O how thoughts tired themselves, toiling round these points! and slowly uprising from them came yet another, which filled the air. What was she to say at the year's end?—or, if this were the year's end, what would she say now?—supposing Mr. Rollo still cared what she said. But that last question must be studied by and by. Mr. Rollo would have been amused, may be, and may be a little touched, if he had known the ogre-like shapes in which the girl conjured him up, just to see if she could endure him so: putting herself to superhuman tests. But her imagination played tricks, after all; for every Afrite came up with a face and voice before which she yielded, perforce; and even her favourite scene of standing still as the bay and having him snap his fingers for her, ended one day in a laugh, as she thought what she would say if he ever did. Then finding she had got very far beyond limits, Hazel coloured furiously and ran away from her thoughts. But they hindered her new study, and interrupted it; and the study brought up the new pain; only slowly through it all, one thing gradually grew clear, helped on by her pain perhaps as much as anything: she would rather belong to somebody than not—if somebody wanted her! And there was only one somebody in the world, of whom that was true.
Whereupon, with characteristic waywardness, Miss Wych at once gave up her recluse life; accepted invitations, and pulled Mr. Falkirk into a round of outdoor gaiety that nearly turned his head. Trying, perhaps, to test her discoveries, or to get rid of her thoughts; or to prove to herself conclusively that she did not wish for any more visits from Chickaree.
And so Wych Hazel knew her own secret.
Typographical errors silently corrected :
Contents : =favors= silently corrected as =favours=