the feet, though not to notice how the dew sparkled on the moss or how the colours changed in the valley.  He was far above the Mountain House, on the wild hillside.  The sun had scattered the fog from the lower country, which lay a wide dreamland to tempt the eye, and nearer by the lesser charms of rock and tree, moss and lichen, light and shadow, played with each other in wildering combinations.  But Rollo did not look at valley of hill; his eyes were seeking a gleam of colour which they had seen that morning once before; and seeking it with the spy of an eagle.  No grass here gave sign of a footstep.  Soft lichen and unbending ferns kept the secret, if they had one; the evergreens were noisy with birds, but otherwise mute; the fog still settled down in the ravines and hid whatever they held.

Thither Mr. Rollo at last took his way, after a moment’s observation:  down the woody, craggy sides of a wild dell; the thick vapour into which he plunged sufficiently bewildering even to his practised eyes.  Partridges whirred away from before him, squirrels chattered over his head, but his particular quarry Mr. Rollo could nowhere find.  Through that ravine and up the next ledge, with the sun rising hotter and hotter, and breakfast long over at the Mountain House.

He found her at last so suddenly that he stopped short.  She was tired probably, for she had dropped herself down on the moss, her cheek on her hands, and had dropped her eyelids too, in something very like slumber; the clear brown cheek bearing it usual pink tinges but faintly.  The figure curled down upon the moss was rather tall, of a slight build; the features were not just regular; the hair of invisible brown lay in very wayward silky curls; and the eyes, as soon could be seen, were to match, both as to colour and waywardness.  The mouth was a very woman’s mouth, though the girlish arch lines had hardly yet learned their own powers whether of feeling or persuasion.  Very womanish, too, was the sweep of the arm outline, and the hand and foot were dainty in the extreme.  Neither hand or foot stirred for other feet approaching, the pretty gypsy having probably tired herself into something like unconsciousness; and the first sound of which she was thoroughly sensible was her own name.  The speaker was standing near her when she looked up, with his hat in his hand, and an air of grave deference.  He expressed a fear that she was fatigued.

She had half-dreamily opened her eyes and looked up at first, but there was nothing ‘fatigued’ in the way the eyes went down again, nor in the quick skill with which the scarf was caught up and flung round her, fold after fold, until she was muffled and turbaned like an Egyptian.  Then she rose demurely to her feet.

‘I thank you, sir, for arousing me.  Is Mr. Falkirk here?’

’No—­I am alone.  But you are at a distance from home.  Can you go back without some refreshment?’ The words and the speaker were quiet enough, but Wych Hazel’s colour stirred uneasily.