For some hours thereafter the sunbeams were hardly quieter than the party they lighted on the miller’s floor.  Wych Hazel slept; Mrs. Saddler was even more profoundly wrapped in forgetfulness; Mr. Falkirk sat by keeping guard.  The miller’s daughter had run up the hill to her home for a space.  As to Rollo, he had not been seen.  His gun was his companion, and with that it was usual for him to be in the woods much of the time.  He came back from his wanderings however as the day began to fall, and now sat on a stone outside the mill door, very busy.  The little lake at his feet still and dark, with the side of the woody glen doubled in its mirror, and the sunlight in the tops of the trees reflected in golden glitter from the middle of the pool, was a picture to tempt the eye:  but Rollo’s eye, if it glanced, came back again.  He was picking the feathers from a bird he had shot, and doing it deftly.  Sauntering leisurely up the miller approached him.

‘Now that’s what I like,’ he remarked; ’up to anything, eh?  You don’t seem so much used up as the rest on ’em.  Even the little one talked herself to sleep at last!’

‘Have you got a match, Mr. Miller?’

‘No—­I haven’t,’ said the man of flour—­’I always light my pipe with a burning glass.  Won’t that serve your turn?  So there she sits, asleep, and my Phoebe sits and looks at her.’

‘I’ve something else that will serve my turn,’ said the hunter applying to his gun.  ’But stay—­I do not care to see any more fire to-day than is necessary.’—­And drawing his work off to a safe place, he went on to kindle tinder and make a nice little fire.—­’Haven’t you learned how to make bread yet, Mr. Miller?’

‘Not a bit!’ said he laughing.  ’And when you’ve got a wife and four daughters you won’t do much fancy cookig neither, I guess.  But there’s Phoebe—­’

‘A mistake, Mr. Miller,’ said the fancy cook.  ’Best always to be independent of your wife—­and of everything else.’

And impaling his bird on a sharp splinter he stuck it up before the fire, to the great interest and amusement of the miller.  Another spectator also wandered out there, and she was presently sent back to the mill.

‘Miss Hazel,’ said Mrs. Saddler, coming to the ‘divan’ where the young lady and her guardian were both sitting,—­’Mr. Rollo says, ma’am, are you ready for him to come in?’

‘I am awake, if that is what he means.’

‘What do you mean, Mrs. Saddler?’

’If you please, sir, I am sure I don’t know what I mean,—­but that’s a very strange gentleman, Miss Kennedy.  There he’s gone and shot a robin—­at least, I suppose it was him for I don’t know who else should have done it—­ and his gun’s standing by—­ and then he’s gone and picked it ma’am—­picked the feathers off, and they ‘re lyin’ all round; and then he washed it in the lake, and he was hard to suit, for he walked a good way up the lake before he found a place where he would wash it; and now he’s made a fire and stuck up the bird and roasted it; and why he didn’t get me or Miss Miller to do it I don’t comprehend.  And he’s got plates and things, ma’am, and salt, ma’am, and bread; and that’s what he means, sir; and he want’s to know if you’re ready.  The bird’s all done.’