"Well?" queried Uncle Percival. "You seem to be in uncertainty. Don't tell me that a girl does not know when a young fellow is making himself a fool over her."
Hazel raised a somewhat perplexed and flushed countenance, but she looked her august relative squarely in the eyes. "If you had asked me that yesterday," she said, "I should have answered no, without hesitation—no one could have been more sure; but it was only this morning that I began to be half afraid——" she paused.
"Don't like him, eh?" her uncle interposed. "What is his name?"
"I think I won't tell you, please," she answered. "You see, I simply must be mistaken: it would be too ridiculous."
"Quite so," returned Uncle Percival. "You probably are mistaken. It would be too ridiculous, quite too inconceivable," and he regarded her quizzically.
"There is the carriage," Hazel said. "Good-bye, Uncle Percival."
She gave him her hand, and was surprised to find it retained—awkwardly and without sentimentality, but, nevertheless, Uncle Percival held on to the small member with a goodly grip.
"You would not care to give a cross old man a kiss, I suppose?" he asked, in an odd voice.
Hazel bent lower, and with gracious dignity saluted her uncle's cheek.
At the same moment Thomas opened the door. "The carriage is waiting," he announced, with a slight catch in his voice. Hazel walked out of the room. Her uncle's eyes followed the little figure until the closing of the door hid it from his sight. Then he looked, slowly and discontentedly, around the room.