"Because she is always looking over her shoulder with a scared expression, and she never sleeps in the same bedroom."
"Has she more than one then, Mavis?"
"Oh yes. There are many many bedrooms in the house, and Bellaria goes to a different one nightly. She's afraid of the darkness, too, and remains always in the house after sundown. When she goes shopping in Leegarth she returns quite pale and nervous. I am quite sure that she is afraid of something, but she always gets angry with me, when I ask what is the matter."
"Curious," murmured Haskins, "here is another mystery!" then he asked aloud: "How often does your guardian come to you?"
"Not very often. Sometimes he is away for months and then will come twice in a week. He really is very kind, for he always brings me presents. I call him Santa Claus when he does that. But, oh! there is Bellaria. Stay here, Gerald; I'll see what she wants."
As it was early in the afternoon Haskins had an excellent view of the Florentine, who stalked across the lawn almost to the foot of the beech, drawn thither by her nursling's answering cry. "You are always sitting on the high branches of that tree," said the Italian crossly, and in most excellent English. "Why do you do that?"
"I can see the river and the pool," said Mavis quickly. "Oh! Bellaria, I wish I was a nymph, that I could plunge into the cool water."
"You can do that without being a nymph, cara mia. But not in the pool below--not outside the grounds. Your guardian would be angry. No English young lady leaves her home until she is twenty-one."
Haskins smiled when he heard this frightful falsehood. Bellaria had been well trained by her master, and such was the simplicity of Mavis that she accepted the limitation of her liberty in all good faith. "But I shall be so glad when I am twenty-one," she complained with a sigh.
"Si! si! si!" Bellaria placed her hands on her hips and nodded three times emphatically. "But you will not like the world. No, ah, Dio mio! the world is a dangerous and evil place." And she looked in a scared manner over her shoulder, shivering in the warm air.