Dane rewarded this speech with a look of grave deliberation, which ended with the corners of his mouth breaking into all manner of lines of fun. Hazel smiled too, partly at him, partly at herself. 'You see what always happens when I talk out,' she said. 'I am sure to be laughed at for my "confidence," as you call it. But Mr. Rollo, I did not much mind what Prim said. Not a bit, only for two little things.' 'What little things, Hazel?' and there was the force of a dozen "dears" and "my loves" in the quiet intonation. 'I thought for a while that you had told her to talk to me. As you did once before.' A quick look denied all knowledge of such an occasion. 'At Greenbush—that night,' said Hazel. 'That night,' said Dane smiling again. 'But I did not set her to talk to you then. I only sent her to do what I supposed at the moment she might do more acceptably.' 'I know—'said Hazel, 'but I never could take second-hand orders. That was one of the times when you made a mistake in your dealings with me.' 'Well? You know I shall not make such mistakes any more. And yet, Hazel,' said he growing grave, 'that is too much for me to say even lightly. Perhaps I shall make mistakes. Till we have lived long enough together to know each other thoroughly, I might. What will you do then?' She laughed a little, half raised her eyes, and let them fall. 'No,' she said, 'you will not repeat those two or three great ones; and others do not matter.' 'Two or three!' said Dane; but then he began again.—'What was the other "little thing" that annoyed you in Prim's words the other night?' 'About as wise as the first! I never supposed you noticed my dress,—or would,—while I kept out of yellow feathers and sky blue gloves. But Prim left a sort of impression, that if ever you _should_, it would be to dislike it. And that troubled me a little bit at the time, and has troubled me—just a little bit—ever since.' Probably Dane's first thoughts were not put into words. What he did, was to get hold of Wych Hazel's hand, and between the kisses he gave it he remarked, 'I never noticed your dress without feeling a certain delight in its perfect harmonies; and—I never saw you without noticing your dress.' '_You?_' Hazel said with a quick, timid intonation. And then there came a great flush of pleasure, and she looked away and was silent; thinking to herself—what she herself would have called "all sorts of things." 'Don't you think,' said Dane coolly, 'that as we have evidently so much respectively to learn about each other, we had better begin as soon as possible?' 'Are you expecting such new developments?—But then,' she said, the doubtful look waking up again, 'what did Primrose mean? She meant something,—and you know what it was.' 'Do I? I suppose Primrose felt that I had changed from my once views of that, as of other subjects.'