'I shall have to have one built to order,' remarked Mr.
Falkirk, after the pause of half an egg.
'And have it lined with blue—to set me off.'
'With a dickey behind—to set me on.'
'No, indeed! I'll have Dingee for an outrider, and then we'll be a complete set of Brownies. You must order quick-footed horses for me, Mr. Falkirk—I may be reduced to the fate of the Calmuck girls.'
A single dark flash was in Mr. Falkirk's glance; but he only said: 'Who is to have the first race, my dear?'
'Mr. Falkirk, you should rather be anxious as to who will have the last. But get me a fast horse, sir, and let me practise'— and flitting away from the table and about the room Miss Hazel sang—
' "The lady stude on the castle wa',
"Beheld baith date and down;
"Then she was ware of a host of men
"Came ryding towards the town.
"O see ye not, my merry men a',
"O see ye not what I see?
"Methinks I see a host of men:
"I marvel wha' they be." '
And thereupon, finding she had suddenly come rather close to the subject, Miss Hazel dashed out of the room.
The day proved warm. The air, losing its morning dew and freshness, moved listlessly about among the leaves; the sky looked glassy; the cattle stood panting in the shade, or mused, ankle deep, in the brooks; only the birds were stirring.
With thought and action as elastic as theirs, the young mistress of Chickaree prepared for her visit to the poor woman; afraid neither of the hot sunbeams nor of certain white undulations of cloud that just broke the line of the western horizon. Mr. Falkirk had walked down to his cottage; there was no one to counsel or hinder. And over the horses there was small consultation needed; the only two nags found being a young vixen of a black colt, and an intensely sedate horse of no particular colour which Mrs. Bywank was accustomed to drive to church. Relinquishing this respectable creature to Dingee, Wych Hazel perched herself upon Vixen and set forth; walking the colt now to keep by her little guide, but promising herself a good trot on the way home.