'Yes, sir—I like to look cool,' said Hazel, conscious that she could not always accomplish the feat. 'Especially when I have the world on my hands. Just now I am undefended., Gov. Powder; but I suppose both my guardians will be here by and by.' 'What do you do with two guardians, eh? Keep 'em both in good humour?' 'One at a time is as much as I often try for,' said Hazel. 'But Gov. Powder, I wish you would let me have a little fun right over the heads of them both.' 'I?' said the ex-governor, somewhat surprised. 'Eh? It does not often happen to me now-a-days to have the honour of such an appeal—unless from my own mad daughters. In what direction do you want me to come over your guardians, Miss Kennedy? and which of them?' 'O it is nothing mad at all, in my case,' said Hazel. 'And neither of them must know. But will you walk a little way down the wood with me, sir? I do not want them even to see a consultation.' A man must be much set in his own purposes who would not go more than 'a little way' after such a voice; and Gov. Powder was but an ordinary man. So, finding the white ruffles a very pretty sort of a convoy, the ex-governor strolled down among the golden hickories and ruddy oaks, and never once guessed that he had a siren at his elbow. 'Last winter,' Hazel began, speaking fast now, to keep pace with the minutes, 'I had quite a large legacy left to me.' 'Somebody who wanted to protect you against misfortune, eh?' said the governor. 'Or who did not believe in guardians, sir; for mine were to have no control over it whatever.' 'I see!' said the governor. 'Pocket money to purchase sugar-plums.' 'But perhaps you know, sir, that we girls like sugar-plums of many sorts.' 'Miss Kennedy, do you know my daughters?' 'Well sir,' said Hazel weighing her words, wondering to herself whether diplomats get along without telling fibs; and if they do, _how_ they do,—'it would be quite a novelty of a bonbon to invest this money in some splendid way, all by myself. Not the whole of it, you know, sir,—only a few thousands.' She was so eager! and so terribly afraid of shewing her eagerness. 'That is a sort of bonbon that is very tempting to old fellows like me; but, pardon me, I should think it was more in Mr. Falkirk's way than in yours?' 'Mr. Falkirk may admire it afterwards, if he chooses, but _I_ want to make the investment. And I learned from somebody,' said Hazel, careful of her words, "that the best thing I could do, was to buy that bit of land of yours, Gov. Powder, lying just at the head of the Hollow. It is not worth more than twenty thousand, is it?' she went on, suggestively. 'And I was told, sir, that you were ready to dispose of it.' 'Somebody spoke too fast,' said the governor, looking unmistakably surprised this time. 'Really, I am in no hurry to dispose of that piece of land. Its value is in its water power. You don't want to build mills, do you?'