‘Miss Hazel, don’t you think you have done enough for to-day?’

‘Made a good beginning.’

’Twenty-four miles on horseback—­and a cotton mill!  That is enough for one day, isn’t it, for you?’

‘Twenty-four, is it?’ she said carelessly.  ’Call it four, and my feeling will not contradict you.’

’Very well.  I want your feeling to remain in the same healthy condition.’

‘It always does.’

’Beacon Hill will not run away.  Leave that for another time.  It is a good day’s work for you, that alone.  Suppose we go there to-morrow?’ said Rollo coolly, looking at his companion.

‘Well—­if I like it well enough to-day.’

Dane was silent, probably feeling that his duty as Miss Kennedy’s guardian was in the way of doing him very frequent disservice.  However he was not a man to be swayed by that consideration.  He came close alongside of Jeannie Deans and looked hard in Wych Hazel’s face as he spoke,

’Do you think Mr. Falkirk would be willing to have you go to-day?’

‘Why, of course!’

‘I think he would not.  And I think he ought not.’

‘Mr. Falkirk never interferes with my strength or my fatigue!—­’

’I shall not ask him.  I take the matter on my own responsibility.’

She had thrown her veil back for a minute, and leaving the bridle on Jeannie’s neck, both little hands were busy with some wind-disturbed rings of hair.  She put them down now and looked round at him,—­a look of great beauty; the girlish questioning eyes too busy with him, for the moment, to be afraid.  Could he mean that? was he really trying to head her off in every direction?

‘Are you in earnest?’ she said slowly.

His eyes went very deep into hers when they got the chance, carrying their own message too.  He answered with a half smile,

‘Thorough earnest.’

She drew back instantly, eyes and all; letting fall her veil and taking up her bridle.  Except so, and by the sudden colour, giving no reply.  She was learning her lesson fast, she thought, a little bitterly.  Nevertheless, if people knew the exquisite grace there can be in submission, whether to authority or to circumstances it may be they would practise it oftener.

Not another word said Rollo.  What was the use?  She would understand him some day;—­or she would not! in any case, words would not make it clear.  Only when he took her down from her horse he asked, and that was with a smile too, and a good inquisition of the grey eyes, ’if he should come to take her to Beacon Hill to-morrow?’

‘No,’ she said quietly.  ‘I think not.’

‘When will you have another riding lesson?’

‘I do not know,’ she said, with a tone that left the matter very doubtful.

‘Well,’ said he, ’you may go to Beacon Hill without me.  But you must not try leaping.  Remember that.’

He did not go in.  He remounted and rode away.