Late one afternoon Dr. Arthur set him down at the old house door. A cool winter breeze was fitfully rustling the dry leaves and giving a monitory brush past the house now and then; whispering that Christmas was near, and snow coming. Staying for no look at the sunlight in the tree-tops, Rollo marched in and went straight to the red room. He stood suddenly still on opening the door. No one was there, not even the presence of a fire, but chair and foot-cushion stood as they had been left two months before; the ashes had not been removed, and the flowers in the vase had faded and dropped with no renewal. Rollo next went down the hall to Mrs. Bywank's quarters. Here a side door stood open, and Mrs. Bywank herself stood on the steps shading her eyes and gazing down the road. 'What are you looking for, Mrs. Bywank?' said a cheery voice behind her. 'Mr. Rollo!' cried the old housekeeper turning with a delighted face. 'I am glad to see you again sir, surely! And well-nigh yourself again! I am just looking for Miss Wych—it is time she was home.' 'Where is she?' 'Off and away,' said Mrs. Bywank, with the smile of one who knows more than his questioner. 'She's a busy little mortal, these days.' 'What does she find to be busy about?' 'I should like to tell you the whole story, sir,—if we had time,' said Mrs. Bywank with a glance down the road. 'She'll never tell—and I think you ought to know. Step this way, Mr. Rollo, and you can see just as well and be more comfortable.' Mrs. Bywank led the way to a little corner room where fire and easy chairs and a large window commanding the approach. 'I suppose you'd like to hear, sir,' she said as she replenished the fire, 'how the world has gone on down this way for two months back?' 'Very much,'—Dane said gravely, with however a restless look out of the window. 'Well sir, about the first days I cannot say much. I hardly saw Miss Wych at all. She used to dress up and come down and meet Mr. Falkirk, and then she'd go back to her room, and there she staid. Only she'd given me orders about the articles for the Hollow. 'So one morning, just as the beef and things were brought into my kitchen, and one of the maids had gone down for a kettle, in walked Miss Wych. 'Byo,' says she, 'I am going to make everything myself in future.'—'But my dear!' said I, 'you do not know how.' 'I am going to learn,' says she. 'Well,' said I, 'you can look on and learn.' 'I will do it and learn,' says she—and she marched right up to me and untied my big apron and put it on herself; for I don't believe _then_ she had an apron belonging to her.' Without ceasing to keep watch of the window, Dane's eyes gave token of hearing and heeding, growing large and soft, with a flash coming across them now and then.