'I don't think you need two carriages at present. The pony carriage would have to have a pony.'
'Yes, sir. Pony carriages, I believe, generally do. I am not well enough known in the neighbourhood yet to expect other means of setting my wheels in motion. But if I have nothing _but_ that, Mr. Falkirk, then you and I can never go together.'
'And if you do _not_ have that, then you could not go alone.'
'Precisely, sir. Mr. Falkirk, don't you want a rose--what shall I say! --to--do something to your meditations?' And before Mr. Falkirk had time to breathe, she was down on her knees at his side, and fastening an exquisite "Duchess of Thuringia" in his buttonhole.
'Yes, I look like it,' said he grimly, but suffering her fingers to do their will nevertheless. 'Miss Hazel, if the princess goes about in a pony carriage, I shall be in daily expectation of its turning into a pumpkin, and leaving her on the ground somewhere.'
'No, sir. Not the least fear of your turning into an amiable godmother,--and you know that was essential.'
'Ponies are ugly things,' said Mr. Falkirk ruefully. 'However, I'll ask Rollo; and if he can find one, that suits him----'
'Then do let him keep it!' interposed Miss Hazel, facing round. 'What possible concern of Mr. Rollo's are my horses?'
'Simply that I am going to ask him to choose them. He knows more about such things than any one else, and I dare say he will give me his help. I wanted to know your fancy, though very likely it can't be met, about the other horses; colour and so forth.'
'Not white--and not black,' said Wych Hazel. 'And not sorrel-- nor cream.'
'That is lucid. You said saddle horses--Ah! what's this?'
It was a little combination of brisk sounds in the hall, followed by the entrance of Rollo himself in a gray fisherman's dress. Unless he was very hard to suit he might have enjoyed the picture now opened before him. The pretty room, with its garden outlook; the breakfast table, bright and quaint together, with its old-time furnishings; and flowers everywhere, arranged and un-arranged. As he came in, Wych Hazel had just (quite surreptitiously) hung a garland of pansies on the high carved peak of Mr. Falkirk's chair, and then dropped into her own place; with a De Rohan rose in the belt of her gray dress. Not in the least like Roll's gray, but white with the edge taken off, like a pale cloud.