'Thank you,' he said, 'I _am_ grateful.' And no more pa.s.sed on the subject until the chaise reached the cottage.

CHAPTER XXII.

A REPORT.

Just glancing round at her companion to make sure that he followed, taking off her hat as she went, Hazel pa.s.sed swiftly into the cottage and into Mr. Falkirk's study, to the foot of his couch--and there stood still. Very unlike the figure of last evening,--in the simplest pale Summer dress, with no adornment but her brown hair, and yet as Mr. Falkirk looked, he thought he has never seen her look so lovely. She was surely changing fast; the old girlish graces were taking to themselves the richer and stronger graces of womanhood; and like those evening flowers that open and unfold and gather sweetness if you but turn aside for a moment, so she seemed to have altered, even since her guardian's last look. The broad gipsy hanging from her hand, her long eyelashes drooped,--so she stood. Mr. Falkirk looked and took the effect of all this in a glance two seconds long, during which, something held his tongue. Then as his eye caught the figure that entered following her, it darted towards him a look of sudden surprise and suspicion. Than changed, however, almost as soon, and his eyes came back to his ward. But there is no doubt Mr. Falkirk scowled.

'So, Miss Hazel,' he began, in his usual manner, 'you found you could not manage other people's carriages last night?'

'Not the right ones, sir. Will you ask Mr. Rollo to sit down, Mr. Falkirk? It is due to me that he should hear all I have to say.'

'It is not due to anybody that you should say it standing,'

said Rollo, wheeling up into convenient position the easiest chair that the room contained. She made him a slight sign of acknowledgement, but yielded only so far as to lay her hand on the chair back. Probably it was pleasant to touch something.

Rollo stepped back to the mantlepiece and stood there, but not touching it or anything.

'It appears to me, Miss Hazel,' said the rec.u.mbent master of the house, 'that the invitation must come from you.'

'I have not been invited myself, sir, yet.'

'I do not recollect inviting you to be seated yesterday, my dear; is to-day different from yesterday?'

'Unless I have forgotten the frown which welcomed me then, sir. I suppose you have but a faint idea of the looming up of your brows just now.'

'What?' said Mr. Falkirk. 'Don't you know, Miss Hazel, a man's brows are not within his range of vision? and I deny that he is responsible for them. Am I frowning now?'

'Not quite so portentously, sir.'

'Then you need not stand so particularly, need you? I wonder, if I looked so fierce, how Rollo dared to offer you the civility of a chair in my presence; but people are different.'

'But I cannot sit there,' she said, with a glance towards the bringer of the chair, as she pa.s.sed by its reposeful depths.

'Not now. If Mr. Rollo will make himself comfortable in his own way, I will in mine.' And Hazel brought a foot cushion to the couch and sat down there; a little turned away from the third member of the party; who however did not change his position.

'Is there business?' said Mr. Falkirk glancing from one to the other.

The girl gave him a swift glance of wonder.

'You used to think it was business, sir, to know what had become of me. Did you sleep well last night, Mr. Falkirk?'

'Why should I, any more than you?' said Mr. Falkirk in his old fashion of growling. 'Day is the proper time for sleeping, in the fashionable world.'

It made her restless--this keeping off the subject of which her thoughts were full. Didn't he mean to ask any questions?

'Why should not I have slept, sir?--if you come to that. The fashionable world was not to hold me beyond eleven.'

'So I understood, and endeavoured to stipulate,' said Mr.

Falkirk, 'but I am told you were so late in returning that you would not come home, and preferred, somewhat inexplicably, disturbing Miss Maryland to disturbing me.'

'Is that what you think?' she answered, simply. 'That I broke my word? Mr. Falkirk, I began returning as you say, at a quarter past eleven.'

'I never expected you to get off before that, my dear. Then what was the matter?'

The girl hesitated a moment, and then one of her witch looks flashed through in spite of everything.

'I fell into Charybdis, sir, that was all.'

'I do not remember any such place between here and Merricksdale,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'Was it enchantment, my dear?' But his face was less careless than his words. Hers grew grave again at once; and, wasting no more time, Miss Kennedy addressed herself to business.

'I had arranged it all with Miss Bird,' she said, 'on the way there. She had a headache and was glad of an excuse to get away early. It was "a small party," I found, when you were in the house and the rest were out of doors, but otherwise everybody was there--and nearly everybody else. The trees were all lights and flowers; and supper tables stood ready from the first; and you know what the moon was. So altogether,' said Miss Hazel, 'it was hard to remember anything about time, and especially to find out. I fancied that Mrs. Merrick had told about my going early,--watches seemed so very uncertain, and so many of them had stopped at nine o'clock. It was only by a chance overhearing that I knew when it was half-past ten. I lost just a few minutes then, manoeuvring,--for I did not want "everybody" to see me to the carriage; but when I had vanished into the house, and found Mrs. Merrick, Miss Bird was not there. She had gone home an hour before, her head being worse, they said.'

Mr. Falkirk said nothing, but his thick brows grew together again.

'Mrs. Merrick said it was not the least matter; her coachman unfortunately was sick, but fifty people would be only too happy. I said everybody but me wished to stay late,--O, no, not at all!--here was Mr. May, going in five minutes, with his sister. They would be "delighted". I could not well tell her, sir,' said Wych Hazel, with a look at her guardian, 'all that occurred to me in the connection, but I suppose I negatived Mr. May in my face, for Mrs. Merrick went on. "Mr. Morton, then,--the most luxurious coach in the county." He too was going at once--if I did. Or, if I did not mind the walk, her brother-in-law would take charge of me at any moment with pleasure.'

Certainly Mr. Falkirk outdid himself in scowling, at this point.

'Well--I must get home somehow,' she said with another glance,-- 'and the coach would never do, and the phaeton was tabooed.

But I knew Mrs. Merrick's sister was Mrs. Blake; and so, thinking of the old doctor, I said at once that I would walk, and ran upstairs for my cloak. And then I found out,' said Wych Hazel slowly, 'that the are two sorts of brothers-in- law.'

n.o.body interrupted her, nor spoke when she paused. The little room was very still, except from the movements the girl made herself.

'This was the wrong one. No old doctor Blake at all, but a younger brother of Gen. Merrick. What could I do?' she said, with a half appealing look that went for a second further than her guardian. 'Already my promise was in peril; and there was Mr. Morton beseeching me into his coach--and I could not get up a fuss.' It was very pretty and characteristic, the unconscious way in which she brought in--and left out--the third one in the room. Sometimes forgetting everybody but her guardian, and giving him details that were plainly meant for his ears alone; then, with a sudden blush and stop, remembering that there was another listener standing by. On such occasions she would generally turn her face a little more away and out of sight, and then begin again, in a tone that meant to keep clear of all further special confidences in that direction. The third member of the party stood perfectly still and made no remark whatever.

'Well?' said Mr. Falkirk, with rather a short breath, as the girl paused.

'There was nothing left for me but the walk--unless a fuss, and a half dozen more standing round. Then Mr. Morton said he should walk, too, at least as far as the cross-road, and let the carriage follow at a foot pace in case I should turn weary. If he had been half as anxious about my weariness as he professed,' said the girl, with a curl of her lips, 'he would have tried how fast his horses could go for once, with him behind them. But I could not tell him that any plainer than I did.'

'You tried to make him drive and leave you?' said Mr. Falkirk.

'I tried to make him let me alone, sir,' said the girl flushing. 'As to the way, I made no suggestions. So we walked on, and Mr. Morton made himself exceedingly--disagreeable.'

'Too officious? Or too presumptuous? He's an a.s.s!' said Mr.

Falkirk, who was plainly getting restive. 'Which, Hazel?'

'Unbearable I called it, sir. I was in no mood for nice definitions. And I couldn't have been tired _then_ if we had walked through the moonlight straight on to the moon! But--I had been lectured so much about self-control' (an invisible glance went here) 'that, somehow, he seemed to keep his patience the better, the more I lost mine. I never remember your telling me, sir, that my wilful moods were particularly becoming, but I began to think it must be so; and actually thought of trying a little complaisance.' Whereat, Miss Hazel brought herself to a sudden stop.

'My dear!' said Mr. Falkirk. 'What was the other man about?'

'He was walking on the other side,' said Hazel, her voice changing. 'But he left me to Mr. Morton, in effect, and scarcely said three words all this time. I trusted his thoughts were too busy with Miss Powder, to notice what went on near by.'

'This is what comes of what you erroneously term dancing on the branches of trees!' said Mr. Falkirk, in a great state of disgust. 'But I have no idea I should have gone to that woman's if I had been free. More comes of it than I reckoned upon, or than six weeks will see me through. Well, you got rid of him at last, I suppose; and walked all the way to Dr.

Maryland's in your slippers!'

'My dear Mr. Falkirk!--slippers at an out-door party! Yes, I "got rid of him," as you say, when we reached the turning to Morton Hollow,' Hazel went on, rather slowly, the shadow coming into her tone again. 'And then, after that, I found out why my other companion had been so silent.'

'Found out! He had not been taking too much?'

'I told you the supper tables stood ready all the evening,'