'Whenever you likeif she can drive without me. But are you in earnest about Sunday afternoon?' said Hazel with a look that was certainly earnest.
'I am in earnest at present,' said Rollo. 'But we will see. It is something for you to sacrifice, and something for me! but whoever would follow the Lord "fully," Hazel, will find himself called to lay down his own will at every step.'
'So I must economize in you, first of all!' she said. The words slipped out rather too quick, and were followed by a shy blush which did not court notice.
Rollo half laughed and told her that 'economy always enhances enjoyment.'
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE.
The purchases for Chickaree and the Hollow, the various packages that found their destination in Dr. Maryland's house, had all been sent straight off where they were to go. There were however many things bought during those two days of New York's work, which had no destination; at least, none as yet known. Such articles had been ordered to the hotel. And it followed, that in the course of a day or two thereafter, the rooms of the suite occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Rollo presented the appearance of a house from which the inhabitants are meditating an immediate journey with all their effects. Packages of all sizes and descriptions had accumulated, to a number which became intrusive upon the notice of said inhabitants.
'What shall we do to make a clearance?' Rollo had said, laughing, as his eyes went round the parlour. 'I wish, Hazel, you would look at these things, and see what use you can find for them. Take Byrom to open packages and do them up again, and let him ticket them according to your orders. Will you? and when I come home I will help. It is a most ridiculous assortment!'
Accordingly, after luncheon, Hazel put on an apron and summoned Byrom, whom she could not have earlier; she was not afraid of interruptions, not being supposed, as she thought, to be in town. The task set her was an amusing piece of work enough, remembering as she did how and where and why many of the articles had come to be bought. Here were baskets, what an array of baskets! which had been purchased from a poor little discouraged seller of wickerware. A large order had first gone off to Morton Hollow; then as Rollo walked round the store he had picked up this and that and bade the woman send it to the hotel; till the dim eyes had brightened up and the hopeless face had taken quite another expression. Here was a package of stationery. Hazel remembered the sickly-looking man who had sold it, in a little shop, far down Broadway; she recollected Rollo's cheery talk to the man and some counsel he had given him about his health; which counsel, coming from so free a purchaser, who paid cash with so ready a hand, stood a fair chance of being followed. Here were books, and there were books; here were pictures; there was a package of hardware. Well Hazel remembered a little corner shop into which her husband had turned to get a dog-chain; and where, finding a slim girl keeping shop, and learning that she was doing it for her father who was ill, he had gone on to buy a bewildering variety of things, which he would not order sent to Chickaree, there being perhaps no one in the shop to pack them. Hazel smiled as she recollected how Rollo found out that he wanted all sorts of things from that little establishment, and how the little girl had looked at him and sprung to serve him before he got through.
Byrom was busy unpacking and Hazel examining; the room was in a confusion of papers and twines and ropes; when the door opened, and there entered upon the scene no less a person than Josephine Charteris, née Powder. The lady's look, on taking the effect of things, it is impossible to describe. Hazel was gloved in dainty buff gauntlets, the folds of her scarlet dress half smothered in the great white apron, ruffled and fluted and spotless,and looked indescribably busy.