Wych Hazel Part 69

Hazel's thoughts had been so far away that she started.

'What?' she said hastily.

'May I talk to you, just a little bit?'

'O yes,--certainly. Anybody may do anything to me.' But she kept her position unchanged. 'I am listening, Prim.'

'Hazel, dear, are you quite sure you are doing right?'

'About what?'

'About-- Please don't take it ill of me, but it troubles me, Hazel. About this sort of life you are leading.'

'This sort of life?' Hazel repeated, thinking over some of the days last past. 'Much you know about it!'

'I do not suppose I do. I cannot know much about it,' said Primrose meekly. 'All _my_ way of life has been so different.

But do you think, Hazel, really, that there is not something better to do with one's self than what all these gay people do?'

'I think you are a great deal better than I am--if that will content you.'

'Why should it content me?' said Primrose, laughing a little.

'I do not see anything pleasant in it, even supposing it were true.'

'There is some use in training you,' Hazel went on; 'but no amount of pruning would ever bring me into shape.' And with that, somehow, there came up the thought of a little sketch, wherein her hat swung gayly from the top of a rough hazel bush; and with the thought a pain so keen, that for the moment her head went down upon her hands on the window-sill.

Primrose was silent a few moments, not knowing just how to speak.

'But Hazel,' she began, slowly--'all these gay people you are so much with, they live just for the pleasure of the minute; and when the pleasure of the minute is over, what remains? I cannot bear to have you forget that, and become like them.'

'Like them?' said Hazel. 'Am I growing like Kitty Fisher?'

'No, no, no!' cried Primrose. 'You are not a bit like her, not a bit. I do not mean that; but I mean, dear,--aren't you just living for the moment's pleasure, and forgetting something better?'

'Forgetting a good many things, you think.'

'Aren't you, Hazel? And I cannot bear to have you.'

'What am I to remember?' said the girl in a sort of dreamy tone, with her thoughts on the wing.

'Remember that you have something to do with your life and with yourself, Hazel; something truly n.o.ble and happy and worth while. I am sure dancing-parties are not enough to live on. Are they?'

'No.'

Perhaps Primrose thought she had said enough; perhaps she did not know how to choose further words to hit the girl's mood.

She was patiently silent. Suddenly Hazel sat up and turned towards her.

'You poor little Prim!' she said, laying gentle hands on her shoulders and a kiss on each cheek,--'whirled off from your green leaves on a midnight chase after witches! This was one of Mr. Rollo's few mistakes: he should have come alone.'

'Should he?' said Primrose, wondering. 'But it wouldn't have been so good for you, dear, would it?'

'Prim'--somewhat irrelevantly--'did you ever have a thorn in your finger?'

'What do you mean?' Primrose answered in just bewilderment.

'Well I have two in mine.' And Miss Kennedy went back to the window and her world of moonlight. She did not wonder that the Indians reckoned their time by 'moons;' she was beginning to check off her own existence in the same way. In one moon she had walked home from Merricksdale, in another driven back from Mrs. Seaton's; and now in this--But then her head went down upon the window-sill once more, nor was lifted again until the carriage was before the steps of Chickaree.

'Dane,' said Primrose, as the two were parting in the dusky hall at home, 'she will never get over this. Never, never, never!'

He kissed her, laughing, and giving her hand a warm grasp.

'You are mistaken,' he said. 'She is a more sensible woman than you giver her credit for.'

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

HITS AT CROQUET.

The second day after the four-in-hand club affair, the following note was brought to Miss Hazel:

'Will you ride with me this afternoon?

'M. O. R.'

And perhaps five words have seldom taken longer to write than these which he received by return messenger:

'Not to-day. Please excuse me.

'Wych Hazel.'

It happened that invitations were out for a croquet party at Chickaree; and the day of the party was appointed the third succeeding these events. Thither of course al the best of the neighbourhood were invited.

The house at Chickaree stood high on a hill; nevertheless immediately about the house there was lawn-room enough and smooth greensward for the purposes of the play. The very fine old trees which bordered and overshadowed it lent beauty and dignity to the little green; and the long, low, grey house, with some of its windows open to the verandah, and the verandah itself extending the whole length of the building, with cane garden-chairs and Indian settees hospitably planted, made a cheery, comfortable background. September was yet young, and the weather abundantly warm; the sort of weather when everybody wants to be out of doors. No house in the country could show a prettier croquet-green than Chickaree that afternoon.

Mr. Falkirk had mounted the hill in advance of other comers, and stood surveying the prospect generally from the verandah.

'Who is to be here, Miss Hazel? I am like a bear newly come out of his winter-quarters--only that my seclusion has been in the other season of the year.'

'Pray let the resemblance go no further, sir! Who is to be here?' said Miss Kennedy, drawing on her dainty gloves,--'all the available people, I suppose. Unless they change their minds.'

'Have the goodness to enlighten me. _Available people_--available for what?'

'Croquet--and flirting.'

'If you please-- I understand, I believe, the first term; it means, to stand on the green and roll b.a.l.l.s about among each other's feet; but what is comprehended in "flirting"?'

'Standing in the air and rolling b.a.l.l.s there,' said Miss Kennedy.