“And can she humbug Mr. Rickards? Tell me that,” asked the lawyer, with the leer of an old cross-examiner. “Well, I do think, Sir, she can’t do that. It’s not every one as could.” “No, Rickards; you and I know how to sleep with one eye open. But what does she mean by all this cunning--what does she intend by it?” “There’s what I can’t come at, nohow, Sir; for, as I say, what’s the good of plotting when you have everything at your hand? She hasn’t no need for it, Mr. M’Kinlay. She has the same treatment here as Miss Ada herself--it was the master’s orders.” “It puzzles me, Rickards: I own it puzzles me,” said the lawyer, as, with his hands deep! in his pockets, he took a turn or two in the room. “They say, Sir, it’s the way of them Irish,” said Rickards, with the air of a man enunciating a profound sentiment; but M’Kinlay either did not hear, or did not value the remark, for, after a pause, he said, “Its just possible, after all, Rickards, that it’s only a way she has. Don’t you think so?” “I do not, Sir,” replied he, stoutly. “If there wasn’t more than that in it, she wouldn’t go on as I have seen her do, when she thought she was all alone.” “How so? What do you mean?” “Well, you see, Sir, there’s a laurel hedge in the garden, that goes along by the wall where the peach-trees are, and that’s her favourite walk, and I’ve watched her when she was there by herself, and it was as good as any play to see her.” “In what respect?” “She’d be making believe all sorts of things to herself--how that she was a fine lady showing the grounds to a party of visitors, telling them how she intended to build something here and throw down something there, what trees she’d plant in one place, and what an opening for a view she’d made in another. You’d not believe your ears if you heard how glibly she’d run on about plants and shrubs and flowers. And then suddenly she’d change, and pretend to call her maid, and tell her to fetch her another shawl or her gloves; or she’d say, ‘Tell George I shall not ride to-day, perhaps I’ll drive out in the evening.’ And that’s the way she’d go on till she heard the governess coming, and then, just as quick as lightning, you’d hear her in her own voice again, as artless as any young creature you ever listened to.” “I see--I see,” said M’Kinlay, with a sententious air and look, as though he read the whole case, and saw her entire disposition revealed before him like a plan. “A shrewd minx in her own way, but a very small way it is. Now, Rickards, perhaps you’d tell Miss Heinzleman that I’m here--of course, not a word about what we’ve been talking over.” “You couldn’t think it, Sir.” “Not for a moment, Rickards. I could trust to your discretion like my own.”