"O do come here!" cried Primrose; "and love us."
"I do not wonder Mr. Falkirk gives no help," said Rollo, a little quizzically.
"Will you try Primrose"s expedient, my dear?" said Dr.
Maryland, very benignly. "Half your requisition you will certainly find. Whether you can love us, I don"t know; but there"s no knowing without trying."
She gave one of her sweet childish looks of answer to both the first and last speaker; but Mr. Rollo was favoured with a small reproof.
"You must not speak so of Mr. Falkirk," she said. "He has been the kindest possible friend to me. And I think he loves me wonderfully, considering how I have tried his patience. Just think what it is for a grave, quiet, grown-up, sensible man, to have the plague of a girl like me! Very few men would stand it at all, Mr. Roll; but Mr. Falkirk never said a rough word to me in his life."
She was so grave, so innocent, so ignorant in it all, the effect was indescribably funny.
"I should think very few men would stand it," said Rollo, composedly; but Primrose and her father smiled.
"Mr. Falkirk is an admirable man," said Dr. Maryland. "You are a good witness for him, Hazel."
"If I would only do all he wants me to!" she said with a slight shake of the head. "But I cannot, and he says I don"t know what I want. But Dr. Maryland--all the nice, proper people I have ever seen, live on such a dead level--it would kill me.
They think dancing is wrong, and Italian a loss of time, and "it"s a pity to waste my young years upon German." And they can"t talk of a book, but some life of a missionary who was eaten by cannibals,--I was very sorry he went there, to be sure, but that didn"t make me want to hear about it, nor to go myself. They are just like peach trees trimmed up and nailed to a wall, and I"d rather be wild Wych Hazel in the woods, though it"s of no sort of use, and n.o.body cares for it!" Dr.
Maryland might guess from this frank out-pouring, how seldom it was that the stream of young thoughts found such an exit, how complete was the trust which called it forth. She had quite forgotten her tea. And the doctor forgot his; and bent his gray head towards her brown one.
"But suppose, my dear," (how different this from Mr. Falkirk"s "my dear,")--"suppose the bush were a conscious thing; and suppose that while it remained in the woods and remained entirely itself, it could yet by being submitted to some sweet influence be made so fragrant that its influence should be known all through the forest; and its nuts, instead of being wild, useless things, should every one of them bring a gift of healing or of life to the hands that should gather them? I would rather it should stay in the woods;--and I never think anything trained against a wall is as good as that which has the sun all round it."
Wych Hazel looked at him with no sort of doubt in her eyes that he had been "submitted to some sweet influence." And perhaps it was the image he had drawn, that brought a little tremour round her lips, as she answered:
"I do not want to be a wild, bitter, useless thing,--maybe that is what Mr. Falkirk is afraid of, too."
"I believe," said Dr. Maryland, "that He who made all the varieties in the world, and made men as various, never meant that one should take the form or place of another. If it fills its own, and fills it perfectly, it glorifies Him; and does just what it was meant to do."
"Not to mention the fact," said Rollo, "that Wych Hazel could not conveniently personate a pine tree or Primrose a blackthorn."
But at the entrance of this gentleman as Privy Counsellor, Wych Hazel withdrew her affairs from public notice; however much inclined to vindicate her power of personating what she liked, especially pine trees. She dropped the subject and took up her bread and b.u.t.ter. And so did Dr. Maryland, for a while; but he eat thoughtfully. There was a pause, during which Primrose was affectionately solicitous over Wych Hazel"s cup of tea, and Rollo piled strawberries upon her plate. Tea had been rather neglected.
"And what have you been doing, Hazel, all these past twelve years?" said the doctor, breaking out afresh. "Twelve years!-- it is twelve years. What have you done with them, my dear?"
"I was at school, you know, sir, for a while, and then I had no end of tutors and teachers at home." She drew a long breath.
"And what are you going to do with the next twelve years?--if you should live so long. What are you going to try to do with them, I mean?"
"I want to try to have a good time, sir."
"And you will be a queen, and hold your court at Chickaree?"
She laughed--her pretty, free laugh of pleasure.
"So Mr. Falkirk says. Only he does not call me a queen--he calls me a mouse!"
Dr. Maryland laughed too, at her or with her, a rare thing for him, but returned to his grave tenderness of look and tone.
"Ah, little Hazel," he said, "you are in a dangerous place, my child, with your court up there. Do you know, that when you and the world you want to see, come together,--either you will change it, or it will change you?--that is why I asked you what you were going to do with the next twelve years. That was a great word of Paul, when his years were almost over,--"I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give me at that day!" "
He was silent, but so grave, so sweet, so rapt, had been the tone of the last words, that they all kept silence likewise.
Dr. Maryland"s head fell, he seemed to be seeing something not before him; presently he went on speaking to himself.
" "And not to me only,--but to all them that love his appearing."--My dear," suddenly to Wych Hazel,--"will you love his appearing, when it comes?"
She?--how could she tell? to whom not only the question but almost the very thought were new. He did not pursue that subject. Presently he left the table and stood up, or walked up and down behind it; while under the sense of his talk and his thought and his presence, they were all quiet; finishing their supper as docilely as so many children. And a reflection from him was on all their faces, making each one more pure and bright than its own wont.
He stayed with the young people after tea, instead of going to his study; and the evening was full of grave interest, which also no one wished less grave. He talked much, sometimes with Wych Hazel, sometimes with Rollo; and Rollo was very amusing and interesting in meeting his inquiries and remarks about German universities and university life. The talk flowed on to other people and things abroad, where Rollo had for some years lately been. The doctor grew animated and drew him out, and every now and then drew Wych Hazel in, giving her much of his attention and perhaps scrutiny also, though that was veiled.
The talk kept them up late. As they were about separating for the night Rollo asked Wych Hazel if she had found any cats at Chickaree?
"What do you mean?" she said quickly. "O--I remember"--and the light danced over her face. "I haven"t had much time to find anything. What did you do with my poor kitten up on the mountain, Mr. Rollo?"
"I was going to ask you whether you would like to see an old friend."
"Yes, to be sure. You do not mean that my little p.u.s.s.y is here?"
"You shall have her to-morrow."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GREY COB.
Morning has come, and the Queen of Chickaree must return to hold her court. Little guesses the Queen what a court is gathering for her. While she is quietly eating her breakfast at Dr. Maryland"s, Mme. Lasalle is ordering her horses, to make a call upon her in the course of the morning, and Mr.
Kingsland is thinking in what cravat he shall adorn himself when he goes to do the same thing in the afternoon. For Mr.
Kingsland has arrived at home, where he and his old father keep a bachelor sort of household in a decayed old house at one extremity of Crocus. They have a respectable name, folks say, but not wealth to set it off; and the household is small.
The same little boy who rubs down Mr. Kingsland"s horse waits upon table, and there is n.o.body else but a housekeeper. But Mr. Morton is thinking he will call too; and Mr. Morton is a man of means; he owns a large part of Mill Hollow, called also Morton Hollow. He occupies a great old brick house in the neighbourhood of the Hollow, and keeps it in excellent repair, and the gra.s.s of the lawn is well shaven. Mr. Morton is well off and has servants enough, but he has years enough too; Mr.
Morton must be forty. Nevertheless he thinks he will call.
Then there is Mrs. ex-Governor Powder also; she lives in a very good house, and in an irreproachable manner, at a fine place called Valley Garden, ten miles off. Mrs. Powder is an excellent woman, a stately lady, knows what is what, and has been a beauty, and held a court of her own. Indeed she is of a proud old family, and married a little beneath her when she married the man who afterwards became Governor Powder. But what would you have? Women must be married. Mrs. Powder will come to see Miss Kennedy; she is thinking about it; but probably she will not come till to-morrow or the day after; she is not in a hurry. Mme. Lasalle is; and so is the gentleman of the roses, her nephew. Meanwhile Miss Kennedy knows nothing of all this, nor how furthermore the Lawyer"s wife and the Doctor"s mother (for there is another doctor at Crocus) are meditating how soon they may ask Miss Kennedy to dinner or to supper, and how soon it will do to go and ask her. They are afraid of seeming in a hurry. Meanwhile Miss Kennedy eats her breakfast.
Breakfast is had in the stone hall, with the doors open front and rear and the Summer day looking in at them. It is very pleasant, and the old black woman, Portia, comes and goes without interfering with the talk at table. The sewing machine stands at one side of the hall still.
"What new affair have you got there, my daughter?" says the doctor.
"It"s a sewing machine, papa, which Duke has brought me."
"A sewing machine! What are you going to do with it?"
"Put her work in her pocket, I hope, sir. I am tired of seeing it in her hand."
"It is very good of you, Duke; but can she manage it?"
"Not yet, sir. Neither of us can. We are going to find out."
"Well, what"s the advantage of it?"