‘You will be a good rider,’ said Rollo, when at length they subsided to a trot, stretching out his hand again and drawing Wych Hazel’s reins a little further through her fingers.  ’There, that is quite enough for him, steady as he is.  Do you keep so free a rein in the household as you do in the saddle?’

‘There has been no household—­and no bridle, except for me.’

‘Is Mr. Falkirk partial to a short rein?’

’What is “short?” ’ she said with a laugh.  ’That is an utterly unsettled point.  Are women never appointed guardians, Mr. Rollo?’

‘Certainly,’ said Rollo, gravely.  ‘Always, when they marry.’

She glanced at him, doubting whether he might be laughing at her.

‘But I mean as Mr. Falkirk was.’

’Not often; but it occasionally happens.  I congratulate you that your case was not such.’

‘Ah, you do not know!’ she said quickly, with a sort of outbreak of impatience.

‘You don’t know either,’ said he.

’Yes I do.  Not much about women to be sure—­I have known very few.  But I do know Mr. Falkirk, and love him dearly, and think a great deal more of him than you possibly can, Mr. Rollo.’

‘I have thought a great deal about him,’ said Rollo, in a sort of dry, innocent manner.  ’But I will tell you—­a man’s guardianship leaves you a moral agent; a woman’s changes you into a hunted badger; and if you were of some sorts of nature it would be a hunted fox.  You know I have been under guardianship too?’

‘Yes, but I thought it was Dr. Maryland’s?’ she said looking at him with astonished eyes.  ’And you speak—­Ah, you do not know, as I said, after all.  You never wanted anything that a man could not give you.’

He laughed a little, his eye brightening and changing as he looked at her with a very winning expression.

’I had all that a man could give me.  Dr. Maryland was father and mother in one, gentle and strong.  But I have been in wardship under a woman too, partially, and it was as I tell you.  Dr. Maryland would say:  “Dane, don’t go there,” or “let that alone,” and I did, except when a very wicked fit got hold of me.  But she would stick a cushion with pins, to keep me out of it, and if she wanted to keep a cup from my lips she rubbed gall where my lips would find it.’

‘Two guardians!’ said Wych Hazel; ’so that queer woman at Catskill thought I had.  But it is a great deal harder to have a man find fault with you, nevertheless.’

‘Why?’ said Rollo, laughingly and seriously too.

‘They are so quick in their judgments,’ said the girl; ’so sure about the evidence.  The jury agree without retiring, and sentence is passed before you are summoned to attend your own trial.  You are out of play; you suddenly find yourself convicted of manslaughter in the fourth degree—­or the fiftieth; it makes no difference.’  The words came out with her usual quick emphasis, and then Miss Hazel remembered that one or two of her words were suggestive.  She flushed very much, drooping her head.