The Gold of Chickaree — Part 52

Hazel looked amused. 'Is not that last clause an addition to the old code?' she said. 'The first two sound natural.'

Rollo smiled a little, but vouchsafed no further notice. 'Now,' he went on, 'to pursue your plan, I am building new cottages; and I shall leave the rose-planting to you.'

'In-doors and out.—Do you know, Mr. Rollo, I should think you had done the very best possible preparatory work by getting it into the peoples' heads that somebody cared whether they had roses, or clean faces, or anything else. And there I can speak from experience.'

'Because I never had anybody to care,' said Hazel. 'So I know how it feels.'

'Never had anybody to care—what?' said Dane, riding close up alongside and looking earnestly for the answer.

'What I did, or how I dressed, or what became of me generally,' said Hazel. 'O I suppose Mr. Falkirk _cared_, but he never shewed it in any way to do me a bit of good. There was no one I could please, and no one I could displease; and so while people thought I had everything, I used to feel all alone, and thought I had nothing.'

'I knew—very soon—that you cared,' she said, with the pretty soft fall of eyes and voice. 'I mean, cared for my sake.'

'Very soon?' said Rollo. 'How soon, you Wych?'

'Other people were thinking of what I was, and you of what you thought I ought to be; and it was very easy to feel the difference.'

'When?' said Rollo, scarce controlling a smile, 'When did you see it first, I mean?'

'I think you began to criticise me, almost as soon as I got here.'

'And then, Hazel, how long was it before you began to forgive me?'

'O there was no forgiveness in question,' she said, passing his words with a blush. 'The criticising shewed a little bit of real interest. And that is what I had been as hungry for, as your mill people for more tangible things. But I did not mean that I thought—I did not think about it at all. Not much.'

'Not all—not much,' said Rollo. 'No. Only a little. I understand. And what should I have got for my pains, if I had pressed the final question a year ago?'

'I did not think a _little_,' said Hazel, looking flushed and downcast,—'only when you made me. And when people talked.'

Rollo enjoyed the sight a minute or two, and then proposed a run. He kept it a very gentle run, however, and when they came to a talking pace again resumed the subject of the mills.