‘A promenade concert—­nominally.’

’That sounds something to me like a dancing dinner.  What does it mean, my dear?’

’Just what I said, in the first place, sir.  If Kitty Fisher and the Powders are there, it may turn into something else.’

’And what does a promenade concert turn into, when it is enchanted?’ said Mr. Falkirk.

‘A succession of dances—­it might.’

‘Well, my dear—­what should I do in a succession of dances?’

She laughed,—­just a little.  Laughs were not ready to-night.  ‘Sit still, sir, and watch me.’

’It strikes me I do enough of that as it is, without going to Oak Hill.  Do you want more than you will have to watch you?’

The word jarred.  She was silent a minute.  Then earnestly—­

‘I wish you would, Mr. Falkirk.’

A new expression on Mr. Falkirk’s face shewed that a new idea had occurred to him.

‘What does this mean?’ he asked gently, bending on his ward one of his keen looks from under the thick eyebrows.

She answered without looking at him,

‘It means what is says, sir.’

‘What is the matter, my dear?’ came more sympathizingly than Mr. Falkirk’s wont.  It was even a little low and tender.

’Why, Mr. Falkirk—­it is such an unreasonable request, that you should be so keen after reasons?’

’I do not know that it is unreasonable, but you know that it is unwonted.  You have not been apt to wish for more guarding than you have had, Miss Hazel.  Cannot you tell me what makes you desire it now?’

Mr. Falkirk did not growl now, nor draw his brows together; he was in patient earnest, seeing cause.

‘I did not say to guard me, sir.  Sometimes,’ said Hazel, choosing her words, ’sometimes it might be pleasant to have somebody in the room to whom I was supposed to belong—­just a little bit.  How do you like Major Seaton’s grapes, Mr. Falkirk?’

Mr. Falkirk drew his brows together now, and spite of his weak ankle got up and paced across the floor thoughtfully.  Then came to a sudden stop in front of Wych Hazel.

‘Has anybody annoyed you?’ he asked.

‘By “annoyed” you mean?—­’

’Made you feel the want of a protector; or of somebody, as you say, that you belong to.’  Mr. Falkirk’s brows were drawing very thick together indeed.

‘No, I think not,’ she answered.  ’Not intentionally.  People are very good to me; very respectful, I believe.  But I must go and see that my dress is in order.  I shall wear blue to-night, Mr. Falkirk—­and you like blue.’  She made him a profound little courtesy, and danced off out of the room.

Mr. Falkirk’s cogitations, to judge by his eyebrows, were also profound, when his ward had left him alone.  They did not issue in any resolve to re-enter the gay world, however, which had never been Mr. Falkirk’s sphere; and Miss Kennedy went to Oak Hill alone.  Had she been made to ’feel her want of a protector?’—­On the contrary!—­Or ‘annoyed’ in any other sense?—­ that was far too soft a word.  And so she stepped from her carriage in company with many thoughts, and came out upon the assembled light and colour as stately as if she had been the only right line in the universe.  A bevy of her friends were round her directly.