The Gold of Chickaree Part 7

'I don't remember it,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'I only remember who took me to all the watering-places on the continent?where I didn't want to go. I should like to be informed, Miss Hazel, when the search after fortune is to end?when I may reasonably hope to resume my own shape again? You may not suppose it; but barking tries a man's powers.'

'I had not perceived it, sir. On the contrary, your voice has been particularly sonorous of late.'

'Are you aware it is the first of October, Miss Hazel?'

'Time for chestnuts, isn't it?' said the girl. 'I had forgotten all bout them.'

'There are other nuts to crack besides chestnuts. The owner of the house you had last winter has written to ask if you want it again this year.'

'Talk of the restlessness of women!' said Hazel. 'Here are we but just settled in the country, and Mr. Falkirk already proposing to return to town.'

'I don't know what you are,' said Mr. Falkirk, 'but _I_ am not settled.

Of course, coming home at the end of the season, I have no cook; and Gotham informs me that the kitchen chimney smokes. I should think it did, to judge by the condition of my beefsteaks.'

'I am very sorry, sir! Suppose you condescend to _my_ beefsteaks?

until the cook and the smoke change places? The blue room is in perfect order?and would suit your state of mind,' said Miss Wych, eyeing Mr. Falkirk with an air of deep gravity. 'Then there is always Europe??'

'Is _that_ the next thing!' exclaimed Mr. Falkirk, with a positively alarmed air. 'I have been expecting it.'

'I wanted to go last year, you know, sir,?and (if n.o.body said anything against it) I think I should write at once and secure my pa.s.sage.'

'To what quarter of the world, miss Hazel?'

'We might go round, sir; and stop where things promised fairest.'

'We might. Then I am to understand you do not like the promise of things at Chickaree?'

'What do you take to be the promise of things here, at present, Mr.

Falkirk?'

'Quite beside the question, Miss Hazel. Am I to tell this man you don't want the house in Fiftieth street?'

'I should prefer another house, I think,' said Hazel gravely. 'Mr.

Falkirk, I had a letter from Kitty Fisher this morning, and she sends you her love.'

Mr. Falkirk gave an inarticulate grumble.

'You may throw it back to her, my dear; her own love is all she cares about; and as I don't care about it, we are suited. Do I understand that you wish me to look for another house, then?'

'I did hint at Europe,'?said Wych Hazel. 'But if it amuses you to look for houses, sir, I have no sort of objection.'

Mr. Falkirk laid down his knife and fork, and looked across the table.

'It don't amuse me to look for anything in a fog, my dear. Do you want to go to Europe?'

'O well, we need not go this week, sir! Shall I invite all the neighbourhood to a grand chestnutting, when Kitty Fisher comes?'

'Miss Hazel, that girl is not proper company for you. I hope you will not ask her to help in your merrymakings; she understands nothing but a romp. And, my dear, if you know your own mind I wish you would be so kind as to let me know it. To go to Europe this fall, you must be off in three weeks at latest. Have you spoken to Rollo about it?'

'Truly, I have not!' said Wych Hazel, with a glow which however Mr. Falkirk charged to displeasure. 'Did you ever know me speak to him about anything connected with my own affairs, sir?'

'I don't know, my dear. He has a word to say concerning them. Do you wish me to sound him on the subject, then?'

'Did you ever succeed in "sounding" him, sir? on any subject?' said the young lady, consulting her watch, and with all her senses on the alert for interruptions. What were 'business' hours at Morton Hollow, she wondered? Then she rose up, and pa.s.sing round to Mr. Falkirk, gave him a smile that was very sweet and not a bit teasing.

'I must go and rest, sir. I find sitting up tires me to-day. But you will come to dinner?'

She went off with that quick step, betaking herself to the crimson room; for to-day Hazel seemed to prefer high-coloured surroundings. There sat for awhile before the great picture, thinking of many things; and there, still down on her foot cushion, laid her head in one of the easy chairs and went to sleep; with the gray cat dozing and purring in the same chair, close by her head.

Only the cat's eyelashes were not wet, and Wych Hazel's were.

CHAPTER VI.

A MAN AND HIS MONEY.

It is a pity somebody had not come to see; and somebody would, only that Rollo had a good many things to attend to just now besides his own pleasure. Instead, when the morning was half over, came Miss Phinney Powder, and the sleep and the att.i.tude were broken up. Hazel went to her in the drawing-room.

Miss Josephine was in an unsettled state of mind; for she first placed herself on an ottoman by the fire-place, then got up and went to the window and stood looking out; all the while rattling on of indifferent things, in a rather languid way; then at last came and sank down in a very low position at Wych Hazel's feet on the carpet. She was a pretty girl; might have been extremely pretty, if her very p.r.o.nounced style of manners had not drawn lines of boldness, almost of coa.r.s.eness, where the lip should have been soft and the eyebrow modest. The whole expression was dissatisfied and jaded to-day, over and above those lines, which even low spirits could not obliterate.

'It must be awfully nice to have such a place as this all to yourself?house and all;?just to yourself! You needn't be married till you've a mind to. Don't you think it's a great bore to be married?'

'People can always wait,' said Wych Hazel.

'Wait?' said Phinney. 'For what?'

'For such a great bore,' said Hazel, stroking the cat.

'How can you wait?' said Phinney.

'What hinders?'

'Why! you must be married, you know, some time; and it don't do to stay till you can't get a good chance. It's such a bore!' said the poor girl helplessly.

Somehow, Hazel's own happiness made her rather tender towards these notes of complaint.

'What do you mean?' she said, leaning down by Phinney. 'I would not take even "a good chance" to be miserable.'

'I'm just in a fix,' said Josephine, 'and I can't get out of it. And I came to see you on purpose to talk. I thought maybe you would have some sympathy for me. n.o.body has at home.'

'Sympathy! What about?'

'Papa wants me to marry somebody?who comes pestering me every other day.'

Josephine looked disconsolately out of the window. The weary face was eloquent of the system under which she declared herself suffering.

'Somebody you do not like?' said Hazel.