Rollo remarked as he seated himself at the table, that he 'didn't feel as if he could stand Mr. Falkirk to-day.'
'He is very much the same as on most days,' said Hazel. 'I thought you always rather enjoyed "standing" him, Mr. Rollo?'
'It is becoming necessary for me to make so many statements,' said
Rollo, 'that I am getting puzzled. I am very sorry for Mr. Falkirk.
What sort of a talk did you give him?'
'Mr. Falkirk was so uncommonly glad to see me, that I should have been all sugar and cream if he had not beset me with business. As it was, I am afraid Iwasn't.'
'Not my business?'
'Your business? The mills?'
'Our business, then.'
'Hush!No! I have not got any,' said Hazel, whose spirits and daring were beginning to stir just a little bit once more, though she felt a little frightened at herself when the words were out. 'Mr. Falkirk wanted to know my sovereign pleasure about retaking the house we had last winter.'
'I am very sorry for Mr. Falkirk!' Rollo repeated gravely. 'Do you thinkby and by, when we have been married a year or two, and he is accustomed to it,we could get him to come and make home with us!'
Hazel looked at him for a second, as if he took her breath away; but then she looked at nothing elseor did not see it, which came to the same thing,for some time. Dingee appeared with baskets and bouquets, after the old fashion, which had grown to be an established one at Chickaree; and his mistress looked at them and ordered them away, and read the cards, and did not know what names she read. But in all the assortment of beauties there was never a rose one bit sweeter or fresher than the face that bent down over them.