to whom his Uncle Hugo had entrusted his affairs, and to tell her how admirably everything had been arranged for the prosperous continuance of Briar Farm on the old traditional methods of labour by which it had always been worked to advantage.  Hugo Jocelyn had indeed shown plenty of sound wisdom and foresight in all his plans save one—­and that one was his fixed idea of Innocent’s marriage with his nephew.  It had evidently never occurred to him that a girl could have a will of her own in such a momentous affair—­much less that she could or would be so unwise as to refuse a good husband and a settled home when both were at hand for her acceptance.  Robin himself, despite her rejection of him, had still hoped and believed that when the first shock of his uncle’s death had lessened, he might by patience and unwearying tenderness move her heart to softer yielding, and he had meant to plead his cause with her for the sake of the famous old house itself, so that she might become its mistress and help him to prove a worthy descendant of its long line of owners.  But now!  All hope was at an end—­she had taken the law into her own hands and gone—­no one knew whither.  Priscilla was the last who had seen her—­Priscilla could only explain, with many tears, that when she had gone to call her to breakfast she had found her room vacant, her bed unslept in, and the letter for Robin on the table—­and that letter disclosed little or nothing of her intentions.

“Oh, the poor child!” Priscilla said, sobbingly.  “All alone in a hard world, with her strange little fancies, and no one to take care of her!  Oh, Mr. Robin, whatever are we to do!”

“Nothing!” and Robin’s handsome face was pale and set.  “We can only wait to hear from her—­she will not keep us long in anxiety—­ she has too much heart for that.  After all, it is my fault, Priscilla!  I tried to persuade her to marry me against her will—­I should have let her alone.”

Sudden boyish tears sprang to his eyes—­he dashed them away in self-contempt.

“I’m a regular coward, you see,” he said.  “I could cry like a baby—­not for myself so much, but to think of her running away from Briar Farm out into the wide world all alone!  Little Innocent!  She was safe here—­and if she had wished it, I would have gone away—­I would have made her the owner of the farm, and left her in peace to enjoy it and to marry any other man she fancied.  But she wouldn’t listen to any plan for her own happiness since she knew she was not my uncle’s daughter—­that is what has changed her!  I wish she had never known!”

“Ay, so do I!” agreed Priscilla, dolefully.  “But she’s got the fancifullest notions!  All about that old stone knight in the garden—­an’ what wi’ the things he’s left carved all over the wall of the room where she read them queer old books, she’s fair ’mazed with ideas that don’t belong to the ways o’ the world at all.  I can’t think what’ll become o’ the child.  Won’t there be any means of findin’ out where she’s gone?”