'I am quite satisfied with things as they are, Miss Hazel.'
'Are you, sir? I am delighted!' said Hazel. 'But I never even supposed such a thing possible. How are "things"—if I may be allowed to inquire?'
Some things are new,' returned her guardian. 'And I should not be satisfied with them, if they concerned me. Which I take for granted they do not. I saw Dr. Arthur down town to-day; and he told me some odd news about Rollo.' Mr. Falkirk was finishing his tea in a leisurely way, evidently not thinking that the news, whatever it was, concerned either of them seriously.
'Why did you not bring Dr. Arthur home to tea?' inquired his ward.
'I did not think of it, Miss Hazel. But he volunteered a visit in the course of the evening.'
'That will be delightful,—I like Dr. Arthur,' said Hazel, feeling that somehow or other she must get a glimpse of his news before he came.
'Well, if what he said gave you so much pleasure, why don't you repeat it to me, Mr. Falkirk,' she ventured.
'I do not remember that I said anything gave me pleasure,' returned her guardian. 'This don't. By what he says, Rollo has lost his wits. I thought him a shrewd man of business; and he was that, when your affairs were in his hand last summer; but if what Dr. Arthur tells me is true, and it must be, he has done a very strange thing with his own fortune.'
'Dear me! I hope he did not hurt himself looking after mine!' said Wych Hazel innocently. 'Are fortune and wits both in peril, Mr. Falkirk?'
'Not yours, I hope,' said her guardian. 'I should be very uneasy if I thought that. I should have no power to interfere. The will gives him absolute control, supposing that he had control at all.'