‘I saw Mr. Nightingale.’

‘Nightingale!’ echoed Mr. Falkirk.  ’Where did you see Mr. Nightingale, Miss Kennedy?’

‘In the woods.’

‘And what the——.  My dear, what were you doing in the woods?’

’Won’t you finish your first sentence first, sir?  I like to take things in order.’

Mr. Falkirk’s brows drew together; he looked down and then looked up, awaiting his answer.

’I was doing nothing in the woods, sir, but finding my way home.’

‘How came he to be there?  Did he speak to you?’

‘Yes, sir, he spoke to me.’

‘What did he say?’ said Mr. Falkirk, looking very gravely intent.

‘Before we go any further, Mr. Falkirk,’ said the girl, steadily, though she coloured a good deal, ’is it to be your pleasure in future to know every word that may be said to me?  Because in that case, it will be needful to engage a reporter.  You must see, sir, that I should never be equal to it.’

‘My dear,’ said Mr. Falkirk slowly, ’we are embarked on a search after fortune;—­which always embraced on my part an earnest purpose to avoid misfortune.’

‘You sit there,’ she went on, scarce heeding him, ’and ask me “where I was” and “where I was going” and “what I said”—­as if I would forget myself among strange people in this strange place!—­And then you take for granted that I would be rude to one person whom I do know, just because he had vexed me!  I did ask him in, and he wouldn’t come.  I am unpractised—­wild, maybe—­but am I so unwomanly, Mr. Falkirk?  Do you think I am?’ It was almost pitiful, the way the young eyes scanned his face.  If Mr. Falkirk had not been a guardian!  But he was steel.

Yet even steel will give forth flashes, and one of those flashes came from under Mr. Falkirk’s brows now.  His answer was very quiet.

’My dear, I think you no more unwomanly than I think a rose unlovely—­but the rose has thorns which sometimes prick the hands that would train it out of harm’s way.  And it might occur even to your inexperience that when a gentleman who does not know you presumes to address you, he can have nothing to say which it would not be on several accounts proper for me to hear.’

Again the colour bloomed up.

’You would know, if you were a woman, Mr. Falkirk, how it feels to have a man sit and question you with such an air.  Ah,’ she said, dashing off the tears which had gathered in her eyes, ’if you really think I can take no better care of myself than that, you should not have said I might go with those people to-morrow!—­A rose’s thorns are for protection, sir!’—­ And away she went, out of the room and up the stairs; and Mr. Falkirk heard no more till Dingee entered with fruit and biscuits.

’Missee Hazel hope you’ll enjoy yours, sar,—­she take her’s upstairs.’

Mr. Falkirk put on his hat and walked down to his house.

It was a slight fiction on the part of Dingee, to say that Miss Hazel was taking her fruit upstairs; indeed the whole message was freely translated from her—­