modest background.

'I have been longing to see you at home, my dear,' said Mme.
Lasalle. 'All in good time; but I always am impatient for what
I want. And then we have all wanted you; the places of social
comfort in the neighbourhood are so few that we cannot afford
to have Chickaree shut up. This beautiful old house! I am so
delighted to be in it again. But I hope you have met with no
accident this morning? You have not?'

'Accident?--O no!'

'You have surely not been thrown,' said another lady.

'No, ma'am.' The demure face was getting all alight with
secret fun.

'But how was it?' pursued Mme. Lasalle, with an air of
interest. 'We saw you walk up to the door--what had become of
your horse?'

'He walked to another door.'

'And you have really been taking foot exercise this morning,'
said the lady, in whose eyes and the lines of her face might
be seen a slight shadow. Miss Kennedy then had been on foot of
choice, and so accompanied! And Wych Hazel was too
inexperienced to notice--but her guardian was not--that Mr.
Nightingale, to whom he had been talking, paused in his
attention and turned to catch the answer.

'I have been finding out that my woods need attention,' said
Miss Kennedy, who never chose to be catechised if she could
help it. 'It is astonishing that they can have grown so much
in these years when I have grown so little!'

'You have got to make acquaintance with a great many other
things here besides your trees. Do you know any of your
neighbours? or is it all unbroken ground?'

'I do not even know how much there is to break.'

'How delicious!' remarked a languid lady. 'Think of coming
into a region where all is new! Things get so tiresome when
you know them too well.'

'People and all!' said Mr. Falkirk.

'Well, yes--don't you think they do? When there is nothing more
to be found out about them.'

'I don't agree with you,' said another lady. 'I think it's so
tiresome to find them out. When you once know them, then you
give up being disappointed.'

'My dear Clara!' said Mme. Lasalle, 'what a misanthropical
sentiment! Miss Kennedy, I know by her face, will never agree
with you. Were you ever disappointed, my dear, in your life?
There! I know you were not.'

'Not often, I think.' What were they talking about,--these
people who looked so gay and spoke so languidly? Miss Kennedy
rang for refreshments, hoping to revive them a little.

'But, my dear, how far have you walked in this ho