Listen,' he said,—'Miss Hazel, I shall not let you go down yonder. I will bring you news as soon as I can—but you must stay here with Rosy. Don't you see?' he added very gently, as he turned about and walked toward the house with her, putting one little hand on his arm while other hand still held it fast,—'don't you see, you could do nothing just yet? And I take this upon myself—I shall not let you go. You must stay here and take care of Rosy, till I can come back to you.'

'I will not,' she said, stopping short again. 'I will go! It is my right! Where should a woman be? And—Oh!' she cried with a change of tone, 'it is Reo!—And he will want things—and he will want me!'

'Not yet,' said Rollo; 'it is not time for either yet. He shall want nothing, I promise you, that he ought to have. But you must be good and stay with Rosy.'

He spoke as a brother might speak to a little sister of whom he was very fond, or—brothers do not often take just that tone. Primrose, looking on, knew very well what it meant. Wych Hazel was in far too much commotion of mind to discern anything. She had yielded to superior strength,—which indeed she could not gracefully resist; and then there came over her heart such a flood of grief, that for the last few steps she was quite passive; though giving no sign but the quiver that touched her mouth, and went and came again. But at Rollo's last words she drew herself up defiantly.

'Do you expect to stand here and hold me all day?' she said.

'No?' he said gravely, now meeting her look,—'I expect you to have self-control and womanly patience, and to let me go and do my part, until it is time for you to do yours. Will you?'

'I shall do what I think best. The question is none of yours, Mr. Rollo. Self-control!—I have a little!' she said under her breath.

'Do you mean to keep me here,' he said gravely and quietly, 'when I may be so much wanted elsewhere? You would be in the way there, but I am needed. Still, you are my first care. Must I stay here to take care of you? or will you promise me to be good and wait quietly with Primrose, until I bring you word?'

His eye went to Primrose as he ended, in a mute appeal for help. And Prim came near and laid her hand softly on Wych Hazel's shoulder.

'Do, dear Hazel!' she said. 'Duke knows; you may trust him.'

It was indescribable the way she freed herself from them both, as if to be touched, now, was beyond the bounds of endurance. Prim's words Hazel utterly ignored, but something in the other's claimed attention.

'Go! Go!'—she said hurriedly. 'Go and do your part!—If you had been content with doing that at first, we should have had no trouble.' She wrapped her arms round one of the light verandah pillars, and leaning her head against it gave look nor word more.

Rollo staid for none, but dashed away down the slope and was lost in the woods. Primrose stood near Wych Hazel, very much at a loss indeed; but too troubled to be still.

'Dear Hazel!' she ventured, in a very soft voice—'don't feel so! What is the matter?'

'Did you not hear?'

'Yes; but Hazel dear, you know hardly anything yet; there may be very little to be troubled about. The accident may be very slight, for all you know. I always think it is best to wait and see; and then have your strength ready to work with.'

'My strength has been extremely useful to-day.'

'What to you mean, dear?' said Primrose, softly endeavouring to coax the hands and arms away from the verandah pillar. 'Look here—look up and be yourself again. Maybe there is very little the matter. Wait and see.'

'Wait!'—Hazel repeated. 'People talk as if waiting was such easy work!'

'I never said it was easy,' said Primrose gently. 'But some people have to wait all their lives.' There was the very essence of patience in the intonation.

'I should think their lives would be short.'

Primrose sighed a little and was silent. Perhaps she thought that those who had little occasion to practise the grace were unreasonable. But I think she only remembered that the one near her was very unpractised.

'Forgive me—I do not mean to—be—' the girl faltered out, the tremor coming back to her voice. 'But Reo!—' And with that, pain and disappointment and chagrin joined forces; and quitting her pillar, Hazel dropped down by one of the great wicker chairs, and laying her head there burst into a passion of weeping that almost made Primrose wish for the hard-edged calm again.

So she stood passively by until the storm was spent; and Dr. Maryland having satisfied his book quest, came out again, awakening to the fact that it was time he and Primrose were jogging homeward. Primrose took him aside and explained the situation of affairs, after which Dr. Maryland, too, forthwith betook himself down the slope in the direction where Mr. Falkirk and Rollo had disappeared. After a little interval of further suspense he was seen coming back again. He reported that Reo was not much hurt; had been a good deal bruised, and the accident had threatened to be serious; but after all no great harm was done. Primrose nevertheless begged that her father would go home without her; she could come with Duke, she said.

Dr. Maryland's wagon had not been brought round, however, when a very different vehicle appeared, climbing the steep; and Primrose proclaimed that Mrs. Powder was at hand. The carriage drew up before the verandah, and from it descended the ex- Governor's lady, and two young ones—Miss Annabella and another. Mrs. Powder was a stately lady, large and dignified;— those two things do not always go together, but they did in her case. She was extremely gracious to all the members of the little group she found gathered to receive her. Then, as Dr. Maryland was going, she sat down to talk to him about some business which engaged her. So the two older persons were a little removed from the rest. Miss Annabella did nothing but look handsome and calm, after her wont; but her younger sister was of different mettle.

'And so this is Chickaree?' she said, gazing up and down and about, at the old house and its surroundings. 'What a delightful old place! And are you the mistress of it, really— without being married, you know? How splendid! I always think that's the worst of being married—you lose your liberty, you know, and there's always somebody to bother you; but to have a grand place, and house, and all that, and to be mistress, and have no master!—I declare,' Miss Josephine cried, throwing up hands and eyes, 'it's as good as a fairy tale. And much better, for it don't all vanish in smoke in a minute. Oh, don't you feel like a fairy princess in the midst of all your magnificence? You look like it, too!' added the young lady, surveying the person of her hostess. 'Ain't you proud?'

Hazel's spent and past excitement had left her rather pale and grave, so that she was doing the honours with an extra touch of stateliness. Self-control was trying its best now, for she had not the least mind that anybody should know it had ever been shaken. So she ordered lunch to be served out there on the verandah, and made Dr. Maryland wait for it, and talked to Miss Annabella; and now gave Miss Josephine a cool 'Proud! Is that what you call it?' which left nothing to be desired.

'I thought they said she was so brilliant?' remarked Miss Annabella, in an aside to Primrose. 'But I suppose that is with gentlemen.'

'What do you call it?' the younger Miss Powder went on. 'I should be proud—awfully—if I had such a house and all. I'd take my time about being married. Wouldn't you? Don't you think it is best to put off being married as long as you can?— not till it's too late, you know. The fun's all over then— don't you think so?—except the house, and carriage, and establishment, and giving entertainments, and all that. And you have got it all already. Oh, I should think you would make the men dance round?'

Wych Hazel had followed this rush of new ideas with a degree of amazement, which, before she knew, culminated in a merry laugh. But she was grave again immediately.

'Should you?' she said. 'How do you do it?'

'Don't you know how?' said the other girl, with an expression of insinuation, fun and daring which it is difficult to give on paper. She was a pretty, bright girl, too. The question would have been impudent if it had not been comical. 'I know you do!' she went on. 'You've a good battery. I'd like to see you do it. I always do. It's such fun! All men are good for,' she exclaimed next, with a curl on her lip, 'except to carry one's parasol and things. Do you know Kitty Fisher?'

'Not even by name,' said Miss Kennedy, studying her guest as an entirely new species.

'She's a splendid girl. She's coming to Moscheloo next week; there'll be goings on then. People are so stupid here in the country, they want somebody to wake them up. Kitty's awfully jolly. Oh, what a lovely old house! Take me in and let me see it, won't you? Oh, what a lovely hall! What a place for a German! Oh, you'll give a German, won't you?'

'I do not know what I shall give, yet, Miss Powder.'

'I'm not Miss Powder! Annabella wouldn't thank you. She'd like me to be Miss Powder, though. Tell me; don't you think people could get along just as well if they weren't married? Now there's my mother wants to marry us off as quick as she can; and every other girl's mother is just the same. What do they do it for? Oh, you've got a dreadful old guardian, haven't you? Does he want you to get married? Ain't it hateful to have a guardian? I should think it would be awfully poky.'

'Did you ever see Mr. Falkirk?' said Hazel gravely. Somehow this girl's talk made her extremely reticent. But that made little difference to Miss "Phinny." The next question was:

'Do you know Stephen Kingsland?'

'Yes.'

'Don't you admire him? Ain't he a catch, for somebody! But you know Stuart Nightingale, don't you?'

Again Miss Kennedy said yes.

'Like him?'

'Do you?' said Hazel.

'I think he's splendid! He's so amusing; and he's a splendid dancer. It's fun to dance with Stuart Nightingale. I don't very often get him, though. But you didn't answer me—do you like him?'

'I am not much in the habit of answering people,' said Hazel frankly. 'You will find that out if you see enough of me.'

'Ain't you? Why?' asked the young lady ingenuously.

'Because I do not like to be questioned. You perceive no fault can be found with my reasons,' she added with a smile.

'Then you do like him, I know. People are never afraid to tell their dislikes. Why!—is that'—

A broken-off inquiry here was never finished, the answer to it in fact being furnished by the coming near of Rollo whose distant appearance had first suggested it. He came up on the verandah, shook hands with Mrs. Powder, but gave the other ladies one of what Wych Hazel used to know, as his Spanish greetings; courteous and distant equally. Dr. Maryland had before this finished his colloquy with the ex-Governor's lady and departed. Rollo now took his place and talked to Mrs. Powder, while for a few minutes Annabella used her eyes, as much as she could, and Miss Phinny ceased to use her tongue.

Wych Hazel never knew by what instinct she worked her way through that first bit of time. Eager for more tidings, sure that her eagerness must not appear, she held her breath for one minute—then rose up cool and quiet, the young mistress of Chickaree.

'Yes,' she said, answering Phinny's half spoken words, 'it is Mr. Rollo. And of course he has had no luncheon.'

She summoned Dingee with a blast of her silver whistle (there were few bells at Chickaree), ordered up hot chocolate and fresh tea and relays of fruit and cream; and herself stepped forward to see them served.

'There are croquettes, Mr. Rollo,' she said,—'and Dingee will bring you cold beef. And with what may I fill your cup?'

Primrose, through her scattering talk with Annabella, watched, as she could, these two people who were so strange to her simplicity. Here was Wych Hazel, a little while ago on the floor in a passion of tears; now, calm, self-possessed, and graceful. Primrose had been very uncertain how she would meet Rollo the next time; with a kind of wonder she heard her friendly offer of chocolate and observed Rollo's perfectly cool and matter-of-course acceptance of it from her hands. It was something beyond Primrose. She waited to see how it would be when Mrs. Powder went away.

But a great many thoughts went in among the sugar that Primrose never guessed. Wych Hazel was anxiously waiting to have the good report about Reo confirmed, and would not shew her anxiety. But what did Prim mean by people's waiting all their lives? What did they wait for? Well, these two people needn't wait any longer for a meeting—that was one thing. That affair was well off her hands. Why hadn't Mr. Falkirk returned too?—Staying with Reo, perhaps, until she came, and she could not go, and could not ask. And now, of course, the Powders would just stay on, supplementing their lunch to bear Mr. Rollo company. Perhaps, though, it was just as well they were here when he came. Because she knew she ought to be furiously angry with him, and somehow that was never a role she could play. Before excitement reached that point, she always got hurt, or troubled, or timid—and just now she was too tired. If he told her to sit there and count her fingers, she should hardly have spirit to resist. How ever had he dared to take hold of said fingers as he had done!—and with that came a sudden rush to Miss Kennedy's cheeks which made her wish she could go for hot chocolate instead of Dingee. He had hindered her by sheer force. Gentle force,—and gentlemanlike,—but none the less true to its name. There was one of the peculiar advantages of being a woman! Or a girl. She should be stronger in full womanhood. But oh, she was woman enough to take care of Reo!—and if Reo were dying, and Mr. Rollo did not want to have her go, he would sit calmly there and want more chocolate!—She glanced at him from under the long eyelashes, and another flush (of impatience this time) tinged her cheeks. But she did not stint him in sugar, nor make any mistakes with the cream. Then her eyes went away over the long slope, where birds and sunshine held their revels. Wait?—what did people wait for, 'all their lives?' And why did Mr. Maryland's last words come up to her again? And why did the aforesaid eyelashes grow wet? She was all shaken out of herself by the morning's work. She would send Dingee to inquire!—and not wait. But then if this strange man should order him back—and Dingee could not be relied on to go silently. No, she could not have a scene before all these people. And a wee bit of a sigh, well kept in hand, went to the compounding of Miss Phinny's third cup. 'Womanly patience?'—how was hers to be grown, yet? And what did he know about it, any way? She should like to see him thoroughly thwarted, for once, and see how much manly patience he had on hand. And another swift glance went his way; but with anxiety rousing up again, the glance lingered, and was more inquiring than she meant it should be.

Luncheon was really over at last. The Governor's lady said some gracious words of welcome to her young hostess, invited her to a dinner-party a few days off, and having ordered up her carriage, swept away with her daughters. What will be now? thought Primrose.

Rollo had put the ladies into their carriage, and stood long enough to let them get out of observation behind the woods; then he came up on the verandah and going round the table sat down beside Wych Hazel. Primrose saw—did the other?—the easy motion which was universal with him, the fine figure, the frank, bright face. Primrose did not mean to watch, but she saw it all, and the look with which he sat down. It was not that of a man about to make an apology, neither had it any smile of attempted ingratiation. It was rather a sweet, confidential look of inquiry, which, however, went down through the depths of the brown eyes he was looking into, and rifled them of all their secrets. It was a sort of look before which a woman's eyes fall.

'Reo is not seriously hurt,' he said softly, when this point had been reached.

She bowed her head. 'So Dr. Maryland brought word. At last the hope.'

'He is only a good deal bruised. No bones broken, nor any other harm done. It might have been worse; and so the messenger who first came did not alarm us for nothing. One of the woodcutters had felled a large tree without giving due warning, or Reo had not heeded the warning; he was caught under the tree. But he escaped very well. He is at his own house, where he will have to keep his bed some days, I fancy.'

Another mute gesture. Perhaps the girl was not sure of herself after all the morning's work, and had no mind to risk another admonition about self-control.

'I am very glad,' she said gravely, after a minute.

'I am very glad. Mr. Falkirk has sprained his ankle,' he went on a little lower.

'Mr. Falkirk!'—

Hazel sprang up,—then as instantly sat down again. There should be no more strength used about her that day!

'Helping Reo?' she said.

'Not directly. He made a misstep, I think, among the confusion of branches cut and uncut with which the ground was encumbered; slipped off one of them, perhaps; somehow gave his foot a twist,—and there he is. That was the cause of my long delay.' He spoke, watching the little lady all the while.

'Why did he not come here?—it was nearer,' she said with some accent of impatience.

'No,'—very gently—'we were nearer his cottage. I proposed bringing him,—where I was sure you would wish for him,—here, at once; but Mr. Falkirk laid his commands on me and on all concerned so absolutely that there was no choice. We carried him to his cottage; for he could not walk.'

'Just like Mr. Falkirk!'—then the impatience died away in a soft tone of pity. 'Not able to walk!'—

'He will be a prisoner for some time, I am afraid.'

Hazel made no answer to that; thoughts were crowding in thick and fast. What was she going to do, with Mr. Falkirk laid up? Would she be a prisoner too? Was she to live here in this great old house alone, by day as well as by night? They were rather sober thoughts that came.

'That's very bad for Hazel,' said Primrose, coming near and joining the group. Hazel held out her hand and got fast hold of Prim's. She was ready for the sympathy this time.

'Does he suffer very much, Mr. Rollo?'

'I don't think he minds that part of it; no, I left him in comparative comfort. I think his trouble is about you. And he ought to have come here!—but people don't always know what they ought to do. I am going down there again presently to look after him and make sure that Gotham understands bandages.

'Gotham thinks he understands everything.'

'I'll just make sure on that point. Have you any commands before I go?'

'No, thank you,' she said, with just the lightest shade of hesitation, 'I think not.'

'Reconsider that, and give me my orders.'

'No—truly!' Hazel answered, looking up at him. How busy the thoughts were.

'I am going to Reo's first. Have you any commands there?' But she shook her head.

'No, Mr. Rollo, not any.'

He went off; and there was an interval somewhat quiet and untalkative between the two girls. Later, Rollo came back, reported both patients doing well, and carried Prim home with him.

'Did you think I was all ungrateful?' Hazel said, wrapping her arms round Prim. 'Well, I was not.'

CHAPTER XX.

BOUQUETS.

Wych Hazel stood alone on her broad steps, watching the others out of sight, and feeling alone, too. It must be nice to belong to somebody,—to have brothers and friends! Just for the moment, she forgot her now unwatched independence. But then she came back to business, and flew off up stairs. The brown dress could not stay on another minute,—was not the whole morning tucked away in its folds? That was the first thing. And the second thing was, that Miss Kennedy, in a cloud of fresh muslin and laces, came out again upon the steps, and, calling Dingee to follow her, began to speed away through the old trees at a sort of flying pace. It was late afternoon now; with lovely slant sunbeams and shadows falling across the slope, and a tossing breeze, and the birds at their evening concert. Fresh air, and action soon brought the girl up to concert pitch herself; and she went on like a very sprite, along a side wood path, avoiding the main approach, and so gained the lodge by a side door; and in a minute more stood by the bedside of her faithful old retainer. Hazel never knew at what cost to himself Reo managed to put out one hand far enough to receive her dainty fingers.

'My little lady!' he said fondly, 'I knew she would come.'

'O Reo—O Reo!—I am so sorry!' she said, her eyes growing wet.

'No need Miss Wych, dear,' said Reo, smiling at her, though his own eyes moistened to see hers.

'And it was just cutting those trees that I did not want cut!'

'Aye,—but they do want cutting though, Miss Wych,' said Reo. 'Mr. Falkirk is right. And Mr. Rollo.'

How that name came up at every turn.

'Those trees are so big!' said Hazel with a shiver. 'I do not see how you ever got out again, Reo.'

'Never should, my little lady,' said Reo, 'only that there was somewhat between me and the tree.'

'Between you and the tree?' said Hazel. 'Do you mean another tree, that kept it off?'

'No, little lady,' said Reo, 'I mean the Lord's hand. You see He's quicker than we are, and before I could jump or turn, His hand was there over me. And caught the tree, and let it touch me but just so much.'

Hazel stood looking at him.

'Suppose he had not put his hand there, Reo?' she said.

'Then it would have been under me, Miss Wych—that's all the difference,' said Reo, quietly. 'Only I should never have seen my little lady again in this life.'

'Well, you have got to see her a great many times,' said the girl, speaking fast because it was not easy to speak at all. 'I am coming to sing to you, and read to you, and to do all sorts of things.' And with a smile like a stray sunbeam she left the room, and after a minute with Mrs. Reo which straightway made her over, 'as good as two,' Hazel flitted away up the hill again, as far as to Mr. Falkirk's cottage; walking in through the Summer-open doors upon his tea and toast, without the slightest warning. There she was all right. It was delightful to get the whip hand for once! And so, privately enjoying Gotham's dismay at her unannounced entrance, Wych Hazel stood by her guardian's side with a face of grave reprehension.

'Mr. Falkirk, I am really very much surprised at you!'

'H'm!—Not more than I am at myself, Miss Hazel. You are not ahead of me there.'

'Considering how much there is to do, sir; considering the unsettled state of the neighbourhood, and my extremely unprotected condition; that you should go dancing round among loose branches without a partner, passes all my small wits.'

Mr. Falkirk glanced up at her, a glance of momentary fun and recognition, though he was by no means in a sportive mood; that was easy to see.

'Will you sit down, Miss Hazel? You must play guardian now. Can your wits accomplish that?'

'Yes, sir, I thank you. Will you order me a cup and saucer, Mr. Falkirk? I have had no dinner, and could eat no lunch. And I know Gotham would see me starve before I had even a crust without your permission.'

'I'm sure, Miss 'Azel!—Mr. Falkirk knows'—began Gotham.

'What have you got, Gotham?—anything in the house? Be off, and get all there is—and be quick about it.'

'O, I do not want much, sir—just a slight supplement to the pleasure of seeing you,' said Hazel, with her gay laugh. 'Mr. Falkirk, don't you think it would be very nice to have Mrs. Saddler dust up that little bit of a brown corner room for me? And then I could stay here with you all the time, and we would take splendid care of each other.'

'There's nothing there but a little brown room, my dear.'

'I do not care, sir. Mrs. Saddler must have a spare blanker among her stores. And I would leave word up yonder that I had unexpectedly gone away for a time.—And it would be fun,' said Miss Hazel, decidedly. 'Besides the other advantages.'

'What will happen to all the princes who are coming after the princess?'

'They will learn—self-control,' said Miss Hazel. 'I have been told lately that it is a good thing.'

'Not formerly?'

'The last time made the most impression, sir. As last times are apt to do.'

'Miss Hazel, I have a request to make to you,' Mr. Falkirk said, after allowing a minute or two of silence to succeed the last remark.

'What, sir? That I will not sing so loud in the little brown room as to disturb your repose? I can promise that.'

'You have not got your horses yet.'

'No, sir. I am sure I ought to know so much,' said the girl with a sigh.

'Rollo will see to it. You forget, my dear, we have been but a few days here. Miss Hazel, do you remember the story of the enchanted horse in the Arabian Nights?'

'With great clearness, sir. In everything but his appearance it was just the horse I should like.'

'Just the horse I am afraid of. The cavalier turned a screw and the lady was gone. I request that you will mount nobody's steed, not even your own, without consulting me first that I may make sure all is safe. It is still more true than it was the other night that I require your co-operation to discharge my trust.'

'Why, of course I should consult you, sir!' she said, with some surprise.

'That is all, Miss Hazel. Rollo will give his oversight to the woods. Only don't engage yourself to anybody for a ride till you have consulted me. Do you agree to that form of precaution-taking?'

'Certainly, sir. I am sure I referred Mr. Morton to you at once,' said Miss Hazel, drinking her tea. And Mr. Falkirk, in a silence that was meditative if not gloomy, lay and watched her. It was a little book room where they were, perhaps the largest on that floor, however; a man's room. The walls all books and maps, with deer horns, a small telescope and pistols for a few of its varieties. Yet it was cheerful too, and in perfect order; and Mr. Falkirk was lying on a comfortable chintz couch. Papers and writing materials and books had been displaced from one end of the table for Hazel's tea. That over, the young lady brought a foot-cushion to the side of Mr. Falkirk's couch and established herself there, much refreshed.

'It is great fun to come to tea with you, sir! Now, may I go on with business? or are you too tired?'

'Suppose I say I am too tired?' growled Mr. Falkirk, 'what will you do?'

Hazel glanced up at him from under her eyelashes.

'Wait, sir. I am learning to wait, beautifully!' she answered with great demureness. 'Then suppose I go and tell Mrs. Saddler about my room?'

'Go along,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'Give your orders. You had better send up to the house for some furniture. You'll make Mrs. Saddler happy at any rate. I am not so sure about Gotham. But Gotham has too easy a life in general.'

They had a lively time of it in the other part of the house for the next half day. And so had Mr. Falkirk in his, for that matter: the sweet voice and laugh and song, somehow, penetrated to his study as grosser sounds might have failed to do. It was towards tea-time again when Wych Hazel presented herself in the study on the tips of her toes, and subsiding once more to her cushion glanced up as before at Mr. Falkirk.