request that you will mount nobody's
steed, not even your own, without consulting me first that I
may make sure all is safe. It is still more true than it was
the other night that I require your co-operation to discharge
my trust.'

'Why, of course I should consult you, sir!' she said, with
some surprise.

'That is all, Miss Hazel. Rollo will give his oversight to the
woods. Only don't engage yourself to anybody for a ride till
you _have_ consulted me. Do you agree to that form of
precaution-taking?'

'Certainly, sir. I am sure I referred Mr. Morton to you at
once,' said Miss Hazel, drinking her tea. And Mr. Falkirk, in
a silence that was meditative if not gloomy, lay and watched
her. It was a little book room where they were, perhaps the
largest on that floor, however; a man's room. The walls all
books and maps, with deer horns, a small telescope and pistols
for a few of its varieties. Yet it was cheerful too, and in
perfect order; and Mr. Falkirk was lying on a comfortable
chintz couch. Papers and writing materials and books had been
displaced from one end of the table for Hazel's tea. That
over, the young lady brought a foot-cushion to the side of Mr.
Falkirk's couch and established herself there, much refreshed.

'It is great fun to come to tea with you, sir! Now, may I go
on with business? or are you too tired?'

'Suppose I say I am too tired?' growled Mr. Falkirk, 'what
will you do?'

Hazel glanced up at him from under her eyelashes.

'Wait, sir. I am learning to wait, beautifully!' she answered
with great demureness. 'Then suppose I go and tell Mrs.
Saddler about my room?'

'Go along,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'Give your orders. You had
better send up to the house for some furniture. You'll make
Mrs. Saddler happy at any rate. I am not so sure about Gotham.
But Gotham has too easy a life in general.'

They had a lively time of it in the other part of the house
for the next half day. And so had Mr. Falkirk in his, for that
matter: the sweet voice and laugh and song, somehow,
penetrated to his study as grosser sounds might have failed to
do. It was towards tea-time again when Wych Hazel presented
herself in the study on the tips of her toes, and subsiding
once more to her cushion glanced up as before at Mr. Falkirk.

'Has the fatigue of yesterday gone off, sir?'

'No; but I see the business has come. Can you be comfortable
in your mousehole? Let us have the business, my dear. If it is
knotty perhaps it