'You will find that out one day,' muttered her guardian.

'Seeking my fortune, and wait for the mending of a bridge!'
Hazel went on. 'And then I said I was going to Catskill,--and
then you're the best guardian in the world, Mr. Falkirk, so
it's no use looking as if you were somebody else.'

'I shall be somebody else directly,' said Mr. Falkirk in a
cynical manner. 'But eat your dinner, Miss Hazel; you will not
have much time.'

A meal for which he did not seem to care himself, for there
was no perceivable time when he took it.

The stage coach into which the party presently stowed
themselves, held now but those four--Mr. Falkirk and his ward,
and two gentlemen who had declared themselves on the way to
the mountain. The former established themselves somewhat
taciturnly in the several corners of the back seat, and so
made the journey; that is to say, as much as possible, for Mr.
Falkirk being known to the other could not avoid now and then
being drawn into communication with them. One, indeed, Mr.
Kingsland, made many and divers overtures to that effect. His
elegance of person and costume was advantageously displayed in
an opposite corner, from whence he distributed civilities as
occasion offered. His book and his magazine were placed at the
brown veil's disposal; he stopped the coach to buy cherries
from a wayside farm, which cherries were in like manner laid
at Wych Hazel's feet; and his observations on the topics that
were available, demonstrated all his stores of wit and wisdom