"Certainly I might. I do hate concealments of any kind." Annette spoke with conviction. "So do I," said Roger whole-heartedly. "I've hushed up too many scrawls not to hate them. But this isn't a concealment. It's--it's--you see, Miss Black _does_ run round with her tongue out and no mistake, and Uncle John's advice when I settled down here as his agent was, 'Never say more than you must.' So I just pass it on to you, now that you've settled down at Riff too." And Roger departed for the second time. She watched him go, and a minute later heard him ride out of the courtyard. She sat quite still where he had left her, gazing in front of her, so motionless that the birds, disturbed by Roger's exodus, resumed possession of the grass-plot at once. The plebeian sparrows came hopping clumsily as if they were made of wood, propped up by their stiff tails. A bulging thrush with wide speckled waistcoat hastened up and down, throwing out his wing each time he darted forward. A thin water-wagtail came walking with quick steps, and exquisite tiny movements of head and neck and long balancing tail. A baby-wagtail, brown and plump and voracious, bustled after it, shouting, "More! More!" the instant after its overworked, partially bald parent had stuffed a billful down its yellow throat. Annette looked with wide eyes at the old dim house with its latticed windows and the vine across it--the vine which Dick had climbed as a lad. Dick was Mr. Manvers of Hulver. The baby-wagtail bolted several meals, fluttering its greedy little wings, while Annette said to herself over and over again, half stupefied-- "Dick is Mr. Manvers. Dick is Janey's brother." She was not apprehensive by nature, but gradually a vague alarm invaded her. She must tell Mrs. Stoddart at once. What would Mrs. Stoddart say? What would she do? With a slow sinking of the heart, Annette realized that that practical and cautious woman would probably insist on her leaving Riff. Tears came into her eyes at the thought. Was it then unalloyed bliss to live with the Miss Nevills, or was there some other subtle influence at work which made the thought of leaving Riff intolerable? Annette did not ask herself that question. She remembered with a pang her two friends Janey and Roger, and the Miss Blinketts, and Mrs. Nicholls, and her Sunday-school class, and the choir. And she looked at the mignonette she had sown, and the unfinished annuals, and the sweet peas which she had raised in the frame, and which would be out in another fortnight. She turned and put her arms round the little old apple tree, and pressed her face against the bark. "I'm happy here," she said. "I've never been so happy before. I don't want to go." CHAPTER XIX