‘I am quite satisfied with things as they are, Miss Hazel.’

‘Are you, sir?  I am delighted!’ said Hazel.  ’But I never even supposed such a thing possible.  How are “things”—­if I may be allowed to inquire?’

Some things are new,’ returned her guardian.  ’And I should not be satisfied with them, if they concerned me.  Which I take for granted they do not.  I saw Dr. Arthur down town to-day; and he told me some odd news about Rollo.’  Mr. Falkirk was finishing his tea in a leisurely way, evidently not thinking that the news, whatever it was, concerned either of them seriously.

‘Why did you not bring Dr. Arthur home to tea?’ inquired his ward.

’I did not think of it, Miss Hazel.  But he volunteered a visit in the course of the evening.’

‘That will be delightful,—­I like Dr. Arthur,’ said Hazel, feeling that somehow or other she must get a glimpse of his news before he came.

’Well, if what he said gave you so much pleasure, why don’t you repeat it to me, Mr. Falkirk,’ she ventured.

‘I do not remember that I said anything gave me pleasure,’ returned her guardian.  ’This don’t.  By what he says, Rollo has lost his wits.  I thought him a shrewd man of business; and he was that, when your affairs were in his hand last summer; but if what Dr. Arthur tells me is true, and it must be, he has done a very strange thing with his own fortune.’

‘Dear me!  I hope he did not hurt himself looking after mine!’ said Wych Hazel innocently.  ’Are fortune and wits both in peril, Mr. Falkirk?’

‘Not yours, I hope,’ said her guardian.  ’I should be very uneasy if I thought that. I should have no power to interfere.  The will gives him absolute control, supposing that he had control at all.’

Perhaps it was just as well that at this moment Dr. Arthur was announced.  Alas, not only Dr. Arthur, but Mrs. Coles!  And Hazel, giving greetings to one and welcome to the other; insisting that they should come to the tea table, late as it was; went on all the while looking after her own wits and picking up her energies with all speed.  She had need; for the harmless-seeming eyes of Mrs. Coles were always to her neighbours’ interests.  Very graciously now they watched Wych Hazel.

There was a great deal to talk about, in Miss Kennedy’s house and winter and engagements; and in Dr. Maryland’s house, and Primrose, and her school.  An endless succession of points of talk, that ought to have been very interesting, to judge by the spirit with which they were discussed.  All the while, Wych Hazel was watching for something else; and Prudentia, was she keeping the best for the last?  She was extremely affable; she enjoyed her tea; she took off her bonnet and displayed the pale bandeaux of hair which were inevitably associated in Miss Kennedy’s mind with one particular day and conversation; she admired the furniture; she discoursed on the advantages of city life.  Dr. Maryland was, perforce, rather silent.