'I had the pleasure of bringing her home.'
'O, did you, sir?' said Mrs. Bywank, with a quick look. 'She told me she meant to go,—but her mind comes about wonderfully sudden sometimes. Here is breakfast, Mr. Rollo. Will you take your old seat?'
'I think it will always come about in the right place at last,' said Rollo, as he complied with the invitation. The old housekeeper drew a sigh, looking up at the little picture.
'My pretty one!' she said. Then applied herself to filling Mr. Rollo's cup. 'Yes, sir, you're right,' she went on after a pause. 'And she never would stop in a wrong one, not a minute, but for just a few things.'
'Mrs. Bywank,' said the young man, 'those few things are all around her.'
'You'd think so if you could hear the serenades I hear,' said the housekeeper, 'and see the flowers—and hear the compliments. She tells them to me sometimes, making fun. But the trouble is with Miss Wych, she never will see the world with any eyes but her own,—and who's to make her?'
A problem which Rollo considered in silence, and probably swallowed instead of his coffee.
'Does she speak freely to you of her impressions, and of what she is doing or going to do?'
'Free as a child, Mr. Rollo! Always tells me what dress she'll wear—and then afterwards how people liked it. And what she does, and what they want her to do. And why her head is not turned,' said Mrs. Bywank, in conclusion, 'puzzles my head, I'm sure. Mere handling so many hearts might do it.'
Mr. Rollo pursued his breakfast rather thoughtfully and nonchalantly for a time.