'Miss Hazel, that girl is not proper company for you. I hope you will not ask her to help in your merrymakings; she understands nothing but a romp. And, my dear, if you know your own mind I wish you would be so kind as to let me know it. To go to Europe this fall, you must be off in three weeks at latest. Have you spoken to Rollo about it?'
'Truly, I have not!' said Wych Hazel, with a glow which however Mr. Falkirk charged to displeasure. 'Did you ever know me speak to him about anything connected with my own affairs, sir?'
'I don't know, my dear. He has a word to say concerning them. Do you wish me to sound him on the subject, then?'
'Did you ever succeed in "sounding" him, sir? on any subject?' said the young lady, consulting her watch, and with all her senses on the alert for interruptions. What were 'business' hours at Morton Hollow, she wondered? Then she rose up, and passing round to Mr. Falkirk, gave him a smile that was very sweet and not a bit teasing.
'I must go and rest, sir. I find sitting up tires me to-day. But you will come to dinner?'
She went off with that quick step, betaking herself to the crimson room; for to-day Hazel seemed to prefer high-coloured surroundings. There sat for awhile before the great picture, thinking of many things; and there, still down on her foot cushion, laid her head in one of the easy chairs and went to sleep; with the gray cat dozing and purring in the same chair, close by her head. Only the cat's eyelashes were not wet, and Wych Hazel's were.
CHAPTER VI.
A MAN AND HIS MONEY.
It is a pity somebody had not come to see; and somebody would, only that Rollo had a good many things to attend to just now besides his own pleasure. Instead, when the morning was half over, came Miss Phinney Powder, and the sleep and the attitude were broken up. Hazel went to her in the drawing-room.
Miss Josephine was in an unsettled state of mind; for she first placed herself on an ottoman by the fire-place, then got up and went to the window and stood looking out; all the while rattling on of indifferent things, in a rather languid way; then at last came and sank down in a very low position at Wych Hazel's feet on the carpet. She was a pretty girl; might have been extremely pretty, if her very pronounced style of manners had not drawn lines of boldness, almost of coarseness, where the lip should have been soft and the eyebrow modest. The whole expression was dissatisfied and jaded to-day, over and above those lines, which even low spirits could not obliterate.