‘I am afraid the thing is unmanageable, my dear,’ he said at last.  ’You will rush up the hill without stopping your ears, after some fancied “golden water” at the top; and I shall come after and find you turned into some stone or other.  And then you will object very much to being picked up and put in my pocket.  I see it all before me.’

She laughed a little, but shyly; not quite at ease upon the subject even with him.  Then rose up, gathering on her arm the light wraps she had thrown down when she came in.

‘I must have been always a great deal of trouble!’ she said.  ’But I do not want to give you more.  Mr. Falkirk, wont you kiss me and say good night to me, as you used to do in old times?  That is better than any number of fastenings to your pocket, to keep me from jumping out.’

Once it had been his habit, as she said; now long disused.  He did not at once answer; he, too, was gathering up a paper or two and a book from the table.  But then he came where she stood, and taking her hand stooped and kissed her forehead.  He did not then say good night; he kissed her and went.  And the barring and bolting and locking up for the night were done with a more hurried step than usual.

CHAPTER XVIII.

COURT IN THE WOODS.

‘Miss Wych—­my dear—­all in brown?’ said Mrs. Bywank doubtfully, as her young charge was arraying herself one morning for the woodcraft.  Some rain and some matters of business had delayed the occasion, and it was a good week since the fishing party.

‘Harmonious, isn’t it?’ said Hazel.

‘But, my dear—­it looks—­so sombre!’ said Mrs. Bywank.

‘Sombre?’ said the girl, facing round upon her with such tinges of cheek and sparkles of eye that Mrs. Bywank laughed, too, and gave in.

‘If it puts Mr. Falkirk to sleep, I can wake him up,’ said Wych Hazel, busy with her loopings.  ’And as for Mr. Rollo’—­

‘Mr. Rollo!—­is he to be of the party?’ said the housekeeper.

‘I suppose,—­really,—­he is the party,’ said Wych Hazel.  ’Mr. Falkirk and I scarcely deserve so festive a name by ourselves.’

‘And what were you going to say to Mr. Rollo?’

‘O nothing much.  He may go to sleep if he chooses—­and can,’ added Miss Wych, for the moment looking her name.  But the old housekeeper looked troubled.

‘My dear,’ she began—­’I wouldn’t play off any of my pranks upon Mr. Rollo, if I were you.’

’What is the matter with Mr. Rollo, that his life must be insured?’ said Wych, gravely confronting her old friend with such a face that Mrs. Bywank was again betrayed into an unwilling laugh.  But she returned to the charge.

’I wouldn’t, Miss Wych!  Gentlemen don’t understand such things.’

‘I do not think Mr. Rollo seems dull,’ said the girl, with a face of grave reflection.  ’Now, Byo—­what are you afraid I shall do?’ she went on, suddenly changing her tone, and laying both hands on her old friend’s shoulders.