‘Now,’ said Rollo, ’I am going to ask you first, Primrose—­are you setting about to make Miss Kennedy as busy as yourself?’

‘I wish I could, you know,’ said Primrose, half smiling, half wistfully.

’And I want to know from you, Miss Kennedy, where Mr. Falkirk is this afternoon?’

’In the depths of a nap, I suppose.  Is the rain slackening, Mr. Rollo?’

’What do you think?’—­as with a fresher puff of wind the rush of the raindrops to the earth seemed to be more hurried and furious.  Wych Hazel listened, but did not speak her thoughts.  Rollo considered her a little, and then drew up the portfolio stand and began to undo the fastenings of the portfolio.

‘Do you like this sort of thing?’

’Very much.  O I don’t care a great deal about them as engravings, I suppose; but I like to study the faces and puzzle over the lives.’

’This collection is nothing remarkable as a collection—­but it may serve your purpose, perhaps.’  He set up a large, rather coarse print of Fortitude, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.  The figure stands erect, armed with a helmet and plume, one hand on her hip, the other touching just the tip of one finger to a broken column by her side.  At her feet a couchant lion.

’Looking at that, not as an engraving, which wouldn’t be profitable, what do you see?’

‘I was trying to think whether she was Mr. Falkirk’s ideal,’ said Wych Hazel, after a somewhat prolonged study of the engraving.  ‘She is not mine.’

‘Why not?’

‘Yes, she isn’t mine,’ said Primrose.  ‘Why not, Miss Kennedy?’

’Mr. Falkirk always says, “My dear, be a woman and be brave!”—­ But I think she fails on both points.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Primrose, while Rollo’s smile grew amused.  ’I don’t quite understand you, Miss Kennedy.  She looks brave to me.’

‘No, she don’t,’ said Wych Hazel decidedly; ’anybody can stick on a helmet.  What is that half asleep lion for, Mr. Rollo?’

‘He isn’t half asleep!’ said Primrose.  ’He looks very grimly enduring.  But I agree with Miss Kennedy, that Fortitude should not wear a helmet, with a plume in it, too!  She is quite as apt to be found under a sun-bonnet, I think.’

‘Bravo, Prim!’ said Rollo.

‘And she ought to have her hands crossed.’

‘Crossed?’ said Wych Hazel.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘This fashion?’ said the girl folding her tiny hands across her breast.  ’They would not stay there two seconds, if I was enduring anything.’

Rosy crossed her own hands after another fashion, and was silent.

’How do you generally hold your hands when you are enduring anything?’ Rollo asked the other speaker demurely.

‘Ah, now you are laughing at me!’ she said.  ’But I don’t think I quite understand passive, inactive fortitude.  I like Niobe’s arms, all wrapped about her child,—­do you remember?’