"I can certify that the "a.s.sembly" is quite powerless, Doctor-- if it will be any relief to your mind," said Mr. Kingsland.
While Hazel, with Prim"s hand in hers, was eagerly speaking her pleasure.
"What are you doing?" said Primrose under her breath and looking in some astonishment at the gathering.
"O, nothing--talking,--they wanted to know how I got home," said Wych, an amused look betraying itself. Then quitting Primrose, she went forward a little to receive the farewell addresses of several gentlemen who preferred to see Miss Kennedy alone. The group began to clear away. Prim"s eye watched her, in her graceful, pretty self-possession, as she met and returned the parting salutation; and then went over by some instinct to where another eye was watching her too, with a contented sparkle in its intentness. That was only a second, though.
Rollo had no mind to have all the world know what he was thinking about; and even as her glance found him, his turned away. The strangers being at last disposed of, those remaining began a slow procession towards the house. But a parting word of Mr. Nightingale"s must be noted.
"Any chance for a ride to the wood to-morrow?" he said, with tones so modulated that he thought his words safe. And she answered:
"O, my horses have not come. There will be little riding for me yet a while."
"And these are the Chickaree woods?" said Dr. Maryland, as they walked on. "How beautiful they are! Are you very happy, Hazel, in the hope of being the mistress of all this?"
"Why I thought--I call myself the mistress now, sir. Is it an uncertainty dependent on my good behaviour?" she said with a laugh.
"You know you are not of age, my dear; but I suppose Mr.
Falkirk gives you the essentials of dominion. Do you feel at home yet?"
"Very much! You know, sir, I have just a little remembrance of the old time--when mamma was here--to begin with. But how heedless I am!" she said, abruptly putting the little basket which had been swinging from her hand into the hands of Dr.
Maryland. "There, sir,--will you take some refreshment by the way?" Then turning to Primrose, Miss Kennedy laid the fragrant weight of hot-house flowers upon her.
"Are these from your garden?" said Primrose, somewhat bewildered. While Dr. Maryland, putting his fingers without scruple in among the black and white strawberries, asked in an approving tone of voice: "Have you been picking these yourself, my dear?"
"I--picked them up, sir," said Hazel with the laugh in her voice. "Not off the vines, however. They are hothouse flowers," she answered to Primrose. "When my houses are in order you shall have them every day."
"They are very good," said Dr. Maryland gravely, eating away.
"Where did you get them, my dear?"
"Mr. May brought them, sir," said the girl, looking down now, and walking straight on.
"Mr. May!" echoed Dr. Maryland. "How comes Mr. May to be bringing you strawberries? And those flowers too?" glancing over at Primrose"s full hands.
"No, sir, Mr. Burr brought the flowers."
"You are a fearful man for asking questions, sir," said Rollo, with a flash of fun in his face.
"Questions?" said the doctor, picking out the black strawberries abstractedly,--"I"ve a right to ask her questions.
The strawberries are good!--but I wish Mr. May had not brought them."
"So would he, if he knew you were eating them, sir."
"I"ve eaten enough of them," said Dr. Maryland, seeming to recollect himself. "They are very good; they are the finest strawberries I have seen." And he handed the basket to Mr.
Falkirk, who immediately pa.s.sed it over to Rollo. Rollo balanced the basket on his fingers and carried it so, but put never a finger inside.
"I am afraid your head will be turned, Hazel, my dear," said Dr. Maryland, "if the adulation has begun so soon. What will you do when you are a little better known?"
"Ah!" said Hazel, with an indescribable intonation, "ask Mr.
Falkirk that, Dr. Maryland. Poor Mr. Falkirk! he is learning every day of his life what it is to know me "a little better!" "
"I can imagine that," said Dr. Maryland, quite gravely. "My dear, what a beautiful old house you have!"
The June day, however, was so alluring that they could not make up their minds to go inside. On the basket chairs in the low verandah they sat down, and looked and talked. Primrose did not talk much--she was quiet; nor Mr. Falkirk--he was taciturn; the burden of talk was chiefly borne by Wych Hazel and the Doctor. In a genial, enjoying, sympathising mood, Dr.
Maryland came out in a way uncommon for him! asked questions about the woods, the property, the old house; and delighted himself in the beauty that was abroad in earth and sky.
"My dear," he said at last to Wych Hazel, "you have all that this world can give you. What are you going to do with it?"
"Have I?" she said, rather wistfully. "I thought I was looking for something more. What could I do with it, sir? You know Mr.
Falkirk manages everything as well as can be, now."
"Are you looking for something more?" said Dr. Maryland, tenderly. "What more are you looking for, Hazel?"
"Suppose I should tell you I do not quite know, myself, sir?"
"I should say, my dear, the best thing would be to find out."
"I shall know when I find it," said the girl. "If I find it."
" "To him that hath shall be given!" One of the best ways, Hazel, to find more is to make the best use of what we have."
The girl left her seat, and kneeling down by Dr. Maryland, laid her hand on his shoulder.
"I mean," she said, dropping her voice so that only the doctor could hear, "not more of what people call much; but something, where I have nothing. To belong to somebody--to have somebody belong to me."
"Ah, my dear," said the doctor, wistfully, "I am afraid Primrose wouldn"t do."
"I have wanted her ever since she took me in out of the rain, and did not wonder how I got wet," said Hazel laughing but dropping her voice again.
"If you had her, my dear, you would then want something or somebody else."
"Maybe you do not understand me, sir," she said, a little eager to be understood, and pouring out confidences in a way as rare with her as it was complimentary to her hearer. "I am not complaining of anybody. I know Mr. Falkirk is very fond of me--but he likes to keep me off at a respectful distance. Only a few nights ago, I was feeling particularly good, for me, and rather lonely, and I just asked him to kiss me for good night-- and it made him so glum that he has hardly opened his lips to me ever since!" said Wych Hazel in an aggrieved voice.
"Perhaps Mr. Falkirk has something upon his mind, my dear!"
said Dr. Maryland, with raised eyebrows and an uncommon expression of _fun_ playing about the lines of his mouth. "It is not always safe to conclude that coincident facts have a relation of cause and effect."
"No--" said the girl, "I suppose not. But I stood there all by myself and heard him turn the keys and rattle the bolts--and then I ran upstairs to find Mrs. Byw.a.n.k,--and of course she couldn"t speak for a toothache. And then I felt as if there was n.o.body in all the world--in all my world--but me!"
Dr. Maryland looked tenderly upon the young girl beside him, yet uncomprehendingly. Probably his peculiar masculine nature furnished him with no clue to her essentially feminine views of things.
"I dare say, my dear," he said,--"I dare say! The best cure for such a state of feeling hat I know, would be to begin living for other people. You will find the world grow populous very soon. And one other cure,"--he added, his eye going away from Wych Hazel into an abstracted gaze towards the outer world;-- "when you can say, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." "
The little hand upon his shoulder stirred,--was lifted, and laid down again. Somehow she comprehended him better than he did her. Then with a sudden motion Hazel took off a luminous bracelet--one of the three she always wore, and laid it across Dr. Maryland"s hand.
"Did mamma ever shew you that, sir?" she said. "She had it made just for me. And then my wrist was so small that it would go twice round."
It was a string of twelve stones, all different, all cut and set alike; each long parallelogram fitting rather closely to the next on either side; the hues--opaque, translucent, clouded--flashed and gleamed with every imaginable variation of colour and shade. The doctor looked at it in silence. Then spoke.
"What did she mean by it, Hazel, my dear? I do not catch the interpretation."
She turned it a little in his hand, until the light fell on the gold framing beneath the gems, and Dr. Maryland could read the fine graven tracery:--"The first, a jasper."