But Mr. Nightingale knew his business better than to reply; and Dane presently spoke for himself. It was the Dane of the Mountain House, courteous and careless; no fellow of these gentlemen, nor yet at all like Mr. Falkirk, a guard upon them. Mr. Falkirk's brows had unmistakeably drawn together at sight of the new comers; Rollo stood on the edge of the group, indifferent and at ease, after his wonted fashion in general society.
'You are making almost your first acquaintance with these beautiful woods?' Stuart remarked, to the little mistress of them, breaking the lull that Mr. Falkirk's arrival had produced.
'How old is your own, sir?' said Mr. Falkirk.
'I—really, I don't know—I have shot here a little; before you came, you know; when it was all waste ground.'
'I remember getting lost in them once, when I was a child,' said Wych Hazel,—'I think that was my first acquaintance. It was just before we went away. And Mr. Falkirk found me and carried me home. Do you remember, sir?'
But Mr. Falkirk was oblivious of such passages of memory in the present company. He gave no token of hearing. Instead, he cruelly asked Mr. Kingsland how farming got on this summer? And Mr. Kingsland, by way of returning good for evil, gave Mr. Falkirk a shower of reports and statistics which might have been true—they were so unhesitating. Through which rain of facts Mr. Falkirk could just catch the sound of words from Mr. May, the sense of which fell upon Miss Kennedy's ear alone. Until Rollo at her side broke the course of things.
'I beg your pardon! Miss Kennedy,' (in an aside) 'I see
Primrose and her father coming. Shall I stop them?'
'Why, of course!' she said, springing to her feet, 'What a question!'
The two recumbent gentlemen rose at once.
'Do you always wear wildwood tints, Miss Kennedy?' asked Mr. Simms, looking up admiringly at the slim figure. 'I thought the other day that green was matchless, but to-day—'