‘Well,’ she said, ’I should like to see you leap over fences of Dane’s making.  He used to do that for mine sometimes; it would serve him right.  Does he know you do it?’

Unmistakeably, by degrees, Hazel felt her pulses quickening.  There was more in this than mere banter; it was too connected and full of purpose for insanity.  What was it? what dread was softly creeping towards her; and she could hear only a breaking twig or a rushing leaf?  She must be very wary!

‘I have been riding in other directions,’ she answered carelessly.  ‘And not leaping much at all.’

The laugh just appeared again.

’Of course I do not know, but I fancy, his fences would not be easy to get over; Dane’s, I mean.  He was a very difficult boy to manage.  Indeed I cannot say that I ever did manage him.  He would have his own way, and my father always take sides with him.  So everybody.  So Primrose.  O, Prim won’t hear me say a word against him.  And I am not saying a word against him; only I was very curious to know how he would fill his new office, and how well you would like it, and how it would all work.  It is quite a romance, really.’

’And it is quite easy to make out a romance where none exists,’ said Miss Kennedy, in a frigid tone.

‘My dear! you wouldn’t say that your case is not a romance?’ said Mrs. Coles.  ’I never knew one equal to it, out of books; and in them one always thinks the situation is made up.  And to be sure, so is this; only Mr. Kennedy and Dane’s father made it up between them.  Don’t you call your case a romance?’

‘What part of my own case?’ said the girl defiantly.  If people had come to this, it was high time to stop them.  ’Perhaps if you will be kind enough to speak more in detail, I may be able to put you right on several points.’

‘My dear!’ said Mrs. Coles, again with a surprised and protecting air, through which the amusement nevertheless shone.  ‘Don’t you call the terms of the will romantic?’

’What will? and what terms?’—­The defiance was in her eyes now.  ‘I cannot correct details if you keep to generals.’

’Your father’s will, my dear; your father’s and mother’s I should say, for she added her signature and confirmation.  And I’m sure that was one remarkable thing.  It is so uncertain how boys will grow up.’

‘And the romance?’ said Wych Hazel.  ’Will you tell me what version of it you have heard?’

‘Why, my dear, you know Dane is your guardian, don’t you?’

The girl’s heart gave a bound—­but that could wait; just now there was other business on hand.

‘Well,’ she said, ’is that the opening chapter?  What comes next?  I cannot review in part.’

’But didn’t you know that, my dear?  Did they keep it from you?’

Wych Hazel laughed,—­Mrs. Coles was too much a stranger to her to know how,—­and took out her watch.  ’I must go in ten minutes,’ she said,—­’and I do want to hear this “romance,” first.  One’s private affairs get such fresh little touches from strange hands!  Just see what a heading for your next chapter, Mrs. Coles,—­“N.B. The heroine did not know herself.”  Will it take you more than ten minutes?’ she added, persuasively.