'Mr. Rollo!' cried the old housekeeper turning with a delighted face. 'I am glad to see you again sir, surely! And well-nigh yourself again! I am just looking for Miss Wychit is time she was home.'
'Where is she?'
'Off and away,' said Mrs. Bywank, with the smile of one who knows more than his questioner. 'She's a busy little mortal, these days.'
'What does she find to be busy about?'
'I should like to tell you the whole story, sir,if we had time,' said
Mrs. Bywank with a glance down the road. 'She'll never telland
I think you ought to know. Step this way, Mr. Rollo, and you can
see just as well and be more comfortable.'
Mrs. Bywank led the way to a little corner room where fire and easy chairs and a large window commanding the approach.
'I suppose you'd like to hear, sir,' she said as she replenished the fire, 'how the world has gone on down this way for two months back?'
'Very much,'Dane said gravely, with however a restless look out of the window.
'Well sir, about the first days I cannot say much. I hardly saw Miss
Wych at all. She used to dress up and come down and meet Mr.
Falkirk, and then she'd go back to her room, and there she staid.
Only she'd given me orders about the articles for the Hollow.
'So one morning, just as the beef and things were brought into my kitchen, and one of the maids had gone down for a kettle, in walked Miss Wych. 'Byo,' says she, 'I am going to make everything myself in future.''But my dear!' said I, 'you do not know how.'