and creepers with a
light hand were beautifully indicated. But in the nook where
Wych Hazel had stationed herself, there was no pretty little
figure with her book on her lap; in its place, sharply and
accurately given, was a scraggy, irregular shaped bush, with a
few large leaves and knobby excrescences which looked like
acorns, but an oak it was not, still less a tree. The topmost
branch was crowned with Miss Kennedy's nodding hat, and upon
another branch lay her open drawing book. Miss Kennedy shook
her head.

'I cannot deny the relationship!--Your style of handling is
perhaps a trifle dry. That is not what you call an "ideal
woman," is it, Mr. Rollo?'

'I might fairly retort upon that. What do you say to our
moving from this ground, before the band up there gets into
Minor?'

Retaking of a sudden her demureness, slipping away to her
first position on the rock, with hands busy about the pink
flowers, Wych Hazel answered, as once before--

'Do not let me detain you--do not wait for me, Mr. Rollo.'

'Shall I consider myself dismissed? and send some more
fortunate friend to help you out of your difficulty?'

'I am not in any difficulty, thank you.'

'Only you don't know your way,' he said, with perhaps a little
amusement, though it hardly appeared. 'Is it true that you
will not give me the honour of guiding you?'

'In the first place,' said Miss Hazel, wreathing her pink
flowers with quick fingers, 'I know the way by which I came,
perfectly. In the second place, I never submit voluntarily to
anybody's guidance.'

'Will you excuse me for correcting myself. I meant, in "not
knowing your way," merely the way in which you are to _go_.'

'Do you know it?'

'If you suffer my guidance--undoubtedly.'

'Ah!--if. In that case so do I. But I "suffered" so much on the
last occasion--and Dr. Maryland has left the Mountain.'

'I would not for the world be importunate! Perhaps you will
direct me if I shall inform any one of your hiding place--or do
you desire to have it remain such?'

'Thank you,' said Miss Hazel, framing the landscape in her
pink wreath and gazing at it intently, 'I suppose there is not
much danger. But if you see Mr. Falkirk you may reveal to him
my distressed condition. He needs stimulus occasionally.'

Rollo lifted his hat with his usual Spanish courtesy; then
disappeared, but not indeed by the way he had come. He threw
himself upon an outstanding oak branch, from which, lightly
and lithely,