'O nothing much. He may go to sleep if he chooses—and can,' added Miss Wych, for the moment looking her name. But the old housekeeper looked troubled.
'My dear,' she began—'I wouldn't play off any of my pranks upon Mr. Rollo, if I were you.'
'What is the matter with Mr. Rollo, that his life must be insured?' said Wych, gravely confronting her old friend with such a face that Mrs. Bywank was again betrayed into an unwilling laugh. But she returned to the charge.
'I wouldn't, Miss Wych! Gentlemen don't understand such things.'
'I do not think Mr. Rollo seems dull,' said the girl, with a face of grave reflection. 'Now, Byo—what are you afraid I shall do?' she went on, suddenly changing her tone, and laying both hands on her old friend's shoulders.
'Why, nothing, Miss Wych, dear!—I mean,'—Mrs. Bywank hesitated.
'You mean a great deal, I see,' said Wych Hazel. 'But do not you see, Byo, I cannot hang out false colours? There is no sort of use in my pretending not to be wild, because I am.'
Mrs. Bywank looked up in the young face,—loving and anxious.
'Miss Wych,' she said, 'what men of sense disapprove, young ladies in general had better not do.'
'O, I cannot follow you there,' said Wych Hazel. 'Suppose, for instance, Mr. Rollo (I presume you mean him by "men of sense") took a kink against my brown dress?'