'It's a nice business to hinder Miss Wych when she has a mind,' Mrs. Bywank went on; 'but I couldn't see her tiring herself over the fire—so I said, 'But my dear, think of your hands! No gloves!' 'What about my hands?' says she. 'Cooking is bad for them, Miss Wych,' says I. 'Is it?' said she. 'Well, they've had their share of being ornamental. What is the first thing to do, Byo?' 'So I felt desperate,—and said I, 'My dear, when Mr. Rollo comes back he will not like to find your hands any different from what they are now.'—She turned round upon me so,' said Mrs. Bywank laughing a little, 'that I didn't know what she would say to me for my impertinence. However, she only gave me one great look out of her eyes, and then stood looking down at her hands, and then she ran off,—and was gone a good little while. And I felt so bad I couldn't set to work nor anything, till at last I knew it must be done, and I told the girl to set the kettle on. And just then back she came, looking—Well, you'll know some day, sir, how Miss Wych _can_ look,' said Mrs. Bywank with dim eyes. 'However, the gloves were on; and she just took hold, steady and quiet as an old hand, and never opened her lips but to ask a question. Of course I sat by and directed, and I kept a girl there to lift and run; but from that day Miss Wych made every single thing that went to the Hollow— or to you, sir—with her own little fingers. So that kept her fast all the mornings.' Dane's eyes did not leave the window. His lips took a firmer compression. 'Then in the afternoons she just shut herself up again,—and I knew that would no do, and I begged her to go out. So she said at last she couldn't go and come without such a train—and it did seem as if people were bewitched, sure enough,' said Mrs. Bywank. 'I think there never _was_ such a run on the house. What with you sick and Mr. Falkirk somehow not taking much notice—You know he's gone, sir?' 'Yes.' 'Miss Wych took it rather to heart,' said Mrs. Bywank. 'She couldn't see why he went. But I asked her then why she didn't ride in the woods where nobody'd meet her.—'If there was anything to do there!' she said. 'But nobody lives in my woods.'—'Ask Reo,' says I. 'He goes everywhere.' 'So I don't know what Reo told her, but now she's out all the afternoon; busy somewhere. And there!' said Mrs. Bywank, as a horseman passed the window,—'it's hard to blame her for staying late. But there she comes!'—and the old housekeeper went softly from the room.