ttled for the winter, sir? I
expect to go to town, like other people.'

'What are we to do when we get there?'

'Keep house, sir. You can take one-half the bricks, and I the
other. Or any proportions that may suit your views,' said Miss
Hazel compliantly.

Now Mr. Falkirk did not, it is true, understand the course
things had taken for the last few weeks; he was only a man;
and though Wych Hazel's guardian for many years might be
supposed to hold a clue to her moods, this was what Mr.
Falkirk failed to do in the present instance. But using his
wits as well as he was able, he had come to the conclusion,
not without some secret gratification, that Miss Hazel
preferred the society of her old guardian to that of her new
one. Certainly he was in no mind to cross her wish to go to
the city, if she had such a wish. However, mindful of his
duty, he mentioned her desire to Rollo, and asked if he had
any objection to it. Rollo was silent a minute, and then gave
a frank 'No.' And Mr. Falkirk wrote to make arrangements, and
even went himself to perfect them. And he lost no time; by the
end of October the change was made, and Wych Hazel established
in a snug little house in one of the best streets on Murray
Hill.

If Mr. Falkirk was misled before, his mind was not likely to
clear up as the weeks went on. Whatever had come over his
ward, she was unmistakably changed from her old self; as now,
living in the house with her again, Mr. Falkirk could not fail
to perceive. Quiet steps, a gentle voice that quite ignored
its old bursts of singing; brown eyes that looked softly
through things and people at something else; with a mood
docile because it did not care: but _that_ he did not know.
Apparently she had not come to town for stir,--her going out
was of the quietest kind. Sometimes a specially fine concert
would tempt her; once in a while she made one of her radiant
toilettes and went to a state dinner party, now and then to a
lunch or a kettle-drum; but balls and evening parties of every
sort were invariably declined. Instead, she plunged into
study,--went at German as if her life depended on it, took up
her Italian again, and began to perfect herself in French.
Read history, knit her brows over science, and sat and drew by
the hour.

Of course society could not quite be baffled so: mornings
brought carriage after carriage, and evenings a run upon the
door. Mr. Falkirk had little peace of his life, unless it were
a reposeful