‘Don’t be partial, Gyda!’ said he, smiling at her.  And if there was beauty of only one kind in the little black eyes that looked at him, there was much of both kinds in the young man’s face.  Gyda left him and went over to her other visitor.

And as far as minuteness of examination went, certainly she was not ‘partial.’  It would have been a bit trying from anybody else—­the still, intent, searching look of the old woman upon the young face.  But the look was one of such utter sweetness, so thoroughly loving and simple and kind, if it was also keen, that there was after all in it more to soothe nerves than to excite them.  Her hand presently came to Wych Hazel’s face too, drawing down over the soft cheek and handling the wavy ringlets, and tracing the delicate chin’s outline.  Slowly and considerately.

‘Is she good?’ was the first word that Gyda spoke in this connection, as naively as possible.  It was rather directed to Rollo.  The girl’s colour had stirred and mounted under the scrutiny, until interest nearly put shyness out of sight; and the winsome brown eyes now looked at Gyda more wistful than afraid.  They followed her question with a swift glance, but then Miss Kennedy hastily took the matter into her own hands.

‘Not generally!’ she answered, the lips parting and curling in sweet mirthful lines that at least did not speak of very deep wrong-doing.  Most gentlemen probably would have uttered a protest, but Rollo was absolutely silent.  Gyda looked from one to the other.

‘Why are ye no good?’ she asked, with her hand on Wych Hazel’s shoulder.  The expression of the words is very difficult to describe.  It was an inquiry, put with the simplest accent of wondering and regretful desire.  Hazel looked at her, studying the question rather in the face than in the words.

‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘because I do not like it.’

‘You must know, Gyda,’ said Rollo, smiling, ’that Miss Hazel’s notion of goodness is, giving up her own will to somebody else’s.’

‘And that’s just what it is, Dane Olaf,’ said the old woman, looking round at him.  ’Ye could not have expressed it better.  But that is not hard, nor uncomfortable, when ye love somebody?’ she added, her sweet eyes going back to Wych Hazel.  The girl shook her head.

‘I never loved anybody, then.  Unless mamma,’ she answered.

’Lady, do ye know those words in your Bible—­“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty?” Giving up yourself to God will put ye just there!  And then—­“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.” ’

It is one thing to hear these words sonorously read in church, or to run one’s eye over them in a perfunctory manner.  To see Gyda speak them, with the accent and air of one undeniably proving the truth of them, that was another thing.

‘There may be yet a difficulty, Gyda,’ said Rollo.