Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XII.

AT DR. MARYLAND'S.

They went up a low staircase and along a gallery to Primrose's room. Large and low, as nice as wax, and as plain. How unlike any room at Chickaree, Wych Hazel could not help feeling, while its little mistress was opening cupboards and drawers, and getting out the neatest and whitest of cambric jackets and ruffles and petticoats, and bringing forth all accommodations of combs and brushes. Meanwhile Wych Hazel could not help seeing some of the tokens about the place that told what kind of life was lived there. Its spotlessly neat and orderly condition was one token; but there were signs of business. Work-baskets, with what seemed fulness of work, were about the room; books, not in great numbers, but lying in little business piles, with business covers and the marks of use. Papers were on one table by the window, with pen and ink and pencil and cards. And everywhere a simplicity that showed no atom of needless expenditure. Very unlike Chickaree?

Primrose the while was neat-handedly helping to array her guest in fresh apparel. She had pretty little hands, and they were quick and skilful; and as she stooped to try on a slipper or manage a fastening, Wych Hazel had a view of a beautiful head of fair brown hair, in quiet arrangement that did not show all its beauty; and when from time to time the eyes were lifted, she saw that they were very good eyes; as reposeful as a mountain tarn, and as deep too, where lay thought shadows as well as sunshine. They were shining eyes now, with secret admiration and pleasure and good will and eager interest.

'Are you come to stay a good while at Chickaree? I hope you will.'

'Maybe—perhaps. O my boots are not wet, Miss Maryland,—and I don't think I caught enough raindrops to hurt. How kind you are!—And how well your brother describes you.'

'Arthur?—I wish he would not describe me. Chickaree is such a beautiful place, I should think one might like to stay there. I have been hoping about it, ever since I heard you were coming. Father knows Mr. Falkirk, and used to know your father and mother, so well, that I have almost felt as if I knew you,—till I saw you.'

'And you don't feel so now?' with a shade of disappointment.

'No,' said Primrose laughing. 'But I am sure I shall very soon, if you will let me. I have wished for it so much! There, won't that do? It is lucky I had some of Prue's things here— mine are too short. Prue is my sister. It looks very nice, I think.'

'O yes,' her guest answered, taking up her bunch of roses, fresh with the rain. 'Thank you very much! But why do you say that about your brother?'

'Arthur?—O—descriptions never tell the truth.'

'I am sure he did,' said Wych Hazel. 'And I know I would give anything to have anybody to talk so about me.'

Primrose returned a somewhat earnest and wondering look at her new friend; then took her hand to lead her down stairs.

In the hall they found Mr. Rollo; not by his packing case exactly, for he had taken that to pieces, and the contents stood fair to view; a very handsome new sewing machine. Surrounded with bits of board and litter, he stood examining the works and removing dust and bits of paper and string. Over the litter sprang to his side Primrose and laid her hand silently in his, and with downcast eyes stood still looking at the machine. The bright eyes under their lids spoke as much joy as Rosy's face often showed; yet she was perfectly still.

'Well?' said Rollo, squeezing the little hand and looking laughingly down at her.

'You are so good!'

'You don't think it,' said he. 'You know better; and as you always speak perfect truth, I am surprised to hear you.'

'You are good to me,' said Primrose in a low tone.

'I should be a pleasant fellow if I wasn't,' said he stooping to kiss her, at which the flush of pleasure on Rosy's cheek deepened; 'but in the meantime it is proper we should look after the comfort of our prisoner.' Then stepping across the litter to where Wych Hazel stood, he went on—'You know, of course, that you stand in that relation to us, Miss Kennedy? Primrose is turnkey, and I am governor. Would you like to see the inside of the jail?'

The 'prisoner' had stood still in grave wonderment at people and things generally; especially at the footing Mr. Rollo seemed to have in this house.

'Governor to a steam engine is an easier post,' she said, throwing off her thoughts.

'I have been that'—he said, as he led her into a room on the right of the hall.

This room took in the whole depth of the house, having windows on three sides; low, deep windows, looking green, for the blinds were drawn together. The ceiling was low, too; and from floor to ceiling, everywhere except where a door or window broke the space, the walls were lined with books. There was here no more than up stairs evidence of needless money outlay; the furniture was chintz covered, the table-covers were plain. But easy chairs were plenty; the tables bore writing-materials and drawing-materials and sewing-materials; and books lay about, open from late handling; and a portfolio of engravings stood in a corner. Rollo put his charge in an easy chair, and then went from window to window throwing open the blinds. The windows opened upon green things, trees and flowers and vines; the air came in fresher; the rain was softly falling fast and thick, and yet the pale light cheered up the whole place wonderfully.

'Your windows are all shut, Rosy!' said Rollo as he went from one to the other—'is that the way you live? You must keep them open now I am come home!'

'It was so hot,'—said the voice of Rosy from the hall.

'Hot? that is the very reason. What are you about? Rosy!—'

He went to the door, and then from where she sat Wych Hazel could see the prompt handling which Rosy's endeavours to put away the disorder received. She was taken off from picking up nails, and dismissed into the library; while Rollo himself set diligently about gathering together his boards and rubbish. Primrose came in smiling.

'It is better with the windows open,' she said; 'but I was so busy this morning I believe I forgot. And father never comes into this room till evening. How it rains! I am so glad!'

And taking a piece of work from a basket, she placed herself near Wych Hazel and began to sew. It was a pretty home picture, such as Wych Hazel—in her school life and ward life— had seen few. Just why it made her feel quiet she could not have told. Yet the brown eyes went somewhat gravely from Primrose at her work to the hall where Rollo felt so much at home—then round the room and towards the window, watching the rain.

'Won't you give me some work?' she asked suddenly.

'O talk!' said Primrose, looking up. 'Don't work.'

'It takes more than work to stop my mouth,' said Wych Hazel, 'Ah, I can work, though you don't believe it, Miss Rosy; do please give me that ruffle—or a handkerchief,—don't you want some marked? I can embroider like any German.'

Primrose doubted her powers of sewing and talking both at once; but finally supplied her with an immense white cravat to hem, destined for the comfort of Dr. Maryland's throat; and working and chatting did go on very steadily for some time thereafter, both girls being intent on each other at least, if not on the hemming, till Rollo came back. He interrupted the course of things.

'Now,' said Rollo, 'I am going to ask you first, Primrose—are you setting about to make Miss Kennedy as busy as yourself?'

'I wish I could, you know,' said Primrose, half smiling, half wistfully.

'And I want to know from you, Miss Kennedy, where Mr. Falkirk is this afternoon?'

'In the depths of a nap, I suppose. Is the rain slackening,
Mr. Rollo?'

'What do you think?'—as with a fresher puff of wind the rush of the raindrops to the earth seemed to be more hurried and furious. Wych Hazel listened, but did not speak her thoughts. Rollo considered her a little, and then drew up the portfolio stand and began to undo the fastenings of the portfolio.

'Do you like this sort of thing?'

'Very much. O I don't care a great deal about them as engravings, I suppose; but I like to study the faces and puzzle over the lives.'

'This collection is nothing remarkable as a collection—but it may serve your purpose, perhaps.' He set up a large, rather coarse print of Fortitude, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The figure stands erect, armed with a helmet and plume, one hand on her hip, the other touching just the tip of one finger to a broken column by her side. At her feet a couchant lion.

'Looking at that, not as an engraving, which wouldn't be profitable, what do you see?'

'I was trying to think whether she was Mr. Falkirk's ideal,' said Wych Hazel, after a somewhat prolonged study of the engraving. 'She is not mine.'

'Why not?'

'Yes, she isn't mine,' said Primrose. 'Why not, Miss Kennedy?'

'Mr. Falkirk always says, "My dear, be a woman and be brave!"—
But I think she fails on both points.'

'I don't understand,' said Primrose, while Rollo's smile grew amused. 'I don't quite understand you, Miss Kennedy. She looks brave to me.'

'No, she don't,' said Wych Hazel decidedly; 'anybody can stick on a helmet. What is that half asleep lion for, Mr. Rollo?'

'He isn't half asleep!' said Primrose. 'He looks very grimly enduring. But I agree with Miss Kennedy, that Fortitude should not wear a helmet, with a plume in it, too! She is quite as apt to be found under a sun-bonnet, I think.'

'Bravo, Prim!' said Rollo.

'And she ought to have her hands crossed.'

'Crossed?' said Wych Hazel.

'Yes, I think so.'

'This fashion?' said the girl folding her tiny hands across her breast. 'They would not stay there two seconds, if I was enduring anything.'

Rosy crossed her own hands after another fashion, and was silent.

'How do you generally hold your hands when you are enduring anything?' Rollo asked the other speaker demurely.

'Ah, now you are laughing at me!' she said. 'But I don't think I quite understand passive, inactive fortitude. I like Niobe's arms, all wrapped about her child,—do you remember?'

'I remember. But you don't call that fortitude, do you?'

'Yes,' said Wych Hazel. 'She was dying by inches,—and yet her arms look, so strong! I am sure she didn't know whether they were crossed or uncrossed.'

'Do you think that lion there in the corner looks like Mr.
Falkirk?'

'No, indeed! Mr. Falkirk would take a good deal more notice of me, if I was balancing myself on one finger,' said Wych Hazel.

'What is that one finger for?' said Primrose.

'Do you ask that, Rosy? To show that she has nothing earthly to lean upon. She just touches the pillar, as much as to say it is broken and of no use to her. Perhaps her confidence is in that slumbering lion,—Is that another representation of fortitude?'

He had hid Sir Joshua's picture with an engraving of
Delaroche's Marie Antoinette leaving the Tribunal.

'She knew what it meant, I should think, if anybody did. But most fortitude—real fortitude—be always unhappy?' said Hazel looking perplexedly at the picture.

Rollo turned back to the Reynolds. 'You were both wrong about this,' said he; 'at least I think so. Real fortitude does figuratively, go helmeted and plumed. She endures so perfectly that she does not seem to endure. In this representation the lion shows you the mental condition which lies hid behind that fair, stern front. Now is Marie Antoinette like that?' He turned the pictures again.

'I cannot tell!' said Wych Hazel. 'One minute her fortitude looks just like pride,—and then when you remember all she had to bear, it's not strange if she called up pride to help her. But it is not my ideal yet.'

'I think it is pride,' said Rollo. 'So it looks to me. Pride and grief facing down death and humiliation. Marie Theresa's daughter and Louis Capet's queen acknowledging no degradation before her enemies—giving them no triumph that she could help. But that is not my ideal either.'

He brought out another print.

'I always like that,' said Primrose.

'I do not know it,' said Wych Hazel.

'Don't you? it is very common. It is the eve of St. Bartholomew. This Catholic girl wants to tie a white favour round he lover's arm, to save him from the massacre soon to begin. She has had the misfortune to love a Huguenot. White favours, you remember, were the mark by which the Catholics were to know each other in the confusion.'

'And he will not let her. Was it a misfortune, I wonder?'

'What?' said Primrose.

'To love somebody so much nobler than herself. How gentle he is in his earnestness!'

'Don't be hard upon her,' said Rollo. 'Are you sure you wouldn't do so in her place?'

'No,—' she said, looking gravely up at him.

'She knew it was death to go without that white handkerchief.'

'But,' said Primrose softly, 'wouldn't you rather have him die true, than live dishonoured?'

'I think I should have tried,' said Wych Hazel,—'knowing I should fail. And then I should have thrown away my own favour, and gone with him wherever he went.'

'He wouldn't have let you do that either,' said Rollo.

'Then he would not have loved me as I loved him,' said the girl, very decidedly.

'He'd have been a pretty fellow!' said Rollo, as he turned the next print. It was a contrast to the St. Bartholomew; a Madonna and child, from Fra Bartholomeo, at which they were all content to look silently. Rollo began to talk, then, instead of asking questions, and made himself very interesting. So much he knew of art matters, so many a story and legend he could tell about the masters, and so well he could help the less initiated to enjoy and understand the work. So letting himself out in a sort of play-fashion, the portfolio proved the nucleus of a delightful hour's entertainment. At the end of that time a turn was given to things by the coming in of an old black woman with a very high, coloured turban on her head and a teakettle and a chafing dish of coals in her hands. Rollo shut up his portfolio.

'What is your view, practically, of things at present, Miss
Kennedy?'

'Mr. Falkirk says I never took a practical view of things in my life, Mr. Rollo. The impracticable view seems to be, that it is tea time and I ought to go home.'

'What do you think of the plan of letting Mr. Falkirk know where you are?'

'Yes, I ought to do that,' said his ward, 'Where is Dingee?—I will send him right off.'

'Will you write, or shall I?' said Rollo, drawing out paper and pen ready on one of the tables.

She glanced at him as if in momentary wonder that he should offer to write her despatch, then ran off the most summary little note, twisted it into a knot of complications, and again asked for Dingee. Rollo gently but saucily put his own fingers upon the twisted note and bore it away.

The business of the tea-making and preparing was going on; and both Primrose and her old assistant bustled about the tea table, getting things ready and Dr. Maryland's chair in its right place. A quiet bustle, very pleasant in the eyes of Wych Hazel, with all its homely and sweet meanings. The light had softened a little, and still came through a grey veil of rain; odours of rose and sweet-briar and evening primroses floated in on the warm, moist air, and mingled with the steam of the tea-kettle and the fume in the chafing-dish; and the patter, patter of rain drops, and the dash of wet leaves against each other, were a foil to the tea-kettle's song. Wych Hazel looked on, musingly, till Rollo came back and took her round the room looking at books. Then offering her his arm, he somewhat suddenly brought her face to face with some one just entering by the door.

An old gentleman; Wych Hazel knew at once who it must be. Middle-sized, stout, with rather thin locks of white hair, and a face not otherwise remarkable than for its look of habitual high thought and pure goodness. It took but a moment to see so much of him. She stopped short, and then came close up to him.

'Is this your charge, Dane? Is this little Wych Hazel?' he went on more tenderly, and folding her in his arms. 'My dear,' he said, kissing her brow, 'I hope you will be as good a woman as your mother was! I am very glad to see you!—very glad indeed!'

She did not answer at first, looking up into his face with a wistful, searching look that was a little eager; standing quite still, as if the enclosing arms were very pleasant to her.

'Yes sir,' she said, 'I am Wych Hazel. But why are you glad to see me?'

'My dear, I knew your mother and father; and I have a great interest in you. I am told you will be queen of a large court up yonder at Chickaree.'

She laughed a little, and coloured, looking down, then back into his face again.

'Will you like me, sir, all you can?'

'All you will give me a chance for. So you must let us see you a great deal; for affection must grow, you know; it cannot be commanded. Sit down, my dear, sit down; Primrose is ready for us.'

It was a right pleasant meal! There was no servant waiting; the little informalities of helping themselves suited well with the quiet home ease and the song of the tea-kettle. Primrose made toast for her father, and Rollo blew the coals to a red heat to hasten the operation. Dr. Maryland sometimes talked and sometimes was silent; and his talk was of an absolute simplicity that neither knew in his own nor imagined in other people's minds any reserves of dark corners. Primrose talked little, but was lovingly watchful not only of her father, but of Wych Hazel, and Rollo too; who on his part was watchful enough over everybody.

'And my dear,' said Dr. Maryland, 'why did you not bring Mr.
Falkirk with you?'

'Well, sir, to begin—I did not know I was coming myself! I was out riding, and the rain came—and I jumped off into the first open door I could see. And then Miss Maryland let me stay.'

'But Mr. Falkirk, my dear—where's he?'

'Safe at home, sir. We have been seeking our fortune together, but to-night we got separated.'

'Mr. Falkirk went back and left you?' said Dr. Maryland, looking surprised.

'No, sir, I went ahead and left him. That is,' she added, smothering a laugh, 'he did not set out at all.'

'I thought—I thought, you said you were together?'

'Only in a general way, sir. On all special occasions we divide.'

'What did you say you were doing? seeking your fortune?'

'I set out to seek mine,' said Wych Hazel, 'and of course poor Mr. Falkirk has to go along to look on. He doesn't help me one bit.'

'To seek your fortune, my dear?' said Dr. Maryland, looking benignly curious; 'What sort of a fortune are you looking for?'

'Why I don't know, sir. If I knew,—it would be half found already, wouldn't it?' said the girl.

'But my dear—did Mr. Falkirk never tell you that fortunes are never found ready made?'

'He objected, because he said mine was ready made—but that made no difference from my point of view. And then he said he thought our road would "end in a squirrel track, and run up a tree." And do you know, sir,' said Wych Hazel, the hidden merriment flashing out all over her face, 'that was what it really did!'

'Did what, my dear?'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' she said, trying to steady her voice and bring out words instead of a burst of laughter,—'but—that is a wild Western expression, which Mr. Falkirk used to signify that we should get into difficulties.'

'Why did Mr. Falkirk think you would get into difficulties?'—
Dr. Maryland had not found the scent yet.

'I don't think he has much opinion of my prudence, sir,—and believes firmly that every one who goes off the highway finds rough ground. Now I like a jolt now and then—it wakes one up.'

'Do you want to find rough ground, my dear?'

'I don't mean really rough, sir, in one sense, but uneven— varied, and stirring, and uncommonplace. It seems to me that I have a whole set of energies that never come into play upon ordinary occasions. I should weary to death of the lives some people lead—three meals a day, and a cigar, and a newspaper. I think I should fast once a week, for variety—and smoke my cigar wrong end first—if there are two ends to it.'

'I heard a lady say the other day, that there was no end to them,'—observed Rollo.

Dr. Maryland looked at her on his part, smiling, and quite awake now to the matter in hand. Yet he was silent a minute before speaking.

'Have you laid your plan, my dear? I should very much like to know what it is!'

'No, sir,' she said, shaking her head with a deprecatory little laugh. 'Of course I have not! People in fairy tales never do.'

'Life is not a fairy tale, Hazel,' said Dr. Maryland, shaking his head a little. 'My dear, you are a real woman. Did you ever think what you would try to do in the world?—what you would try to do with your life, I mean?'

'Do with it?' the girl repeated, her brown eyes on the Doctor's face as if looking for his meaning. 'I think, I should like to enjoy it, if I could. And it has been very commonplace, lately, sir. Mr. Falkirk don't pet me and play with me as he used to—and he won't let me play with him; not much.'

The smile which quivered on Dr. Maryland's face changed and passed into a sort of sweet gravity.

'There is one capital way to get out of commonplace,' he said; 'but it isn't play, my dear. If you set about doing what God would have you to do with yourself, there will be no dullness in your life, and no lack of enjoyment, either.'

She looked at him again—then down; but made no answer.

'Somebody has written an essay, that I read lately,' Dr. Maryland went on—'an essay on the monotony of piety. Poor man! he did not know what he was talking about. The glorious liberty of the children of God!—that was something beyond his experience;—and the joy of their service. It is what redeems everything else from monotony. It glorifies what is insignificant, and dignifies what is mean, and lifts what is low, and turns the poor little business steps of every day into rounds of Heaven's golden ladder. I verily think I could have hanged myself long ago, for the very monotony of all things else, if it had not been for the life and glory of religion!'

'Why papa!' said Primrose.

'I would, my dear, I do think.' He was silent a moment; then subsiding from the excited fire with which he had spoken, he turned to Wych Hazel and went on gently,—

'What else do you want to do, my dear, that is not to be done in that track? you want adventures?'

'Yes, sir,' she answered, without looking up, half hesitating, a little grave. 'I think I do. And more people about,—people to love me, and that I can love. Of course I love Mr. Falkirk,' she added, correcting herself, 'very much; but that is different. And there's nobody else but the servants.'

'O do come here!' cried Primrose; 'and love us.'

'I do not wonder Mr. Falkirk gives no help,' said Rollo, a little quizzically.

'Will you try Primrose's expedient, my dear?' said Dr. Maryland, very benignly. 'Half your requisition you will certainly find. Whether you can love us, I don't know; but there's no knowing without trying.'

She gave one of her sweet childish looks of answer to both the first and last speaker; but Mr. Rollo was favoured with a small reproof.

'You must not speak so of Mr. Falkirk,' she said. 'He has been the kindest possible friend to me. And I think he loves me wonderfully, considering how I have tried his patience. Just think what it is for a grave, quiet, grown-up, sensible man, to have the plague of a girl like me! Very few men would stand it at all, Mr. Roll; but Mr. Falkirk never said a rough word to me in his life.'

She was so grave, so innocent, so ignorant in it all, the effect was indescribably funny.

'I should think very few men would stand it,' said Rollo, composedly; but Primrose and her father smiled.

'Mr. Falkirk is an admirable man,' said Dr. Maryland. 'You are a good witness for him, Hazel.'

'If I would only do all he wants me to!' she said with a slight shake of the head. 'But I cannot, and he says I don't know what I want. But Dr. Maryland—all the nice, proper people I have ever seen, live on such a dead level—it would kill me. They think dancing is wrong, and Italian a loss of time, and "it's a pity to waste my young years upon German." And they can't talk of a book, but some life of a missionary who was eaten by cannibals,—I 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.'

'And you will be a queen, and hold your court at Chickaree?'

She laughed—her pretty, free laugh of pleasure.

'So Mr. Falkirk says. Only he does not call me a queen—he calls me a mouse!'

Dr. Maryland laughed too, at her or with her, a rare thing for him, but returned to his grave tenderness of look and tone. 'Ah, little Hazel,' he said, 'you are in a dangerous place, my child, with your court up there. Do you know, that when you and the world you want to see, come together,—either you will change it, or it will change you?—that is why I asked you what you were going to do with the next twelve years. That was a great word of Paul, when his years were almost over,—"I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me at that day!" '

He was silent, but so grave, so sweet, so rapt, had been the tone of the last words, that they all kept silence likewise. Dr. Maryland's head fell, he seemed to be seeing something not before him; presently he went on speaking to himself.

' "And not to me only,—but to all them that love his appearing."—My dear,' suddenly to Wych Hazel,—'will you love his appearing, when it comes?'

She?—how could she tell? to whom not only the question but almost the very thought were new. He did not pursue that subject. Presently he left the table and stood up, or walked up and down behind it; while under the sense of his talk and his thought and his presence, they were all quiet; finishing their supper as docilely as so many children. And a reflection from him was on all their faces, making each one more pure and bright than its own wont.

He stayed with the young people after tea, instead of going to his study; and the evening was full of grave interest, which also no one wished less grave. He talked much, sometimes with Wych Hazel, sometimes with Rollo; and Rollo was very amusing and interesting in meeting his inquiries and remarks about German universities and university life. The talk flowed on to other people and things abroad, where Rollo had for some years lately been. The doctor grew animated and drew him out, and every now and then drew Wych Hazel in, giving her much of his attention and perhaps scrutiny also, though that was veiled.

The talk kept them up late. As they were about separating for the night Rollo asked Wych Hazel if she had found any cats at Chickaree?

'What do you mean?' she said quickly. 'O—I remember'—and the light danced over her face. 'I haven't had much time to find anything. What did you do with my poor kitten up on the mountain, Mr. Rollo?'

'I was going to ask you whether you would like to see an old friend.'

'Yes, to be sure. You do not mean that my little pussy is here?'

'You shall have her to-morrow.'