was very sorry he went there, to be sure, but that didn’t make me want to hear about it, nor to go myself.  They are just like peach trees trimmed up and nailed to a wall, and I’d rather be wild Wych Hazel in the woods, though it’s of no sort of use, and nobody cares for it!’ Dr. Maryland might guess from this frank out-pouring, how seldom it was that the stream of young thoughts found such an exit, how complete was the trust which called it forth.  She had quite forgotten her tea.  And the doctor forgot his; and bent his gray head towards her brown one.

‘But suppose, my dear,’ (how different this from Mr. Falkirk’s ’my dear,’)—­’suppose the bush were a conscious thing; and suppose that while it remained in the woods and remained entirely itself, it could yet by being submitted to some sweet influence be made so fragrant that its influence should be known all through the forest; and its nuts, instead of being wild, useless things, should every one of them bring a gift of healing or of life to the hands that should gather them?  I would rather it should stay in the woods;—­and I never think anything trained against a wall is as good as that which has the sun all round it.’

Wych Hazel looked at him with no sort of doubt in her eyes that he had been “submitted to some sweet influence.”  And perhaps it was the image he had drawn, that brought a little tremour round her lips, as she answered: 

’I do not want to be a wild, bitter, useless thing,—­maybe that is what Mr. Falkirk is afraid of, too.’

‘I believe,’ said Dr. Maryland, ’that He who made all the varieties in the world, and made men as various, never meant that one should take the form or place of another.  If it fills its own, and fills it perfectly, it glorifies Him; and does just what it was meant to do.’

‘Not to mention the fact,’ said Rollo, ’that Wych Hazel could not conveniently personate a pine tree or Primrose a blackthorn.’

But at the entrance of this gentleman as Privy Counsellor, Wych Hazel withdrew her affairs from public notice; however much inclined to vindicate her power of personating what she liked, especially pine trees.  She dropped the subject and took up her bread and butter.  And so did Dr. Maryland, for a while; but he eat thoughtfully.  There was a pause, during which Primrose was affectionately solicitous over Wych Hazel’s cup of tea, and Rollo piled strawberries upon her plate.  Tea had been rather neglected.

’And what have you been doing, Hazel, all these past twelve years?’ said the doctor, breaking out afresh.  ’Twelve years!—­ it is twelve years.  What have you done with them, my dear?’

’I was at school, you know, sir, for a while, and then I had no end of tutors and teachers at home.’  She drew a long breath.

’And what are you going to do with the next twelve years?—­if you should live so long.  What are you going to try to do with them, I mean?’

‘I want to try to have a good time, sir.’