From the collection of Julius Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918. ri464Y aipp piii iteM CIKCOUTION BOOKSTACKS snnnciKi / ^V^r&ing this mate the libra%Trom return to fflp^t on or before the Loba ♦* borrowed below. You Stamped Wow. ?,u mo'J't/S:*" '?•* «"«< underilnl- -« * ru M IW5T OOOlC. the University. result in dismissoi from miwwMf*™""'"™-”"*” M 1 5 m( VIXEN ^ ^axfzX BY mss M. R BRADDON Author of Lady Audley’s Secret,” ETa NEW YORK JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 150 Worth Street, corner Mission Place TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMRANTi MEW YORK. f u l^lu, h/[ ^ V V I X 33 isr. CHAPTER 1 . A PRETTY HORSE-BREAKER. The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale silvery crescen , above the dark pine spires in the thicket through which Kodenck Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day’s rabbit- shooting. It was imt his nearest way home, but he liked the broad clearing in the pine wood, which had a ghostly look at dusk, and was so still and lonely that the dart of a souirrol through the fallen leaves was a startling event. Here and' tliera a sturdy ypung oak that had been newly stripped of its tork lav r^e had been cutM herfaSd^Verl across the track, ready for bailing. The. ground was soft and spongy, slippery with damn dead leaves and niclined in a general way to bogSs buT it was ground that Roderick Vawdrey had known all his life and njeemed more natural to him than any other spot upon mother thicket there was a broad ditch, with more Snl fjf.i T 1 o tieyond the ditch the fence that inclosed Squire Tempest s domain — an old manor- the New Forest. It had been an abbey be- House ®till best known as the Abbey ‘‘I wonder whether I’m too late to catch her?” speculated “ SbXno eSTfui” shoulder to the other. At the end of the clearing there was a broad five-barred gate and beside the gate a keeper’s cottage. Tlie flame of a nfwlv l?odp^^ candle flashed out suddenly upon the autumn dusk, while Kocierick stood looking at the gate. “ Pi] ask at the lodge,” he said. ‘‘ I should like to sav P-onrl- bye to the little thing before I go back to Oxford ” ' ^ ^ He walked quickly on to the gate. The keeper’s children were playmg ac nothing particular just inside it. ^ere askefl^ ^ Tempest gone for her ride this afternoon?” he » y® eldest shock-headed youngster. And not come back yet ?” ^ ^Noa. If she doan’t take care she’ll be bogged.” at ^asfSiW h” and stood ^ t ^ It was late for the little lady of Temnest 01 o be out on her pony, but then it was an understood / O 81 VlXEN. thing within a radius of ten miles or so that she was a self-willed young person, and even at fifteen years of age she had a knack of following her own inclination with that noble disregard of c‘onsequences which characterizes the heaven born ruler. Mr. Vawdrey had not waited more than ten minutes when there came the thud of hoofs upon the soft track, a flash of gray in the distance, something flying over those forky brandies sprawling across the way, then a half-sweet, half-shrill call, like a bird’s, at which the keeper’s children scattered themselves like a brood of s<;ared chickens, and now a rush, and a gray pony shooting suddenly into the air and coming down on the other side of the gate, as if he were a new kind of sky-rocket. “What do you think of that, Rorie ?’ cried the shrill, sweet voice of the gray pony’s rider — “ a clean jump, eh ?” “I’m ashamed of you, Vixen,” said Roderick. “ You’ll come to a bad end some of these days.” ^ I don’t care if I do, as long as I get my fling first,” replied Vixen, tossing her tawny mane. She was a slim little thing, in a short Lincoln-green habit, She had a small pale face, brown eyes that sparkled with life and mischief, and a rippling mass of reddish-auburn hair falling down over her back under a coquettish little felt hat. “Hasn’t your mamma forbidden jumping. Vixen?” remon- strated Roderick, opening the gate and coming in. “Yes, that she has. Sir,” said the sober old groom, riding up at a jog-trot on his thick-set brown cob. “It’s quite against Mrs. Tempest’s orders; and it’s a great responsibility to go out with Miss Violet. She will do it.” “You mean the pony will do it. Badger,” cried Vixen. “J don’t jump. How can I help it if papa has given me a jumping pony? If I didn’t let Titmouse take a gate when he ^vas in the humor, he’d kick like old boots, and pitch fne a cropper. It’s an instinct of self-preservation that makes me let him jump. And as for poor, dear, pretty little mamma,” continued Vixen, ad- dressing herself to Roderick, and changing her tone to one of patronizing tenderness, “if she had her way, I should be brought up in a little box wrapped in jeweler’s wool to keep me safe. But, you see, I take after papa, Rorie; and it comes as natural to me to fly over gates as it does to you to get ploughed for smalls. There, Badger,” jumping off the pony, “you may take Titmouse home, and I’ll come presently and give him some apples, for he has been a dear, darling, precious treasure of a ponykins.” She emphasized this commendation with a kiss on Titmouse’s gi’ay nose, and handed the bridle to Badger. “I’m going to w^alk home with Mr. Vawdrey,” she said. “But, Vixen, I can’t, really,” said Roderick. “I’m due at home at this moment, only I couldn’t leave without saying good-byo to little Vix.” “And you’re overdue at Oxford, too, aren’t you?” cried Vixen, laughing; “ you’re always due somewhere — never in tlie right place. But w hether you are due or not, you’re coming up to the stables with me to give Titmouse his apples, and then Fixm 3 you’re coming to dine with us on your last night at home. I insist upon it; papa insists; mamma insists — we all insist.” “ My mother will be as angry as- ” “ Old boots!” interjected Vixen. “ That’s the best comparison I know.” “ Awfully vulgar for a young lady.” “You taught it me. How can I help being vulgar when I associate with you ? You should hear Miss M’Croke preach at me — sermons so long ” — here Vixen extended her arms to the utter- most — and I'm afraid they’d make as much impression on lit- mouse as they do upon me. But she’s a dear old thing, and I love her immensely.” This was always Vixen’s way, making up for all short-com- ings with the abundance of her love. The heart was always atoning for the errors of the head. “ I wouldn’t be Miss M’Croke for anything. She must have a bad time of it with you.” ‘‘She has,” assented Vixen, with a remorseful sigh, “I fear I’m bringing her sandy hairs in sorrow to the grave. That hair of hers never could be gray, you know; it’s too self-opinionated in its sandiness. Now come along, Korie, do! Titmouse will be stamping about his box like a maniac if he doesn't get those ap- ples.*’ She gave a little tug with both her small doeskin-covered hands at Eoderick’s arm. He was still standing by the gate ir- resolute, inclination drawing him to the Abbey House, duty calling him home to Briarwood, five miles off, where his widowed mother was expecting his return. “ My last night at home, Vix,” he said, remonstrantly; “I re- ally ought to dine with my mother.” “ Of course you ought, and that’s the very reason why you’ll dine with us. ‘ Kim over, now,’ as Badger says to the horses. I don’t know what there is for dinner,” she added, confidentially, “ but I feel sure it’s something nice. Dinner is papa’s strong point, you know. He’s very weak about dinner.” “ Not so weak as he is about you, Vixen.^’ “ Do you really think papa is as fond of me as he is of his din- ner ?” “ I’m sure of it!” “Then he must be very fond of m(‘,” exclaimed Vixen, with conviction. “ Now, are you coming?” Who could resist those little soft hands in doeskin? Certainly not Rorie. He resigned himself to the endurance of his mother’s anger in the future as a price to be paid for the indulgence of his inclination in the present, gave Vixen his arm, and turned his face toward the Abbey House. They walked through shrubberies that would have seemed a pathless wilderness to a stranger, but every turn in which was familiar to these two. The ground was undulating, and vast thickets of rhododendron and azalea rose high above them, or ♦ank in green valleys below their path. Here and there a group of tall firs towered skyward above the dark entanglement of 4 VIXEN. shrubs, or a great beech spread its wide limbs over the hollows; here and there a pool of water reflected the pale moonshine. The house lay low, sheltered and shut in by those rhododendron thickets, a long, rambling pile of building, which had been added to, and altered, and taken away from, and added to again, like that well-known puzzle in mental arithmetic which used to amuse us in our childhood. It was all gables, and chimney- stacks, and odd angles, and ivy-mantled wail, and riclily- mullioned windows, or quaint little diamond-paned lattices, peeping like a watchful eye from under the shadow of a jutting cornice. The stables had been added in Queen Elizabeth’s time, after the monks liad been routed from their snug quarters, and the Abbey had been bestowed upon one of the Tudor favorites. These Elizabethan stables formed the four sides of a quadrangle, stone-paved, with an old marble basin in the center — a basin which the vicar pronounced to be an early Saxon font, but which Squire Tempest refused to have removed from the place it had occupied ever since the stables were built. There were curious carvings upon the six sides, but so covered with mosses and lichens that nobody could tell what they meant; and the squire forbade any scraping process by officious antiquarians, which might lead to somebody’s forcible appropriation of the ancient basin. The squire was not so modern in his ideas as to set up his own gasometer, so the stables were lighted by lanterns, with an oil- lamp fixed here and there against the wall. Into this dim, un- certain light came Roderick and Vixen through the deep, stone archway which opened from the shrubbery into the stable-yard, and which was solid enough for the gate of a fortified town. Titmouse’s stable was lighted better then the rest. The door stood open, and there was Titmouse, with the neat little quilted doeskin saddle still on his back, waiting to be fed and petted by his young mistress. It was a pretty picture, the old low-ceiled stable, with its wide stalls and roomy loose boxes and carpet of plaited straw, golden against the deep brown /)f the wood- work. Vixen ran into the box and took off Titmouse’s bridle, behold- ing down his head, like a child submitting to be undresi^d. Then, with many vigorous tugs at straps and buckles, and a .good deal of screwing up of her rosy lips in the course of the effort. Vixen took off her pony’s saddle. “ I like to do everything I can for him,” she explained, as Rorie watched her with an amused smile. “ I’d wisp liim down if they’d let me.” She left the leather panel on Titmouse’s back, hung up saddle and bridle, and skipped off to a corn chest to hunt for apples. Of these she brought half a dozen or so in the skirt of her habit, and then, swinging herself lightly into a comfortable comer of the manger, began to carry out lier system of reward for good conduct, with much coquetry on her part and Titmouse's, Korie watching it all from the empty stall adjoining, his folded aims resting on the top of the partition. He said not another word about his mother, or the duty that called him home to Bri- VIXEN. 5 arwood, but stood and watched this pretty horse-breaker in a dreamy contentment. What was Violet Tempest, otherwise Vixen, like, this October evening, just three months before her fifteenth birthday? She made a lovely picture in this dim light, as slie sat in the corner of the old manger, holding a rosy-cheeked apple at a tantalizing distance from Titmouse’s nose; but she was, perhaps, not alto- gether lovely. She was bi iiiiant rather than absolutely beautiful.^ The white skin was powdered with freckles. The rippling hair was too warm an auburn to escape an occasional unfriendly remark from captious critics, but it was not red hair for all that. The eyes were brownest of the browm, large, bright, and full of expression. The mouth was a thought too wdde, but it was a lovely mouth notwithstanding. The lips were full and firmly molded — lips that could mean anything, from melting ten- derness to sternest resolve. Such lips, a little parted to show the whitest, evenest teeth in Hampshire, seemed to Rorie lovely enough to please the most critical connoisseur of feminine beauty. The nose was short and straight, but had a trick of tilting itself upward with a little impatient jerk that made it seem retrousse; the chin was round and full and dimpled; the throat was full and round also — a white column supporting the tawny head, and in- dicated that Vixen was meant to be a powerful woman, and not one of those ethereal nymphs who lend themselves most readily to the decorative art of a court milliner. ^T’m afraid Violet wdll be a dreadfully large creature,” Mrs. Tempest murmured, plaintively, as the girl grew and fiourished; that lady herself being ethereal, and considering her owm appear- ance a strictly correct standard of beauty. How could it be otherwise, when she had been known before her marriage as “the pretty Miss Calthorpe?” “ This is very nice, you know. Vixen,” said Roderick, critically, as Titmouse made a greedy snap at an apple, and was repulsed with a gentle pat on his nose, “ but it can’t go on forever. What’ll you do when you are grown up ?” “ Have a horse instead of a pony,” answered Vixen, unhesitat- ingly. “ And will that be all the difference?” “ I don’t see what other difference there can be. I shall al- ways love papa; I shall always love hunting; I shall always love mamma — as much as she’ll let me. What difference can a few more birthdays mak^ in me ? I shall be too big for Titmouse, that’s the only misfortune; but I shall always keep him for my pet, and I’ll have a basket-carriage, and drive him when I go tt) see my poor people. Sitting behind a pony is an awful bore when one’s natural place is on his back; but I’d sooner endure it than let Titmouse fancy himself superannuated.” ^ “But when you’re grown up you’ll have to come out, Vixen. You’ll be obliged to go to London for a season, and be presented, and go to no end of balls, and ride in the Row, and make a grand marriage, and have a page all to yourself in the Court Journal. “Catch me — agoing to London!” exclaimed Vixen, ignoring the latter part of the sentence. “ Papa hates London, and so do 0 vixm. I. And as to riding in Rotten "Row^je vondrais bien vie voir faisant cela,^' added Vixen, whose study of the French language chiefly resulted in the endeavor to translate English slang into that tongue. “No; when I grow up I shall take papa the tom- of Europe. We’ll see all those places I’m worried about at lessons — Marathon, Egypt, Naples, the Peloponnesus, tout le treviblevient — and I shall say to each of them, ‘ Oh, this is you, is it? W'hat a nuisance you’ve been to me on the map!’ We shall go up Mount Vesuvius, and the Pyramids, and do all sorts of wild things; and by the time I come home I shall have forgotten the whole of my education.” “ If Miss M’Croke could hear you!” “ She does, often. You can’t imagine the wild things I say to her. But I love her — fondly.” A great bell clanged out with a vigorous peal that seemed to shake the old stable. “ There’s the first bell; I must run and dress. Come to the drawing-room and see mamma.” “But, Vixen, how can I sit down to dinner in such a cos- tume ?” remonstrated Rorie, looking down at his brown shooting suit, leather gaiters, and tremendous boots — boots which, in- stead of being beautified with blacking, were suppled with tallow. “ I can’t do it, really.” “Nonsense!” cried Vixen; “what does it matter? Papa sel- dom dresses for dinner. I believe he considers it a sacrifice to mamma’s sense of propriety when he washes his hands after coming in from the home farm. And you are only a boy — I beg pardon — an under-graduate. So come along.” “ But upon my word. Vixen, I feel too much ashamed of my- self.” “I’ve asked you to dinner, and you’ve accepted,” cried Vixen, pulling him out of the stable by the lapel of his shooting jacket. He seemed to relish that mode of locomotion, for he aflowed himself to be pulled all the way to the hall door, and into the glow of the great big fire— a ruddy light which shone upon many a sporting trophy, and reflected itself on many a gleaming pike and cuirass, belonging to days of old, when gentlemanly sport for the most part meant man-hunting. It was a fine old vaulted hall, a place to love, and remember lovingly when far away. The walls were all of darkly bright oak paneling, save where here and there a square of tapestry hung before a door, or a painted window let in the moonlight. At one end there was a great arched fire-place, the arch sur- mounted with Squire Tempest’s armorial bearings, roughly cut in freestone. A mailed figure of the usual stumpy build, in helm and hauberk, stood on each side of the hearth; a large three- cornered chair, covered with stamped and gilded leather, was drawn up to the fireside, the squire’s favorite seat on an autumn or winter afternoon. The cliair was empty now, but, stretched at full length before the blazing logs, lay the squire’s chosen companion, Nip, a powerful liver-colored pointer; and beside him, in equally luxurious rest, reclined Argus, Vixen’s mastitf. There was a story about Vixen and the mastiff, involving the VIXEN. 7 only incident in that young lady’s life the recollection whereof could make her blush. The dog, apparently coiled in deepest slumber, heard the light footsteps on the hall floor, pricked up his tawny ears, sprang to his feet, and bounded over to his young mistress, whom he nearly knocked down in the warmth of his welcome. Nip, the pointer, blinked at the intruders, yawned desperately, stretched himself a trifle longer, and relapsed into slumber. “ How fond that brute is of you,” said Rorie; “but its no wonder when one considers what you did for him.” “ If you say another word I shall hate you,” cried Vixen, sav- agely. “But you know when a fellow fights another fellow’s battles the other fellow’s bound to be fond of him; and when a young lady pitches into a bird-boy with her riding-whip to save a mas- tiff pup from ill-usage, that mastiff pup is bound ” “ Mamma,” cried Vixen, flinging aside a tapestry portiere, and bouncing into the drawing-rocm, “here’s Roderick; and he’s come to dinner, and you must excuse his shooting-dress, please, lam sure pa will.” “ Certainly, my dear Violet,” replied a gentle, tramante voice from the fire-lit dimness near the velvet- curtained hearth. “ Of course I am always glad to see Mr. Vawdrey wlien your papa asks him. Where did you meet the squire, Roderick ?” “ Upon my word, Mrs. Tempest,” faltered Rorie, coming slowly forward into the ruddy glow, “ I feel quite awfully ashamed of myself; I’ve been rabbit-shooting, and I’m a most horrid object. It wasn’t the squire asked me. It was Vixen.” Vixen made a ferocious grimace at him — he could just see her distorted countenance in the fire-light — and further expressed her aggravation by a smart crack of her whip. “Violet, my love, you have such startling ways,” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, with a long-suffering air. “ Really, Miss M’Croke, you ought to try and correct her of those startling ways.” On this Roderick became aware of a stout figure in a tartan dress knitting industriousl}^ on the side of the hearth opposite Mrs. Tempest’s sofa. He could just see the flash of those active needles, and could just hear Miss M’Croke murmur placidly that she had corrected Violet, and that it was no use. Rone remembered that plaid poplin dress when he was at Eton. It was a royal Stuart, too brilliant to be forgotten. He used to wonder whether it would ever wear out, or whether it was not made of some indestructible tissue, like asbestos — a fabric that neither time nor fire could destroy. “ It was Rorie’s last night, you see, mamma,” apologized Vixen, “ and I knew you and papa would like him to come, and that you wouldn’t mind his shooting clothes a bit, though they do make him look like the under-keeper, except that the under- keeper’s better-looking than Rorie, and has finished growing his whiskers, instead of living in the expectation of them.” And with this Parthian shot Vixen made a pirouette on her neat little morocco-shod toes, and whistled herself out of the room, leaving Roderick Vawdrey to make the best of his exis^ 8 VIXEN. ence for the next twenty minutes with the two women he alwa^'s found ifc most difficult to get on with. Mrs. Tempest and Sliss M’Croke. The logs broke into a crackling blaze just at this moment, and lighted up that luxurious hearth and the two figures be- side it. It was the prettiest thing imaginable in the way of a drawing- room, that spacious, low-ceiled chamber in the Abbey House. The oak paneling was painted white — a barbarity on the part of those modern Goths, the West End decorators, but a charm- ing background for quaint Venetian mirrors, hanging shelves of curious old china, dainty little groups of richly bound duodeci- mos, brackets, bronzes, freshest flowers in majolica jars; water- color sketches by Hunt, Front, Cattermole, and Duncan; sage- green silk curtains, black and gold furniture, and all the latest prettinesses of the new Jacobean school. The mixture of real mediaevalism and modern quaintness was delightful. One.hardly knew where the rococo began, or the mediaeval left oft. The good old square fire-place, with its projecting canopy, and col- umns in white and colored marbles, was as old as the days of Inigo Jones; but the painted tiles, with their designs from the Iliad and Odyssey, after Dante Eossetti, were the newest thing from Minton’s factory. Even Rorie felt that the room was pretty, though he did above all things abhor to be trapped in it, as he found himself this October evening. “ There’s a great lot of rubbish in it,” he used to say of Mrs. Tempest’s d redwing -room, “ but it’s rather nice altogether.” Mrs. Tempest at five-and-thirty still retained the good looks which had distinguished Miss Calthorpe at nineteen. She was small and slim, with a delicate complexion; soft, blue eyes, u limpid, innocent azure; regular features, rosebud lips, hands after Velasquez; and an unexceptionable taste in dress, the selection of which formed one of the most onerous occupations of her life. To attire herself becomingly, and to give the squire the dinners he best liked, in an order of succession so dexterously arranged as never to provoke satiety, were Mrs. Tempest’s cardinal duties. In the intervals of her life she read modern poetry, French novels, and reviews, did a little high-art needle-work, played Mendels- sohn’s ‘‘Lieder,” sang three French chansons which her husband liked, slept, and drank orange pekoe. In thcj consumption of this last article, Mrs. Tempest was as bad as a dram-drinker. She declared her inability to support life without that gentle stimulant, and required to be wound up at various hours of her languid day with a dose of her favorite beverage. “I think I’ll take a cup of tea.” was Mrs. Tempest’s inevitable remark at every crisis of her existence. ‘‘ And so yon are going back to Oxford, Roderick?” the lady began, with a languid kindness. Mrs. Tempest had never been known to be unkind to any one. She regarded aU her fellow-creatures with a gentle tolerance. They were there, a necessary element of the universe, and she bore with them. But she had never attached herself particularly VIXEN. 9 to any body except the squire. Him she adored. He took al^ the trouble of life off her hands, and gave her all good things* She had been poor, and he had made her rich; nobody, and he had elevated her into somebody. She loved him with a canine fidelity, and felt toward him as a dog feels toward his master — that in him this round world begins and ends. ‘‘Yes,” assented Rorie, with a sigh, “I’m going up to-mor- row.” “ Why up ?” inquired Miss M’Croke, without lifting her eyes from her needles. “ It isn’t up on the map.” “ I hope you are going to get a grand degree,” continued Mrs. Tempest, in that soft, conciliatory voice of hers-—“ Senior Wrangler, or something.” “ That’s the other shop,” exclaimed Rorie; “ they grow that sort of timber at Ca mbridge. However, I hope to pull myself through somehow or other tliis time, for my mother’s sake. She at- taches a good deal of importance to it, though for my own part I can’t see what good it can do me. It won’t make me farm my own land better, or ride straighter to hounds, or do my duty bet- ter to my tenants.” “ Education,” said Miss M’Croke, sententiously, “ is always a good, and we can not too lughly estimate its influence upon ” “ Oh yes, I know,” answered Rorie, quickly, for he knew that when tile flood-gates of Miss M’Croke’s eloquence were once loosened the tide ran strong; “ when house and lands are gone and spent a man may turn usher in an academy, and earn fifty pounds a year and his laundress’s bill by grinding Caesar’s Com- mentaries into small boys. But I shouldn’t lay in a stock of learning with that view. Wlien my house and lands are gone. I’ll go after them — emigrate, and go into the lumber trade in Canada.” “What a dreadful ideal” said Mrs. Tempest. “But you are not going to lose house and lands, Roderick— such a nice place as Briar wood.” “ To my mind it’s rather a commonplace hole,” answered the young man, carelessly; “ but the land is some of the best in the country.” Ifc must be nearly seven by this time, he thought. He was getting through this period of probation better than he had ex- pected. Mrs. Tempest gave a little stifled yawn behind her huge black fan, upon which cupids and graces were depicted dancing in the airiest attitudes, after Boucher. Roderick would have liked to yawn in conceit, but at this juncture a sudden ray of light flashed upon him and show^ed him a way of escape. “I think I’ll go to the gentleman’s room, and make myself decent before the second bell rings,” he said. “Do,” assented Mrs. Tempest, with another yawn; and the young man fled. He had only time to scramble through a hurried toilet, and was still feeling very doubtful as to the parting of his short, crisp hair, when the gong boomed out its friendly summons. The gentleman’s room opened out from the hall, and Rorie 10 VIXEN. heard the squire’s loud and jovial voice uplifted as he raised the tapestry curtain. Mr. Tempest was standing in front of the log fire, pulling Vixen’s auburn hair. The girl had put on a picturesque brown velvet frock. A scarlet sash was tied loosely round her willowy waist, and a scarlet ribbon held back the loose masses of her brigh.t hair. “A study in red and brown,” thought Eorie. as the fire-glow lit up the picture of the squire in his hunting dress and the girl in Inn warm velvet gown. “Such a run, Rorie!” cried the squire. “ We dawdled about among the furze from twelve till four, doing nothing, and just as it was getting dark started a stag up on the high ground this side of Pickett’s Post, and ran him nearly into Ringwood. Go in and fetch my wife, Rorie. Oh, here she is ” — as the portiere was lifted by a white ringed hand. “ You must excuse me sit- ting down in pink to-day, Pamela; I only got in as the gong began to sound, and I’m as hungry as the proverbial hunter.” “ You know I always think you handsomest in your red coat, Edward,” replied the submissive wife; “ but I hope you’re not very muddy.” “ I won’t answer for myself, but I haven’t been actually up to my neck in a bog.” Rorie offered his arm to Mrs. Tempest, and they all went in to dinner, the squire still playing with his daughter’s hair, and Miss M’Croke bringing up the rear solemnly. The dining-room at the Abbey House was the ancient ref rec- tory, large enough for a mess-room; so when there were no visitors the Tempests dined in the library, a handsome square room, in which old family portraits looked down from the oak paneling above the book-cases, and in which the literary ele- ment was not obtrusively conspicuous. You felt that it was a room quite as well adapted for conviviality as for study. There was a cottage piano in a snug corner by the fireplace. The squire’s capacious arm-chair stood on the other side of tlie hearth, Mrs. Tempest’s low chair and gypsy table facing it. The old oak buffet opposite the chimney-piece was a splendid speci- men of Elizabethan carving, and made a rich background for the squire’s racing cups, and a pair of Oliver Cromwell tank- ards, plain and unornamental as that illustrious Roundhead himself. It was a delightful room on a chill October evening like this; the logs roaring up the wide chimney, a pair of bronze cande- labra lighting the room and table, Mrs. Tempest smiling pleas- antly at her unbidden guest, and the squire stooping, red-faced and plethoric, over his mullagatawny; while Vixen, wlio was at an age when dinner is secondary, was amusing herself with tlie dogs, gentlemanly animals, too well-bred to be importunate in their demands for an occasional tidbit, and content to lie in su- perb attitudes, looking up at the eaters with supplication in their great pathetic brown eyes. “ Rorie is going up to-morrow — not in a balloon, but to Mag- dalen College, Oxford — so, as this was his last night, I made him VIXEN. 11 come to dinner,” explained Vixen, presently. ‘‘I hope I didn’t do wrong.” “ Rorie knows he’s always welcome. Have some more of that mullagatawny, my lad; it’s uncommonly good.” Rorie declined the mullagatawny, being at this moment deeply engaged in watching Vixen and the dogs. Nip, the liver-colored pointer, was performing his celebrated statue feat. With his fore-legs stiffly extended, and his head proudly poised, he simulated a dog of marble, and if it had not been for the occasional bumping of his tail upon the Persian carpet, in an irresistible wag of self -approbation, the simulation would have been perfect. *‘Look, papa! isn’t it beautiful? I went out of the room the other day, while Nip was doing* the statue, after Pd told him not to move a paw, and I stayed away quite five minutes and then stole quietly back, and there he was, l 3 ung as still as if he’d been carved out of stone. Wasn’t that fidelity ? ” “ Nonsense !” cried the squire. “ But how’ do you know that Nip didn’t wind you as you opened the door, and get himself into position? What are these?” as the old silver entree dishes came round. “Stewed eels? You never forget my tastes, Pamela.” “Stewed eels, sir; sole maitre d’hotel,” said the butler, in the usual suppressed and deferential tone. Rorie htdped himself automatically, and \vent on looking at Vixen. Her praises of Nip had kindled jealous fires in the breast of Argus, her own particular favorite ; and the blunt black muzzle had been thrust vehementlv under her velvet sleeve. “ Argus is angry.” said Rorie. “ He’s a dear old foolish thing to be jealous,” answered Vixen, “ when he knows I’d go through fire and water for him.” “ Or even fight a big boy,” cried the squire, throwing him_self back in his chair wdth the unctuous laughter of a man who is dining w'ell, and knows it. Vixen blushed rosiest red at the allusion. • Papa, 3 ^ou oughtn’t to say such things,” she cried. “ I was a little bit of a child then.” “Yes, and flew at a great bov of fourteen and licked him,” exclaimed the squire, rapturously. “ You know the story, don’t you, Rorie ?” Rorie had heard it twenty times, but looked the picture of ig- norant expectancy. “ You know how Vixen came by Argus ? What, you don’t? Well, I’ll tell you. This little yellow haired lass of mine was barely nine years old, and she 'was riding through the village on her pony, with young Stubbs behind her on the sorrel mare — and, you know, to her dying day, that sorrel would never let any one dismount her quietly. Now v\diat does Vixen spy but a lub- berly lad and a lot of small children ill-iising a mastiff pup? They’d tied a tin kettle to the brute’s tail, and were doing their best to drown him. There’s a pond just beyond Mrs. Farley’s cottage, you know, and into that pond they’d driven the puiDpy, 4*2 riXEK and wouldn’t let him get out of it. As fast as he scrambled up the muddy bank they drove him back into the water.” “ Papa darling,” pleaded Vixen, despairingly, ‘‘Eorie has heard it all a thousand times before. Haven’t you now, Rorie?” ‘‘ It’s as new to me as to-morrow’s Times,” said Roderick, with effrontery. “Vixen was off the pony before you could say ‘ Jack Robin- son.’ She flew into the midst of the dirty little ragamuffins, seized th® biggest by the collar, and trundled him backward into the pond, then laid about her right and left with her whip till the wretches scampered off, leaving Vixen and the puppy masters of the situation, and by this time the sorrel mare haS allowed Stubbs to get off her, and Stubbs came up to her rescue. The young ringleader had been too much surprised by his duck- ing to pull himself together again before this, but be came up to time now, and had it out with Stubbs, while the sorrel was doing as much damage as she conveniently could to Mrs. Farley’s pal- ings. ‘ Don’t quite kill him, please, Stubbs,’ cried Vixen, ‘ al- though he richly deserves it,’ and then she took the muddy little beast up in her arms and ran home, leaving her pony to fate and Stubbs. Stubbs told me the whole story, with tears in his . eyes. ‘ Who’d ha’ thought, squire, the little lady would ha’ been such a game un ?’ said Stubbs.” “ It’s very horrid of you, papa, to tell such silly old stories,” remonstrated Vixen. “ That was nearly seven years ago, and Dr. Dewsnapp told us that everybody undergoes a complete change of — what is it ? — all the tissues — in siwen years. I’m not the same Vixen that pushed the boy into the pond, There^s not a bit of her left in me.” And so the dinner went on and ended, with a good deal of dis- traction, caused by the dogs, and a mild little remark now and then from Mrs. Tempest, or a wise interjection now and then from Miss M‘Croke, wlm in a manner represented the Goddess of Wisdom in this somewhat frivolous family, and came in with a corrective and solemnly rational observation when the talk was drifting toward idiocy. The filberts, bloomy purple grapes, and ruddy pippins, and yellow William pears had gone their rounds — all home produce — and had been admired and praised, and the squire’s voice was mellowing after his second glass of port, when the butler came in with a letter on a salver, and brought it, with muffled foot- fall and solemn visage, as of one who carried a deal h-warrant, to Roderick Vawdrey. The young man looked at it as if he had encountered an un- expected visitor of the adder tribe. “ My mother,” he faltered. It was a large and handsome letter with a big red seal. “ May I?” asked Rorie, with a troubled visage, and having re- ceived his host and hostess’s assent, broke the seal. “ Dear Roderick, — Is it quite kind of you to absent yourself on this your last night at home? I feel very sure that this will find you at the Abbey House, and I send the brougham at a vent- VIXEN. 13 ure. Be good enough to come home at once. The Dovedales arrived at Ashbourne quite unexpectedly this afternoon, and are dining with me on purpose to see you before you go back to Oxford. If your own good feeling did not urge you to spend this last evening with me, I wonder that Mr. and Mrs. Tempest were not kind enough to suggest to you which way your duty lay. Yours, anxiously. Jane Vawdrey.” Roderick crumpled the letter with an angry look. That fling at the Tempests hit him hard. Why was it that his mother was always so ready to find fault with these chosen friends of his ? “Any thing wrong, Rorie?” asked the squire. “Nothing; except that the Dovedales are dining with uiy mother; and I’m to go home directly.” “If you please, ma’am. Master Vawdrey’s servant has come for him,” said Vixen, mimicking the style of announcement at a juvenile party. “ It’s quite too bad, Rorie.” she went on; “I had made up my mind to beat you at p,yramids; but I dare say you’re very glad to have the chance of seeing your pretty cousin before you leave Hampshire.” But Rorie shook his head dolefully, made his adieux, and de- parted. CHAPTER IT. RORIE IS TAKEN TO TASK. “ It is not dogs only that are jealous,” thought Roderick, as he went home in the brougham with all the v/indows down, and the cool night breeze blowing his cigar smoke avvay into the forest to mix with the mist wreaths that were curling up from the soft ground. It was an offense of the highest rank to smoke in his mother’s carriage, but Rorie was in an evil temper just now, and found a kind of bitter pleasure in disobedience. The carriage bowled swiftly along the straight, v/ell-made road; but Rorie bated riding in a brougham. The soft padded confinement galled him. “Why couldn’t she send me my dog-cart !” he asked himself, indi^antly. Briar ^mod was a large white house in a park. It stood on much liigher ground than the Abbey House, and was altogether different from that good old relic of by-gone civilization. Briar- wood was distinctly modern. Its decorations savore i of the Regency; its furniture was old -fashioned, without being antique. The classic stiffness and straightness of the first French Emphe distinguished the gilded chairs and tables in the drawing-rooms. There were statues by Chantrey and Canova in the spacious, lofty hall; portraits by Lawrence and Romney in the dining- room; a historical picture by Copley over the elephantine ma- hogany sideboard; a Greek sarcophagus for wines under it. At its best, the Briarwmod House was commonplace; but to the mind of Lady Jane Vawdrey, the gardens and hot-houses made amends. She was a profound horticulturist, and spent half her income on orchids and rare newly imported flowers, and 14 VIXEN. by this means she had made Briarwood one of the show places of the neighliorhood. A woman must be distinguished for something, or she is no better than her scullery- maid,” said Lady Jane to her son, ex- cusing herself for these extravagances. “ I have no talent for music, painting, or poetry, so I devote myself to orchids; and perhaps my orciiids turn out better than many people’s music and poetry.” Lady Jane is not a pleasant- tempered woman, and enjoys the privilege of being more feared than liked — a privilege of which she makes the most, and which secures her immunity from many annoyances to which good-natured people are subject. She does good to her poor neighbors in her own cold, set way; but the poor people about Briarwood do not send to her for wine and brandy as if she kept a public-house, and was benefited by their liberal patronage; the curate at the little Gothic church down in the tiny viila,ge in a hollow of the wooded hills does not appeal to Lady Jane in his necessities for church or jrarish. She subscribes handsomely to all orthodox well-established charities, but is not prone to accidental benevolence. Nobody ever dis- appoints her when she gives a dinner, or omits the duty call afterward; but she has no unceremonious gatherings, no gossipy kettle-drums, no hastily arranged picnics or garden parties. When people in the neighborhood want to take their friends to see the orchids, they write to Lady Jane first, and make it quite a state affair; and on an appointed afternoon the lady of Briarwood receives them, richly clad in a dark velvet gown and a point- lace cap, as if she had just walked out of an old picture, and there are tliree or four gardeners in attendance to open doors and cut specimen blossoms for the guests. “She’s a splendid woman, admirable in every w^ay,” said Roderick to an Oxford chum, with whom he had been discussing Lady Jane’s virtues; “ but if a fellow could have a voice in the matter, she’s not the mother I should have cliosen.” Ambition was the ieadins: characteristic of Lady Jane’s mind. As a girl, she had been ambitious for herself, and that ambition had been disappointed; as a woman, her ambition transferred itself to her son. She was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Lodway — a nobleman who had been considerably overweighted in the handicap of life, having nine children, seats in three counties, a huge old house in St. James's Square, and a small income; his three estates consisting of some of the barren est and most unprofitable land in Great Britain. Of Lord Lodway’s nine children, five w^ere daughters, and of these Lady Jane was^ the eldest and the handsomest. Even in her nursery she had a very distinct notion that, for her, marriage meant promotion. She used to play at being married at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and w^ould never consent to have the ceremony per- formed by less than two bishops; even though the part of one hierarch had to be represented by the nursery hearth broom. In due course Lady Jane Umleigh made her debut in society in all the bloom and freshness of her stately Saxon beauty. She was admired and talked about, and acknowledged as one of the belles VIXEN. 15 of that season; her portrait was engraved in the Book of Beauty, and her ball programmes were always filled with the very best names; but at the end of the season Lady Lodway went back to the Yorkshire Wolds with a biting sense of failure and mortifi- tation. Her handsome daughter had not sent her arrow home to the gold. She had not received a single offer worth talking about, ‘ Don’t you think you could consent to be married by one bishop and a dean, Jenny, if the marquis comes to the scratch in the shooting season?” asked Lady Jane’s youngest brother, derisively. He had been made to do bishop in those play- wed dings of Lady Jane’s, very often when the function went against the grain. The marquis thus familiarly spoken about was Lord Strishfogel, the richest nobleman in Ireland, and a great sea-rover, famous for his steam -yachts, and his importance generally. He had ad- mired Lady Jane’s statuesque beauty, and had been more partic- ular in his attentions than the rest of her satellites, who, for the most part, merely worshiped her because it was the right thing to do. Lord Strishfogel liad promised to come to Heron’s Nest, Lord Lod way’s place in the Wolds, for the pheasant-shooting; but, instead of keeping his promise, went off to the Golden Horn, to race his yacht against the vessel of a great Turkish official. This was Lady Jane Umleigh’s first disappointment. She had liked Lord Strishfogel just well enough to fancy herself deeply in love with him, and she was unconscious of the influence his rank and v/ealth had exercised upon her feelings. She had thought of herself so often as the Marchioness of Strishfogel, had so completely projected her mind into that brilliant future, that to come down to her maiden position again from that vivid dream of conquest and gratified ambition was as sharp a fall as if she had worn a crown and lost it. Her second season began, and Lord Strishfogel was still a rover; He was in the South Seas by this time, writing a book, and en- joying halcyon days among the friendly natives, swimming like a dolphin in those summery seas, and indulging in harmless flirtations with dusky princesses, whose chief attire was made of shells and flowers, and whose untutored dancing was more vigorous than refined. At the end of that second season Jane Umleigh had serious thoughts of turning philanthropist, and taking a ship-load of destitute young women to Australia. Any- thing would be better than this sense of a wasted life and igno- minious failure. She was in this frame of mind when Mr. Vawdrey came to Heron’s Nest for the shooting. He was a commoner, but his family w^as one of the oldest in Hampshire, and he had lately distinguished himself by some rather clever speeches in the House of Commons. His estate was worth fifteen thousand a year, and he was altogether a man of some mark. Above all, he was handsome, manly, and a gentleman to the marrow of his bones, and he was the first man who ever fell over head and ears in love with Jane Umleigh. The charms that had repelled more frivolous admirers at- 16 vixEm tracted John Yawdrey. That proud, calm beauty of Lady Jane’s seemed to his mind the perfection of womanly grace. A wife to adore upon his knees, a wife to be proud of, a wife to rule her vassals like a queen, and to lead him, John Yawdrey, on to gi'eatness. He was romantic, chivalrous, aspiring, and Lady Jane Um- leigh was the first woman he had met who embodied the heroine of his romantic dreams. He proposed and was refused, and went away despairing. It would have been a good match, un- doubtedly — a truth which Lord and Lady Lodway urged upon their daughter — but it would have been a terrible descent from the ideal marriage which Lady Jane had set up in her own mind as the proper prize for so fair a runner in life’s race. She had imagined herself a marchioness, with a vast territory of mount- ain, vale, and lake, and an influence in the sister island second only to that of royalty. She could not descend all at once to be- hold herself the wife of a plain country gentleman, whose proudest privilege it was to write M.P. after his name. The earl and countess were urgent, for they had abother daughter ready for the matrimonial market, and were inclined to regard Lady Jane as an ‘‘old shop-keeper;” but they knew their eldest daughter’s temper, and did not press the matter too warmly. Another season — Lady Jane’s fourth and Lady Sophia’s first — began and ended. Lady Sophia was piquant and witty, wnth a snub-nose and a playful disposition. She was a first-rate horse- woman, an exquisite waltzer, good at croquet, archery, billiards, and all games requiring accuracy of eye and aim, and Lady Sophia brought down her bird in a single season. She went home to Heron’s Nest a duchess in embryo. Tlie Duke of Dovedale, a bulky, middle-aged nobleman, with a passion for field-sports and high farming, had seen Lady Sophia riding a dangerous horse in Eotten Kow, and had been so charmed by her management of the brute as to become from that hour her slave. A pretty girl, witli such a seat in her saddle and such a light hand for a horse’s mouth, was the next best thing to a god- dess. Before the season was over the duke had proposed, and been graciously accepted by the young lady, who felt an inward glow of pride at having done so much better than the family beauty. “ Can I ever forget how that girl Jane has snubbed me ?” said Lady Sophia to her favorite brother. “ And to think that I shall be sitting in ermine robes in the House of Lords, while she is peeping through that nasty iron fretwork to catch a gliuipse of the top of her husband’s head in the House of Commons!” This splendid engagement of Lady Sophia’s turned the tide for the faithful John Yawdrey. Lady Jane met b'er rejected lover at Trouville, and was so gracious to him that he ventured to renew his suit, and, to his delighted surprise, was accepted. Any thing was better than standing out in the cold while the ducal engagement was absorbing everybody’s thoughts and con- versation. Lady Sophia had boasted, in that playful way of hers, of having her beauty -sister for chief bride-maid, and the VIXEN. 17 beautj-sister had made up her mind that this thing should not be. Perhaps she would have married a worse man than John Vawdrev to escape such infamy. And John Vavvdrey was by no means disagreeable to her: nay, it had been pride, and not any disinclination for the man himself, that had bidden her reject him. He was clever, distinguished, and he loved her with a romantic devotion which flattered and pleased her. Yes, she would marry Jolm Vawdrey. Everybody was delighted at tliis concession, the lady's parents and belongings most especially so. Here were two daughters disposed of; and if the beauty had made the inferior match, it was only one of those caprices of fortune that are more to be expected than the common order of things. So there was a double marriage the follovdng spring at St. George’s, and Lady Jane’s childish desire was gratified. There were two bishops at the ceremony. True that one was only colonial, and hardly ranked higher than the nursery hearth brush. Fate was not altogether unkind to Lady Jane. Her humble marriage was much happier than her sister’s loftier union. The duke, who had been so good-natured as a lover, proved stupid and somewhat tiresome as a husband. He gave his mind to hunting and farming, and cared for nothing else. Sophia, Duchess of Dovedale, had seven country seats, and no home. Her children were puny and feeble. They sickened in the feu- dal Scotch castle; they languished in the Buckinghamshire Eden — a white freestone palace set among the woods that over- hang the valley of the Thames. No breezes that blow could waft strength or vitality to those feeble lungs. At thirty, the Duchess of Dovedale had lost all her ba>bies save one frail sap- ling, a girl of two years old, who promised to have a somewliat better constitution than her perished brothers and sisters. On this small paragon the duchess concetrated her cares and hopes. She gave up hunting — much to the disgust of that Nimrod her husband — in order to superintend her nursery. From the most pleasure-loving of matrons she became the most domestic. Lady Mabel Ashbourne was to grow up the perfection of health, wis- dom, and beauty under the mother’s loving care. She would have a great fortune, for there was a considerable portion of the duke’s property which he was free to bequeath to his daughter. He had coal-pits in the North, and a tin mine in the West. He liad a house at Kensington which he had built for himself, a model Queen Anne mansion, with every article of furniture made on the strictest aBstbetic principles, and not an anachro- nism from the garrets to the cellars. The Scottish castle and the Buckinghamshire paradise would go with the title; but the duke, delighted with the easy-going sport of the New Forest, had bought six hundred acres between Stony Cross and Romsey, and had made for himself an archetypal home-farm, and had built himself a hunting-box, with stables and kennels of the most per- fect kind; and this estate, with the Queen Anne house and the pits, and the mine, was his very own, to dispose of as he pleased. 18 VIXEN. Lady Jane’s marriage had proved happy. Her husband, al- ways egged on by her ambitious promptings, had made himself an important figure in the senate, and had been on the eve of en- tering the cabinet as Colonial Secretary, when death cut short his career. A hard winter and a slnarp attack of bronchitis nip- ped the aspiring senator in the bud. Lady Jane was as nearly broken-hearted as so cold a woman could be. She had loved her husband better than anything in this life, except herself. He left her with one son and a hand- some jointure, with the full possession of Briarwood until her son’s majority. Upon that only child Lady Jane lavished all her care, but did not squander the wealth of her affection. Per- haps her capacity for loving had died with her husband. She had been proud and fond of him, but she was not proud of the little boy in velvet knickerbockers, whose good looks were his only merit, and who was continually being guilty of some new piece of mischief; laming ponies, smashing orchids, glass, china, and geueraJly disturbing the perfect order which was Briar- wood’s first law. When the boy was old enough to go to Eton, he seemed still more remote from his mother’s love and sympathy. He was passionately fond of field-sports, and those Lady Jane Vawdrey detested. He was backward in all his studies, despite the careful coaching he had received from the mild Anglican curate of Briar- wood village. He was intensely pugilistic, and rarely came home for the holidays without bringing a black eye or a swollen nose as the result of his latest fight. He spent a good deal of money, and in a manner that to his mother’s calm sense ap- peared simply idiotic. His hands were always grubby, his nails wore almost perpetual mourning, his boots were an outrage upon good taste, and he always left a tiack of muddy foot- marks behind bum along the crimson-carpeted corridors. What could any mother do for such a boy, except tolerate him? Love was out of the question. How could a delicate, high-bred woman, soft- handed, velvet-robed, care to have such a lad about her; a boy who smelt of stables and wore hob-nailed boots, whose pockets were always sticky with toffee, and his handkerchiefs a disgrace to humanity; who gave his profoundest thoughts to, pigeon- fancying, and his warmest affections to ratting terriers? But while all these habits made the lad abominable in the ej^es of his mother, the Duke and Duchess of Dovedale admired the young Hercules with a fond and envious admiration. The duke would have given coal-pits and tin mines, all the disposable property he held, and deemed it but a small price for such a son. Tlie duchess thought of her feeble boy-babies who had been whooping-coughed or scarlet-fevered out of the world, and sighed, and loved her nephew better than ever his mother had loved him since his babyhood. When the Dovedales were at their place in the forest, Koderick almost lived with them, or, at any rate, divided his time between Ashbourne Park and the Abbey House, and sp^nt as little of his life at home as he could. He patronized Lady Mabel, who was his junior by five years, rode her thorough-bred pony for her under the pretense of im«^ VIXEN. 19 proving its manners, until ho took a lieader with it into a bog, out of which pony and boy rolled and struggled indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played billiards with the duke, and told the duchess all his school adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, surreptitious fried sausages, and other misdemeanors. Out of this friendship arose a brilliant vision which reconciled Lady Jane Vawdrey to her son’s preference for his aunt’s house and his aunt’s society. Why should he not marry Mabel by and by, and unite the two estates of Ashbourne and Briarwood, and become owner of the pits and the mine, and distinguish himself in the senate, and be created a peer? As the husband of Lady Mabel Ashbourne he would be rich enough to command a peer- age almost as a right, but his mother would have had him de- serve it. With this idea Lady Jane urged on her son’s educa^ tion. All his Hampshire friends called him clever, but he won no laurels at school. Lady Jane sent for grinders and had the boy ground, but all the grinding could not grind a love of classics or metaph^’sics into this free son of the forest. He went to Ox- ford, and got himself plowed for his Little Go with a wonderful facility. For politics he cared not a jot, but he could drive tan- dem better than any other under- graduate of his year. He never spoke at the Union, but be pulled stroke in the ’Varsity boat. He was famous for his biceps, his good nature, and his good looks, but so far he had distinguished himself for nothing else; and to this stage of non-performance had he come when the reader first beheld him. It was only half past nine when the brougham drove up to the pillared porch at Briarwood. The lighted drawing-room windows shone out upon the autumn dark — a row of five tall French case- ments — and the sounds of a piano caught Eoderick’s ear as he tossed the end of his cigar in the shrubbery and mounted the wide stone door-steps. “At it again,” muttered Eorie with a shrug of disgust, as he entered the hall, and heard, through the half -open drawing-room door, an interlacement of pearly runs— for, at this stage of his existence, Eorie had no appreciation of brilliant pianoforte-play- ing. The music he liked best was of the sim^fiest, most inartiS- cial order. “ Are the duke and duchess here ?” he asked the butler. “ Her grace and Lady Mabel is here, sir; not the dook.” “ I suppose I must dress before I face the quality,” muttered Eorie, sulkily, and he went leaping up stairs — three steps at a time — to exchange his brown shooting clothes and leather gaiters for that dress suit of his V7hieh was continually getting too small for him. Eorie detested himself in a dress suit and a white tie. “You beast,” he cried, addressing his reflection in the tall glass door of his armoire, “ you are the image of a waiter at the Clarendon.” The Briarwood drawing-room looked a great deal too vast and too lofty for the three delicately made women who were occupy- ing it this evening. It was a finely proportioned room, and its 20 riXEK amber satin bangings made a pleasing background for the white and gold furniture. White, gold, and amber made up the prevail- ing tone of color. Clusters of wax lights against the walls and a crystal chandelier with many candles filled the room with a soft radiance. It was a room without shadow. There were no re- cesses, no deep-set windows or doors. All was coldly bright, faultlessly elegant. Eorie detested his mother’s drawing-room almost as much as he detested himself in a dress-coat that was too short in the sleeves. The matrons were seated on each side of the shining gold and steel fire-place, before which there stretched an island of silky white fur. Lady Jane Yawdrey’s younger sister was a stout, comfortable-looking woman in gray silk, who hardly realized one’s preconceived notion of a duchess. Lady Jane herself had dignity enough for the higliest rank in the Almanoch de Gotha. She wore dark green velvet and old rose-point, and looked like a portrait of an Austrian princess by Velasquez. Years had not impaired the purity of her blonde complexion. Her aquiline nose, thin lips, small, firm chin, were the features of one born to rule. Her light brown hair showed no streak of gray. An admirable woman, no doubt, for anybody else’s mother, asRorie so often said to himself. The young lady was still sitting at the piano, remote from, the two elders, her slim white fingers running in and out and to and fro in those wondrous intricacies and involutions which distin- guish modem classical music. Rorie hated all that running about the piano to no purpose, and could not perceive his cousin’s merit in having devoted three or four hours of her life daily for the last seven years to the accomplishment of this harmonious meandering. She left off playing, and held out her small white hand to him as he came to the piano after shaking hands with his aunt. What was she like, this paragon formed by a mother’s wor- shiping love and ceaseless care, this one last pearl in the crown of domestic life, this child of so many prayers and hopes and fears and deep pathetic rejoicings? She was very fair to look upon — complete and beautiful as a pearl — with that outward purity, that perfect delicacy of tint and harmony of detail, which is in itself a charm. Study her as captiously as you would, you could find no flaw in this jewel. The small, regular features were so delicately chiseled, the fair, fine skin was so transparent, the fragile figure so exquisitely molded, the ivory hand and arm so perfect — no, you could dis- cover no bad drawing or crude coloring in this human picture. She lifted her clear blue eyes to Rorie’s face, and smiled at him in gentle welcome; and though he felt intensely cross at having been summoned home like a school-boy, he could not refuse her a responsive smile, or a gentle pressure of the taper fingers. “ And so you have been dining with those horrid people!” she exclaimed, with an air of playful reproach, “and on your last night in Hampshire — quite too unkind to Aunt Jane.” “I don’t know whom you mean by horrid people, Mabel,” an- VIXEN. 21 swered Rorie, chilled back into sulkiness all at once; “the peo- ple I was with are all that is good and pleasant.” “ Then you’ve not been at ohe Tempests’, after all “ I have been at the Tempests’. What have you to say against the Tempests ?” “Oh, I have nothing to say against them,” said Lady Mabel, shrugging her pretty shoulders in her fawn-colored silk gown, “ There are some things that do not require saying.” “Mr. Tempest is the best and kindest of men; his wife is— = well, a nonentity, perhaps, but not a disagreeable one; and his daughter ” Here Rorie came to a sudden stop, which Lady Mabel accent- uated with a silvery little laugh. “His daughter is charming,” she cried, when she had done laughing; “ red hair, and a green habit with brass buttons, a yellow waistcoat like her papa’s, and a rose in her button-hole. How I should like to see her in Rotten Row.” “I’ll warrant there wouldn’t be a better horse-woman or a prettier girl there, let you see her when you may,” cried Rorie, scarlet with indignation. His mother looked daggers. His cousin gave another silvery laugh, clear as those pearly treble runs upon thcErard; but that p'/etty artificial laugh Jiad a ring which betrayed her mortifica- tion . “Rorie is thorough,” she said; “when he likes people, he thinks them perfect. You do think that little red-haired girl quite perfection, now don't you, Rorie V” pursupd Lady Mabel, sitting down before the piano again, and touching the notes silently as she seemed to admire the slender diamond hoops upon her white fingers — old-fashioned rings that had belon^d to a patrician great-grandmother. “ You think her quite a model young lady, though they say she can hardly read, and makes her mark — hke William the Conqueror — instead of signing her name, and srends her life in the stables, and occasionally, when the fox gets back to earth — swears.” “ I don’t know who they may be,” cried Roderick, savagely, “ but they say a pack of lies. Violet Tempest is as well educated as — any girl need be. Ail girls can’t be paragons, or, if they could, this earth would be intolerable for the rest of htimanity. Lord deliver us from a world overrun with paragons! Violet Tempest is little more than a child, a spoiled child, if you like, but she has a heart of gold, and a firmer grip on her saddle than any other woman in Hampshire.” Roderick had turned from scarlet to pale by the time he fin- ished this speech. His mother had paled at the first mention of poor Vixen. That young lady’s name acted upon Lady Jane’s feelings Yery much as a red rag acts on a bull. “I think, after keeping you away from your mother on the last night of your vacation, Mr. Tempest might at least have had the good taste to let you come home sober,” said Lady Jane, with suppressed rage. “ I drank a couple of glasses of still hock at dinner, and not a drop of anything else from the time I entered the Abbey House 22 VIXEN. till I left it; and I don t think, considering how IVe seasoned myself with Bass at Oxford, that two glasses of Rudesheimer would floor me,*’ explained Rorie, with recovered calmness. “ Oh, but you were drinking deep of a more intoxicating nec- tar,” cried Lady Mabel, with that provokiogly distinct utterance of hers. She had been taught to speak as carefully as girls of inferior rank are taught to play Beethoven — every syllable studied, every tone trained and ripened to the right quality. “You were with Violet Tempest.” “How you children quarrel!” exclaimed the duchess; “you could hardly be worse if you were lovers. Come here, Rorie, and tell me all' that has happened to you since we saw you at Lord’s in July. Never mind these Tempest people. They are of the smallest possible importance. Of course Rorie must have somebody to amuse himself with while we are away.” “And now we are come back, he is off to Oxford,” said Ma- bel, with an aggrieved air. “ You shouldn’t have stayed so long in Switzerland, then,” re- torted Rorie. “Oh, but it was my first visit, and everything is so lovely. After all the Swiss landscapes I have done in clialk and pencil and water-colors, I was astonished to find what a stranger I was to the scenery. I blushed when I remembered those dreadful landscapes of mine. I was ashamed to look at Mont Blanc. I felt as if the Matterhorn would fall and crush me.” “ I think I shall do Switzerland next long,” said Rorie, pa- tronizingly, as if it would be a good thing for Switzerland. “You might have come this year while we were there,” said Lady Mabel. “No, I mightn’t. I’ve been grinding. If you knew what a dose of Aristotle I’ve had, you’d pity me. That’s where you girls have the best of it. You learn two or three modern lan- guages, to meander up and down the piano, and spoil Bristol- board, or Whatman’s hot-pressed imperial, and then you call yourselves educated; while we have to go back to the beginning of civilization, and find out what a lot of old Greek duffers were driving at when they sat in the sunshine and prosed like old boots.” Lady Mabel looked at him with a serene smile. “ Would you be surprised to hear that I know a little Greek,” she said, “ just enough to struggle through the Socratic dialogues with the aid of my master?” Roderick started as if he had been stung. “What a shame!’' he cried. “ Aunt Sophia, what do you mean by making a Lady Jane Grey or an Elizabeth Barrett Browning of her?” “A wmman who has to occupy a leading position can hardly know too much,” answered the duchess, sententiously. “ Ah, to be sure, Mabel will marry some diplomatic swell, and be entertaining ambassadors by and by. And when some modern Greek envoy comes simpering up to her with a remark about the weather, it will be an advantage to know Plato. I un- derstand. Wheels within wheels.” VIXEN. 23 ‘‘ The Duchess of Dovetail’s carriage,” announced the butler, rolling out the syllables as if it were a personal gratification to announce them, Mabel rose at once from the piano, and came to say good- night to her aunt. “ My dear child, it’s quite early,” said Lady Jane; ‘‘ Eoderick’s last night, too. And your mamma is in no hurry.” Mabel looked at Roderick, but tliat young gentleman was air^ ing himself on the heartli*rug, and looking absently up at the ceiling. It evidently signified very little to him w-hether his aunt and cousin went or stayed. “ You know you told papa you would be home quite early,” said Lady Mabel, and the duchess rose immediately. She had a way of yielding to her only daughter which her stronger-minded sister highly disapproved of. The first duty of a mother, in Lady Jane’s opinion, was to rule her child; the sec- ond, to love it. The idea was, no doubt, correct in the abstract, but the practice was not succeeding too well with Roderick, “ Good-night and good-bye,” said Lady Mabel, w^hen the maid liad brought her wraps, andRorie had put them on. “ Not good-bye,” said the good-natured duchess; “ Rorie must come to breakfast to-morrow, and see the duke. He was too tired to come out to-night, but I know he wants to see you.” “Thanks, I’ll be there,” answered Rorie, and he escorted the ladies to their carriage, but not 'another word did Mabel speak till the brougham had driven away from Briarwood. “ What a hoiTid young man Roderick has grown, mamma I” she remarked, decisively. “ My love, 1 never saw him look handsomer.” “I don’t mean his looks. Good looks in a man are a superflu- ity. But his manners — I never saw anything so under-bred. Those Tempest people are spoiling him.” “ Roderick,” said Lady Jane, just as Rorie was contemplat- ing an escape to the billiard-room and his cigar, “ I want a lit- tle serious talk with you.” Rorie shivered in his shoes. He knew too well what his mother’s serious talk meant. He shrugged his shoulders with a movement that indicated a dormant resistance, and went quietly into the drawing-room. CHAPTER HI. ROKIE COMES OF AGE. “ Bless my soul,” cried the squire; “ it’s a vixen after all.” This is liow Squire Tempest greeted tlie family doctor's an- nouncement of the first baby’s sex. He had been particularly anxious for a son to inherit the Abbey House estate, maintain the Abbey hounds, and in a general way sustain the pride and glory of the family name; and, behold ! Providence had given him a daughter. “ The deuce is in it,” ejaculated the squire; to think that it should be a vixen!” 0 24 VIXEN. This is how Violet Tempest came by her curious pet name. Before she was short coated she had contrived to exhibit a very spirited and even vixenish temper, and the family doctor, who loved a small joke, used to ask after Miss Vixen when he paid his professional visits. As she grew older her tawny hair was not unlike a red foK’s brush in its bright golden-brown hue, and her temper proved decidedly vixenish. “ I wish you wouldn’t call Violet by that dreadful nickname, dear,” Mrs. Tempest remonstrated, mildly. “ My darling, it suits her to a nicety,” replied the squire, and he took his own way in this, as in most things. The earth rolled round, and tlie revolving years brought no second baby to tlte Abbey House. Every year made the squire fonder of his little golden-haired girl. He put her on a soft white ball of a pony as soon as she could sit up straight, and took her about the forest with a leading-rein. No one else was allow- ed to teach Vixen to ride. Young as she was, she soon learned to do without the leading-rein, and the soft little white pony was discarded as too tame. Before her eleventh birthday she rode to hounds, and saw the stag at bay on the wild heathery downs above the wooded valleys. She was a creature full of life and courage and generous impulses and spontaneous leanings to all good thoughts; but she was a spoiled child, liked her own way, and had no idea of being guided by anybody else’s will — unless it had been her father s, and he never thwarted her. Him she adored with the fondest love that child ever gave to parent — a blind, worshiping love, that saw in him the perfec- tion of manliood, the beginning and end of earthly good. If any one had dared to say in Vixen’s hearing that her father could, by any possible combination of circumstances, do v/rong, act unjustly or ungenerously, it would have been better for that man to have come to handy-grips wdth a tiger-cat than with Violet Tempest. Her reverence for her father and belief in him were boundless. There never, perhaps, was a happier childhood than Violet’s. She was daughter and heiress to one of the most popular men in that part of the country, and everybody loved her. She was not much given to visiting in a methodical way among the poor, and it had never entered into her young mind tha,t it was lier mission to teach older people the vmy to heaven; but if there was trouble in the village, a eick child, a husband in prison for rabbit-snar- ing, a dead baby, a little boy’s pinafore set fire to. Vixen and her pony w'ere always to the fore; and it v/as an axiom in the vil- lage that, where Miss Tempest did “take,” it was very good for those she took to. Violet never withdrew her hand when she had put it to the plough. If she made a promise, she always kept it. However long the sickness, however dire the poverty, Vixen’s patience and benevolence lasted to the end. The famous princess iu the story, whose sleep was broken be- cause there was a pea under her seven feather-beds, had scarcely a more untroubled life than Vixen. She had her own way in everything. She did exactiy what she liked with her comfort- able, middle-aged governess, Miss M’Croke, learned what she VIXEN. S5 pleased, and left what she disliked unlearned. She had the pret- tiest ponies in Hampshire to ride, the prettiest dresses to wear. Her mother was not a woman to bestow mental culture upon her only child, but she racked her small brain to devise becom- ing costumes for Violet. The colored stockings which harmon- ized best with each particular gown, the neat little buckled shoes, the fascinating Hessian boots — nothing was too beautiful or too costly for Violet. She was the one thing her parents pos- sessed in the world, and they lavished much love upon her ; but it never occurred to Mr. and Mrs. Tempest, as it had occurred to the Duchess of Dovedale, to make their daughter a paragon. In this perpetual sunshine Violet grew up, fair as most things are that grow in the sunshine. She loved her father with all her heart and mind and soul ; she loved her mother with a lesser love; she had a tolerant affection for Miss M’Croke; she loved her ponies and the dog Argus; she loved the hounds in the kennels; she loved every honest familiar face of nurse, servant, and stableman, gardener, keeper, and huntsman, that had looked upon her with friendly, admiring eyes, ever since she could remember. Not to be loved and admired would have been the strangest thing to Violet. She would hardly have recognized herself in an unappreciative circle; if she could have heard Lady Mabel talk- ing about her, it would have been like the sudden revelation of an unknown world — a world in which it was possible for people to dislike and misjudge her. This is one of the disadvantages of being reared in a little heaven of domestic love. The outside world seems so hard and bleak and dreary afterward, and the inhabitants thereof passing cruel. Roderick Vaw’drey Miss Tempest looked upon as her own par- ticular property — a person whom she had the right to order about as she pleased. Rorie had been her playfellow and companion in his holiday time for the last five years. All their tastes were in common. Tliey had the same love for the brute creation, the same wild delight in rushing madly through the air on the backs of unreasoning animals; widely different in their tastes from Lady Mabel, who had once been run away with in a pony-car- riage, and loolved ui>on all horses as incipient murderers. They had the same love of nature, and the same indifference to books, and all the state and ceremony of life. Vixen was “rising fifteen,” as her father called it, and Rorie was just five years her senior. The squire saw them gay and happy together, without one serious thought of what might come of it in the growth of years. That his Vixen could ever care for anyone but her “ old dad,” was a notion that had not yet found its way into the squire’s brain. She seemed to him quite as much his own property, his own to do what he liked with, singly and simply attached to him, as his favorite horse or his favorite dog. So there were no shadowings forth in the paternal mind as to any growth and development which the mut- ual affection of these two young people might take in the fut* ure. VIXEN. It was very different with Lady Jane Yawdrey, who never saw her son and his cousin Mabel together without telling herself how exactly they were suited to each other, and what a nice thing it would be for the Briarwood and Ashbourne estates to be united by their marriage. Rorie went back tor college, and contrived to struggle through liis next examinations with an avoidance of actual discredit; but when Christmas came, he did not go back to the forest, though Violet had counted on his coming, and had thought that it would be good fun to have his help in the decorations for the little Gothic church in the valley — a pretty little new church, like ft toy, which the squire had built and paid for, and endowed with ft perpetual seventy pounds a year out of his own pocket. It Would have been- fun to see poor Rorie prick his clumsy fingers with the holly. Vixen laughed at his awkwardness in advance, when she talked to Miss M’Croke about him, and drew upon himself that lady’s mild reproval. But Christmas came, and brought no Rorie. He had gone off to spend his Christmas at the Duke of Dovedale’s Scotch castle. Easter came, and Still no Rorie. He was at Putney with the ’Varsity crew, or in London with the Dovedales, riding in the Row, and forgetting dear old Hampshire and the last of the hunting, for which he would have been just in time. Even the long vacation came without Rorie. He had gone for that promised tour in Switzerland, at his mother's instiga- tion, and was only to come back late in the year to keep his twenty-first birthday, which was to be honored in a very sub- dued and unhilarious fashion at Briarwood. ‘‘ Mamma,” said Violet, at breakfast-time one August morn- ing, with her nose scornfully tilted, “what is Mr. Vawdrey like — dark or fair ?” “Why, Violet, you can’t have forgotten him?” said her mother, with languid astonishment. “ I think he has been away long enough for me to forget even the color of his hair, mamma; and as he hasn’t written to any- body, we may fairly suppose he has forgotten us.” “ Vixen misses her old playfellow,” said the squire, busy with the demolition of agrouse. “But Rorie is a young man now, you know, dear, and has work to do in the world — duties, my pet — duties.” “ And is a young man’s first duty to forget his old friends ?” inquired Vixen, naively. “ My pet, you can’t expect a lad of that kind to write letters. I am a deuced bad hand at letter-writing myself, and always was. I don’t think a rna^n's hand was ever made to pinch a pen. Nature has given us a broad, strong grasp to grip a sword, or a gun. Your mother writes most of my letters. Vixen, you know, and I shall expect you to help her in a year or two. Let me see: Rorie will be one-and-twenty in October, and there are to be high jinks at Briarwood, I believe; so there’s something to look forward to, my dear,” “Ed ward I” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, reproachfully; “you for- VIXEN. 27 get that Violet is not out. She will not be sixteen till next February.” “ Bless her!” cried the squire, with a tender look at his only child, “she has grown up like a green bay-tree. “ But if this were to be quite a friendly affair at Briar w^ood, she might go merely ” “ It will not be a friendly affair,” said Mrs. Tempest; “Lady Jane never gives friendly parties. There is nothing friendly in her nature, and I don’t think she likes us — much. But I dare say we shall be asked; and if we go, I must have a new dress,” added the gentle lady, with a sigh of resignation. “It wull be a rlinner, no doubt; and the duke and duchess will be there, of course.” The card of invitation came in due course, three weeks before the birthday. It was to be a dinner, as Mrs. Tempest had opined. She wrote off to her milliner at once, and there was a passage of letters and fashion plates and patterns of silk to and fro, and some of Mrs. Tempest’s finest lace came out of the per- fumed chest in which she kept her treasures, and was sent off to Madame Theodore. Poor Vixen beheld these preparations with an aching heart. She did not care about dinner parties in the least, but she would have liked to be v^^ith Roderick on his birthday. She would have liked it to have been a hunting day, and to have ridden for a wild scamper across the hills with him; to have seen the roll- ing downs of the Wight blue in the aistance; to have felt the softsoutli wind blowing in her face, and to have ridden by his side, neck and neck, all daylong; and then to have gone home to the Abbey House to dinner, to the snug round table in the library, and the dogs, and papa in his liappiest mood, expanding over his port and walnuts. That would have been a happy birthday for all of them, in Violet’s opinion. The squire and his daughter had plenty of hunting in this merry month of October, but there had been no sign of Rorie and his tall raking chestnut in the field, nor had any one in the forest heard of or seen the young Oxonian. “I dare say he is only coming borne in time for the birthday,” Mrs. Tempest remarked, placidly, and went on with her prepara- tions for that event. She wanted to make a strong impression on the duchess, who had not behaved too well to her, only sending her invitations for indiscriminate afternoon assemblies, which Mrs. Tempest had graciously declined, pleading her feeble health as a reason for not going to garden parties. Vixen was in a peculiar temper during those three weeks, and poor Miss M’Croke had hard work with her. “Der, die, das,” cried Vixen, throwing down her German grammar in a rage, one morning, when she had been making a muddle of the definite article in her exerciser, and the patient governess had declared that they really must go back to the very beginning of things. “What stupid people the Germans are I Why can’t they have one little word for everything, as we have? T, h, e, the. Any child ^can learn that. What do they mean 28 VIXEN. by chopping up their language into little bits, like the pieces in a puzzle ? Why, even the French are more reasonable, though they’re bad enough, goodness knows, with their he’s and she’s — feminine tables, aui masculine beds, AVhy should I be bothert‘d to learn all this rubbish ? I’m not going to be a govern- ess, and it will never be any use to me. Papa doesn’t know a single sentence in French or German, and he’s quite happy.” *‘But if your papa were travelling on the Continent. Violet, he would find his ignorance of the language a great depriva- tion,” “ No, he wouldn’t. He’d have a courier.” Are you aware, my dear, that we have wasted five minutes already in this discursive conversation ?*’ remarked Miss M’Croke, looking at a fat, useful watch, wkich she w’ore at her side in the good old fashion. “ We will leave the grammar for the present, and you can repeat Schiller’s ‘ Song of the Bell.’ ” ‘•I'd rather say ‘The Dragon,’” said Vixen; “there’s more fire and life in it. I do like Schiller, Crokey dear. But isn’t it a pity he didn’t write it in English?” And Vixen put her hands behind her, and began to spout the wonderful story of the knight who slew the dragon, and very soon lier eyes kindled and lier cheeks were aflame, and the grand verses were rolled out rapidly, with a more or less faulty pronunciation, but plent.y of life and vehemence. This exercise of mind and memory suited Vix^n a great deal better than dull plodding at the first principles of grammar, and the perpetual der, die, das. This day was the last of October, and Poderick Vawdrey’s birthday. He had not been seen at the Abbey House yet. He had come back to Briar wood before this, no doubt, but had not taken the trouble to come and see his old friends. “He’s a man now, and has duties, and has done with us,” thought Vixen, savagely. She was very glad that it was such a wretched day — a hideous day for any one’s twenty- first birthday, ominous of all bad things, she thought. There was not a rift in the dull, gray sky; the straight, fine rain came down persistently, soaking into the sodden earth, and sending up an odor of dead leaves. The smooth, shining laurels in the shrubbery were the only things in nature that seemed no worse for the perpetual down-pour. The gravel drives were spongy^ and sloppy. There was no hunt- ing, or Vixen would have been riding her pony through rain and foul weather, and would have been comparatively independ- ent of the elements. But to be at home all day, watching the rain, and thinking what a horrid, ungrateful young man Rorie was! That was dreary. Mrs. Tempest went to her room to lie down directly after luncheon. She wanted to keep herself fresh for the evening. She made quite a solemn business of this particular dinner party. At half past five precisely Pauline was to bring her a cup of tea. At six she was to begin to dress. This would give her an hour and a half for her toilet, as Briarwood was only half an hour's drive from the Abbey House. So for the rest of that day — until VIXEJSr. 29 she burst upon their astonished view in her new dress— Mrs. Tempest would be invisible to her family. “What a disgusting birthday I'* cried Vixen, sitting in the em- brasure of the hall window, with Argus at her side, dog and girl looking out at the glistening shrubbery. Miss M’Croke had gone to her room to write letters, or Vixen would have hardly been allowed to remain peacefully in such an inelegant pos tion, her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms em- bracing her knees, her back against the stout oak shutter. Yet the gild and dog made rather a pretty picture, despite the inele- gance of Vixen’s attitude. The tawny hair, black velvet frock, and careless amber sash, amber stockings, and broad-toed Crom- well shoes; the tawny mastiff curled in the opposite corner of the deep recess; the old armorial bearings, sending pale shafts of party-colored light across Vixen’s young head — a picture full of light and color, framed in the dark brown oak. “What an abominable birthday!” ejaculated Vixen. “If it were such weather as this on my twenty-first birthday, I should think Nature had taken a dislike to me. But I don’t suppose Rorie cares. He is playing billiards with a lot of his friends, and smoking, and making a horror of lumself, I dare say, and hardly knows whether it rains or shines.” Drip, drip, drip, came the rain on the glistening leaves, ber- beris and laurel, bay and holly, American oaks of richest red and bronze, copper beeches, tall rhododendrons, cypress of every kind, and behind them a, dense black screen of yew. The late roses looked miserable. Vixen would have liked to have brought them in and put them by the hall fire — the good old hearth vntli its pile of blazing logs, before which Nip, the pointer, was stretched at ease, his muscular toes stifi’ening themselves occa- sionally, as if he was standing at a bird in Ids dreams. Vixen went on watching the rain. It was rather a lazy way of spending the afternoon, certainly, but Miss Tempest was out of humor with her little world, and did not feel equal to groping out the difficulties, the inexorable double sharps and odious double flats, in a waltz of Chopin’s. She watched the straight thin rain, and thought about Rorie — chiefly to the effect that she hated him, and never could by any possibility like him again. Gradually the trickle of the rain from an overflowing water- pipe took the sound of a tune. No Berceuse by Gounod was ever more rest-compelling. The full white lids drooped over the big brown eyes, the little looked hands loosened, the soft round chin fell forward on the knees; Argus gave a snort of satisfac- tion, and laid his heavy head on the velvet gown, and girl and dog were asleep. There was no sound in the wide old hall ex- cept the soft falling of wood ashes, the gentle breathing of girl and dogs. Too pretty a picture, assuredly, to be lost to the eye of man- kind. Whose footstep was this sounding on the wet gravel half an hour later? Too quick and light for the squire’s. Who was ^xis coming in softly out of the rain, all dripping like a water-god I VIXEN. 1^0 Who was this whose falcon eye took in the picture at a glance, and who stole cat-like to the window, and bending down his dark, wet head, gave Violet’s sleeping lips the first lover’s kiss that had ever saluted them ? Violet awoke with a faint shiver of surprise and joy. Instinct told her from whom that kiss came, though it was the first time Roderick had kissed her since he went to Eaton. The lovely brown eyes opened and looked into the dark gray ones. The ruddy brown head rested on Rorie’s shoulder. The girl — half child, half woman, and all loving trustfulness — looked up at him with a glad smile. His heart was stirred with a new feel- ing as those softly bright eyes looked into his. It was the early dawn of a passionate love. The head lying on his breast seemed to him the fairest thing on earth. “ Rorie, how disgracefully you have behaved, and how utterly I detest you!'’ exclaimed Vixen, giving him a vigorous push, and scrambling down from the window-seat. ‘‘ To be all this time in Hampshire and never come near us!” A moment ago, in that first instant of a newly awakened delight, she was almost betrayed into telling him that she loved him dearly, and had found life empty without him. But, hav- ing had just time enough to recover herself, she drew herself up as straight as a dart, and looked at him as Kate may Lave looked at Petruchio during their first unpleasant interview. “ All this time!” cried Rorie. “ Do you know how long I havO been in Hampshire ?” Haven’t the least idea,” retorted Vixen, haughtily, ‘‘ Just half an hour — or, at least, it is exactly half an hour since I was deposited, with all my goods and chattels, at the Lynd hurst Road Station.” “ You are only just home from Switzerland?” “ Within this hour.” “ And you have not even been to Briar wood ?” “My honored mother still awaits my duteous. greetings.” “ And this is y our twenty- first birthday, and you came here first of ail.” And, almost uninvited, the tawny head dropped on to his shoulder again, and the sweet childish lips allowed themselves to be kissed. “Rorie, how brown you have grown I” “Havel?” The gray eyes were looking into the brown ones admiringly, and the conversation was getting a trifle desultory. Swift as a flash Violet recollected herself. It dawned upon her that it was not quite the right thing for a young lady, “rising sixteen,” to let herself be kissed so tamely. Besides, Rorie never used to do it. The thing was a new development, a curious outcome of his Swiss tour. Perhaps people did it in Switzerland, and Rorie had acquired the habit. “ How dare you do such a thing?” exclaimed Vixen, shaking ©’•self clear from the traveler's encircling arm. “I didn’t think you minded,” said Rorie, innocently; “and VIXEK 81 when a fellow comes home from a long journey he expects a warm welcome.*’ And I am glad to see yon,” cried Vixen, giving him both her hands with a glorious frankness* ‘‘ but you don’t know how I have been hating you lately.” ‘‘Why, Vixen?” “ For being always away. I thought you had forgotten us all, that you did not care a jot for any of us.” “ I had not forgotten any of you, and 1 did care — very much — for some of you.” This, though vague, was consoling. The brown became Roderick. Dark of visage always, he waa now tanned to a bronze as of one born under southern skies. Those deep gray eyes of his looked black under their black lashes. His black hair was cut close to his well-shaped head. An incipient mustache darkened bis upper lip, and gave fresh manhood to tlie strong, firm mouth. A manl}" face altogether, Roderick’s, and handsome withal. Vixen’s short life had shown her none handsomer. He was tall and strongly built, with a frame that had been developed by many an athletic exercise, from throwing the hammer to pugilism. Vixen thought him the image of Richard Coeur de Lion. She had been reading The Talisman late\; , and the Plantagenet was her ideal of manly excellence. “Many happy returns cf the day, Rorie,” she said, softly. “To think that you are of age to-day! Your own master!” “ Yes, my infancy ceased and determined at the last stroke of midnight yesterday. I wonder whether my anxious mother will recognize that fact ?” “ Of course you know what is going to happen at Briarwood. There is to be a grand dinner party.” “ And you are coming ? How jolly!’ “ On no, Rorie. I am not out yet, you know. I sha’n t be for two years. Papa means to give me a season in town. He calls it having me broken to harness. He’ll take a furnished house, and we shall have the horses up, and I shall ride in the Row. You’ll be with us part of the time, won’t you, Rorie?” “ Ca se peut. If papa will invite me.” “ Oh, he will, if I wish it. It*s to be my first season, you know, and I’m to have everything my owu way.” “Will that be a novelty ?” demanded Roderick, with inten- tion. “ I don’t know, I haven’t had my own way in anything lately.” “ How is that?” “You have been away.” At this naive flattery Roderick almost blushed. “ How you’ve grown. Vixen!” he remarked presently. “Have I really? Yes, I suppose I do grow. My frocks are always getting too short.” “ Like the sleeves of my dress-coats a year or two ago,” “ But now you are of age, and can’t grow any more. What S3 vixEm are you going to be, Eorie ? What are you going to do with your liberty ? Are you going into Parliament Mr. Vavvdrey indulged in a suppressed yawn. “ My mother would like it,” he said, “but upon my word, I don’t care about it. I don’t take enough interest in my fellow- creatures.” “ If they were foxes, you’d be anxious to legislate for them,” suggested Vixen. “ I would certainly try to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. And, in fact, when one considers the looseness of existing game-laws, I think every country gentleman ought to be in Parliament.” “And there is the forest for you to take care of.” “ Yes, forestry is a subject on which I should like to have my say. I suppose I shall be obliged to turn senator. But I mean to take life easily; you may be sure of that. Vixen; and I intend to have the best stud of hunters in Hampshire. And now I think I must be off.” “ No, you mustn’t,” cried Violet. “The dinner is not till eight. If you leave here at six, you will have no end of time for getting home to dress. How did you come ?” “ On these two legs.” “ "'ou shall have four to take you to Briarwood. Vv^est shall J’rive you home in papa’s dog- cart with the new mare. You aont know her, do you? Papa only bought her last spring. She such a beauty, and goes — goes — oh, like a sky-rocket. Siio bolts occasionally; but you don’t mind that, do you?” “ Not in the least. It would be rather romantic to be smashed on one’s twenty-first birthday. Will you tell them to order West to get ready at once ?” “Oh, but you are to stop to tea with Miss M’Croke and me — that’s part of our bargain. No kettledrum, no Starlight BessI And you’d scarcely care about w'alking to Briarwood under such rain as that I” “So be it, then; kettledrum and Starlight Bess, at any hazard of maternal wrath. But really now I‘m doing a most ungentle- manly thing, Vixen, to oblige you.” “Always be ungentlemanly, then, for my sake — if it’s ungen- tlemanly to come and see me,” said Vixen, coaxingly. They were standing side by side in the big window looking out at the straight, thin rain. The two pairs of lips were not very far away from each other, and Eorie might have been tempted to commit a third offense against the proprieties if Miss M’Croke had not fortunately entered at this very moment. She was won- derfully surprised at seeing Mr. Vawdrey, congratulated him ceremoniously upon his majority, and infused an element of stiffness into the small assembly. “Eorie is going to stay to tea,” said Vixen. “We’ll have it here by the fire, please, Crokey dear. One can’t have too much of a good fire this weather. Or shall we go to my den ? Which vould you like best, Eorie ?” “ ^ think we had better have tea here, Violet,” interjected Miss M’Croke, ringing the bell. VIXEN. 33 Her pupil’s sanctum sanctorum — that pretty up-stairs room, half school-room, half boudoir, and wholly untidy — was not, in Miss M’Croke’s opinion, an apartment to bo violated by the presence of a young man. ‘‘ And as Rory hasn't had any luncheon, and has come ever so far out of his way to see me, please order something substantial for him,” said Vixen. Her governess obeyed. The gyi^sy table was wheeled up to the broad hearth, and presently the oLl silver tea-pot and kettle, and the yellow cups and saucers, were shining in the cheery fire- light. The old butler put a sirloin and a game pie on the side- board, and then left the little party to shift for themselves in pleasant picnic fashion. Vixen sat down before the hissing tea-kettle with a pretty, important air, like a child making tea out of toy tea-things. Rorie brought a low square stool to a corner close to her, and seated himself with his chin a little above the tea-table. “You can’t eat roast beef in that position,” said Vixen. “Oh, yes, I can— I can do anything that’s mad or merry this evening. But I'm not at all sure that I want beef, though it’s nearly three months since I’ve seen an honest bit of ox beef. I think thin bread and butter — or roses and dew even — quite sub- stantial enough for me this evening.” “You’re afraid of spoiling your appetite for the grand dinner,” said Vixen. “ No, I’m not. I hate grand dinners. Fancy making a fine art of eating, and studying one’s menu beforehand to see what combination of dishes will harmonize best with one’s internal economy! And then the names of the things are always better than the things themselves. It’s like a show at a fair, all the best outside. Give me a slice of English beef or mutton, and a bird that my gun has shot, and let all the fine art dinners go hang.” “Cut him a slice of beef, dear Miss M’Croke.” said Vixen. “ Not now, thanks; I can’t eat now. I'm going to drink orange ~ pekoe.” Argus had taken u]:) his position between Violet and her visitor. He sat bolt-upright, like a sentinel keeping guard over his mis- tress. “Are you very glad to come of age, Rorie?” asked Vixen, turning her bright brown eyes upon him, full of curiosity. “ Well, it will be rather nice to have as much money as I want without asking my mother for it, she was my only guardian, you know. My father had such confidence in her rectiude and capacity that he left everything in her hands.” “Do you find Briarwood much improved?” inquired Miss M'Croke. Lady Jane had been doing a good deal to her orchid-houses lately. “ I haven’t found Briarwood at all yet,” answered Rorie, ‘‘ and Vixen seems determined I sha’n’t find it.” “What, have you only iust returned?” “Only just,” 84 VIXEK ^‘And you have not seen Lady Jane yet?” exclaimed Miss M’Croke, with a horrified look. ‘‘It sounds rather undutiful, doesn’t it? I was awfully tired after traveling all night, and I made this a kind of half-way house.” “Two sides of a triangle are always longer than any one side,” remarked Vixen gravely. “ At least that’s what Miss M’Croke has taught me.” “ It was rather out of my way, of course. But I wanted to see whether Vixen had grown. And I wanted to see the squire.” “Papa has gone to Ring wood to look at a horse, but you’ll see him at the grand dinner. He’ll be coming home to dress pres- ently.” “ I hope you had an agreeable tour, Mr% Vawdrey ?” said Miss M’Croke. “Oh, uncommonly jolly.” “ And you like Switzerland ?” “Yes; it's nice and hilly.” And then Roderick favored them with a sketch of his travels While they sipped their tea, and while Vixen made the dogs balance pieces of cake on their big blunt noses. It was all very nice — the Tete Hoire, and Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn. Rorie jumbled them all together, without the least tegard to geography. He had done a good deal of climbing, had worn out and lost dozens of alpenstocks, and had brought home a case of Swiss carved-work for his friends. “ There’s a clock for your den. Vixen — I shall bring it to-mor- row — with a little cock-robin that comes out of his nest and sings — no end of jolly.” “ How lovely!” cried Violet. The tall eight- day clock in the corner of the hall chimed the half hour. “Half past five, and Starlight Bess not ordered!” exclaimed Roderick. “Let’s go out to the stables and see about her,” suggested Vixen. “And then I can show you my pony. You remember Titmouse, the one that would jump?” “Violet!” ejaculated the aggrieved governess. “ Do you sup- pose I would permit you to go out of doors in such weather ?” “Do you think it's still raining?” asked Vixen, innocently. “ It may have cleared up. Well, we’d better order the cart,” she added, meekly, as she rang the bell. “I’m not of age yet, you see, Rorie. Please, Peters, tell West to get papa’s dog-cart ready for Mr. Vawdrey, and to drive Starlight Bess.” Rorie looked at the bright face admiringly. The shadows had deepened; there was no light in the great oak-paneled room except the ruddy fire-glow, and in this light Violet Tempest looked her loveliest. The figures in the tapestry seemed to move in the flickering light — appeared and vanished, vanished and appeared like the phantoms of a dream. The carved bosses of the ceiling were reflected grotesquely on the oaken wall above the tapestry. The stags’ heads had a goblin look. It was like a scene of enchantment, and Violet, in her black frock and VIXEK 35 amber sash, looked like the enchantress — Melusine, or some- body of equally dubious antecedents. It was Miss M’Croke’s sleepiest hour. Orange pekoe, which has an awakening influence upon most people, acted as an opiate upon her. She sat blinking owlishly at the two young figures. Rorie roused himself with a great effort! “ Unless Starlight Btss spins me along the road pretty quickly, I shall hardly get to Briarwood by dinner-time,” he said; “ and, upon my honor, I don’t feel the least inclination to go.” “Oh, what fun if you were absent at your coming-of-age din- ner ?” cried Vixen, with her brown eyes dancing mischievously. “ Tliey would have to put an emi^ty chair for you, like Ban- quo's.” “ It would be a lark,” acquiesced Rorie, “ but it wouldn’t do. Now for Starlight Bess.” They went into the vestibule, and Rorie opened the door, letting in a gust of wind and rain, and the scent of autumn’s last ill-used flowers. “Oh, I so nearly forgot!” said Violet, as they stood on the threshold, side by side, waiting for the dog-cart to appear. “I’ve got a little present for you — quite a h.umble one for a grand young land-owner like you; but I never could save much of my pocket-money : there are so many poor children always having scarlet-fever, or tumbling into the fire, or drinking out of boiling tea-kettles. But here it is, Rorie. I hope you won't hate it very much.” She put a little square packet into his hand, which he proceed- ed instantly to open. “I shall love it, whatever it is.” “It’s a portrait.” “ You darling! The very thing I should have asked for.” “ The portrit of some one you’re fond of.” “ Some one I adore,” said 'Rorie He had extracted the locket from its box by this time. It was a thick oblong locket of dead gold, plain and massive; the hand- somest of its kind that a Southampton jeweler could supply. Rorie opened it eagerly, to look at the portrait. There was just light enough from the newly kindled vestibule lamp to show it to him. “ Why, it’s a dog,” cried Rorie, with deep-toned disgust. “ It’s old Argus.” “ Who did you think it was ?” “ You, of course.” “ What an idea! As if I should give any one my portrait! I knew you were fond of Argus. Doesn’t his head come out beautifully ? The photographer said he was the best sitter he had had for ever so long. I hope you don’t quite detest the locket, Rorie.” “ I admire it intensely, and I’m deeply grateful. But I feel inexpressibly sold, all the same. And I am to go about the world with Argus dangling at my breast. Well, for your sake. Vixen, I’ll submit even to that degradation.” Here came the cart, with two flaming lamps, like angry eyes 36 VIXEN. flashing through the shrubberies. It pulled up at the steps. Rorie and Vixen clasped hands and bade good-night, and then the young man swung himself lightly into the seat beside the driver, and away went Starlight Bess making just that sort of dashing and spirited start whicli inspires the feholder with the idea that the next proceeding will be the bringing home of the driver and bis companion upon a brace of shutters. CHAPTER IV. RORIE MAKES A SPEECH. Somewhat to his surprise, and much to his delight, Roderick Vawdrey escaped that maternal lecture, which he was wont undutifully to describe as a “wigging/^ When he entered the drawing-room in full dress, just about ten minutes before the first of the guests was announced, Lady Jane received him with a calm affectionateness, and asked him no questions about his disposal of the afternoon. Perhaps this unusual clemency was because of his twenty -first birthday, Rorie thought. A man could not come of age more than once in his life. He was en- titled to some favor. The dinner party was as other dinners at Briarwood; all the arrangements perfect; the menu commendable, if not new; the general result a little dull. The Ashbourne party were among the first to arrive; the duke portly and affable; the duchess delighted to welcome her favorite nephew; Lady Mabel looking very fragile, flower-like, and grace- ful, in her pale blue gauze dinner dress. Lady Mabel affected the palest tints, half-colors, which were more like the shadows in a sunset sky than any earthly hues. She took possession of Rorie at once, treating him with a calm superiority, as if he had been a younger brother. “ Tell me all about Switzerland,” she said, as they sat side by side on one of the amber ottomans. “What was it that you liked best?” “ The climbing, of course,” he answ^ered. “But which of all the landscapes ? What struck you most? What impressed you most deeply ? Your first view of Mont Blanc, or that wondrous gorge below the Tete Noire, or ” “ It was all uncommonly jolly. But there’s a family resem- blance in Swiss mountains, don’t you know. They’re all white, and they’re all peaky. There’s a likeness in Swiss lakes, too, if you come to think of it. They're all blue, and they’re all wet. And Swiss villages, now: don't you think they are rather disap- pointing ? — such a cruel plagiarism of those plaster chalets the image men carry about the Loudon streets, and no candle- ends burning inside to make ’em look pretty. But I liked Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard table at the hotel.” “ Roderick I” cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look. “I don’t think you have a vestige of poetry in your nature.” “ I hope I haven’t,” replied Rorie, devoutly. “You could see those sublime scenes, and never once feelyoui* VIXEN. a7 heart thrilled or your mind exalted — you can come home from your first Swiss tour and talk about billiard tables !” “ The scenery ^as very nice,” said Rorie, thoughtfully. “ Yes there were times, perhaps, when I was a trifle stunned by ail that grand calm beauty, the silence, the solitude, the aw- fulness of it all ; but I have hardly time to fetl the thrill when I came bump up against a party of tourists, English or Ameii- can, all talking the same twaddle, and all patronizing the scen- ery. That took the charm out of the landscape somehow, and I coiled up, as the Yankees say. And now you want me to go into second-hand raptures, and repeat my emotions as if I were writing a tourist article for a magazine. 1 can’t do it, Mabel.” “ Well, I won't bore you any more about it.” said Laly Mabel, ‘‘ but I confess my disappointment. I thought we should have such nice long talks about Switzerland.” What’s the use of talking of a place? If it’s so lovely that one can’t live without it, one had letter go back there.” This was a practical way of putting things which was too much for Lady Mabel. She fanned herself gently with a great fan of cloudy-looking feathers — such a fan as Titania might have used that midsummer night near Athens. She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes. His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited liim wonderfully well. He looked more manly. He was no longer a beardless boy, to be patronized with that gracious elder sister air of Lady Mabel’s. She feit tliat he was further off from her than he had been last season in London. “ How late you arrived this evening!” she said, after a pause. “I came to kettle-drum with my aunt, and found her quite anxious about you. If it hadn’t been for your telegram from Southampton she would have fancied there was something wrong.” “ She needn’t have fidgeted herself after three o'clock,” answer- ed Rorie, coolly; ‘‘ my luggage must have come home by that time.” “ I see. You sent the luggage on before, and came by a later train ?” “ No, I didn’t. I stopped half- way between here and Lynd- hurst to see some old friends.” “Flattering for my aunt,” said Mabel. “I should have thought she was joiiv oldest friend.” “Of course she has the prior claim. But as I was going to hand myself over to her bodily at seven o'clock, to be speechified about and rendered generally ridiculous, aftsr the manner of young men who come of age, L felt I was entitled to do what I liked in the iuterval.” “ And therefore you went to the Tempests’,” said Mabel, with her blue eyes sparkling. “ 1 see. That is what you do when you do what you like.” “Precisely. I am very fond of Squire Tempest. When I first rode to hounds it was under his wing. There’s my mother beckoning me; I am to go back and do the civil to people.” VIXEN. And Roderick walked away from the ottoman to the spot where his mother stood, with the Duke of Dovedale at her side, receiving her guests, “It w’as a very grand party in the way of blue blood, landed estates, diamonds, lace, satin and velvet, and self-importance. All the magnates of the soil within accessible distance of Briar- wood had assembled to do honor to Rorie’s coming of age. The dining table had been arranged in a horseshoe, so as to accom- modate seventy people in a room which in its every-day con- dition would not have been too large for thirty. The orchids and ferns upon this horseshoe table made the finest floricultural sho9r that had been seen for a long time. There were rare speci- mens from New Granada and the Philippine Islands; wondrous flowers lately discovered in the Sierra Madre; blossoms of every shape and color from the Cordilleras; richest varieties of hue, golden yellow, glowing crimson, creamy white; butterfly flow- ers and pitcher-shaped flowers that had cost as much money as prize pigeons, and seemed as w^orthless, save to the connoisseur in the article. The Vawdrey racing plate, won by Roderick’s grandfather, was nowhere by comparison with those wondrous tropical blossoms, that fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed their comparative ignorance of the subject, and complimented Lady Jane. “ The orchids made the hit of the evening,” Rorie said after- ward. “ It was their coming of age, not mine.” There was a moderate and endurable amount of speechifying by and by, when the monster double-crowned pines had been cut, and the purple grapes, that were almost as big as pigeons’ eggs, had gone round. The Duke of Dovedale assured his friends that this was one of the proudest moments of his life; and that if Providence had permitted a son of his own to attain his majority, he, the duke, could have hardly felt more deeply than he felt to-day. He had — arra — arra — known this young man from childhood, and — had — er — um — never found him guilty of a mean action — or — arra — discovered in him a thought unworthy of an English gentleman. This last is felt to be a strong point, as it implies that an En- glish gentleman must needs be much better than any other gen- tleman. A Continental gentleman might, of course, be guilty of an unworthy thought and yet pass current, according to the loose morality of his nation. But the English article must be flawless. And thus the duke meanders on for five minutes or so, and there is a subdued gush of approval, and then an uncomfortable little pause, and then Rorie gets up in his place, next to the duchess, and returns thanks. He tells them all how fond he is of them and the soil that bred them. How he means to be a Hampshire squire, pure and sim- ple, if he- can. How he has no higher ambition than to be use- ful and to do good in this little spot of England which Provi- dence has given him for his inlieritance. How, if he should go into Parliament by and by, as he has some thoughts of attempt- VIXEN. 89 ing to do, it will be in their interests that he will join that noble body of legislators; that it will be they and their benefit be will have always nearest at heart. “There is not a tree in the forest that I do not love,” cried Eorie, fired with his theme, and forgetting to stammer; “ and I believe there is not a tree from the Twelve Apostles to the Knight wood Oak, or a patch of gorse from Pocket Post to Stony Cross, that I do not know as well as I know the friends round me to-night. I was bom in the forest, and may I live and die and be buried here! I have just come back from seeing some of the finest scenery in Europe; yet, without blushing for my want of poetry, I will confess that the awful grandeur of those snow-clad mountains did not toucli my heart so deeply as our beechen glades and primrose-carpeted bottoms close at home.” There was a burst of applause after Eorie’s speech that made all the orchids shiver and nearly annihilated a thirty-guinea Odontoglossiim vexillarium. His talk about the forest, irrele- vant as it might be, went home to the hearts of the neighbor- ing land-owners. But by and by, in the drawing-room, when he rejoined his cousin, he found that fastidious young lady by no means complimentary. “ Your speech would have been capital half a century ago, Eorie,” she said, “and you don t arra, arra, as poor papa does, which is something to be thankful for; but all that talk about the forest seemed to be an anachronism. People are not rooted in their native soil nowadays, as they used to be in the old stage-coach times, when it was a long day’s journey to London. One might as well be a vegetable at once if one is to be pinned down to one particular spot of earth. Why, the Twelve Apos- tles,” exclaimed Mabel, innocent of irreverence, for she meant certain ancient oaks so named, “ see as much of life as your fine old English gentleman. Men have wider ideas nowadays. The world is hardly big enough for ambition.” “ I would rather live in a field, and strike my roots deep down like one of those trees, than be a homeless nomad with a world- wide ambition,” answered Eorie. “ I have a j)assion for home.” “ Then I wonder you spend so little time in it.” “Oh, I don’t mean a home inside four walls. The forest is my home, and Briarwood is no dearer to me than any other spot in it.” “ Not so dear as the Abbey House, perhaps?” “ Well, no. I confess that fine old Tudor mansion pleases me better than this abode of straight lines and French windows, plate-glass and gilt moldings.” They sat side by side upon the amber ottoman^ Eorie with Mabel’s blue feather fan in his hand, twirling and twisting it as he talked, and doing more damage to that elegant article in a quarter of an hour than a twelvemonth’s legitimate usage would have done. People looking at the pretty pair smiled signifi- cantly, and concluded that it would be a match, and went home and told less privileged people about the evident attachment be- tween the duke’s daughter and the young commoner. But Eorie was not strongly drawn toward his cousin this evening. It 40 VIXEN. seemed to him that she was growing more and more of a para- gon: and he hated paragons. She piaj^ed presently, and afterwards sang some French chan- sons. Both playing and singing were perfect of their kind. Rorie did not understand Chopin, and tiiought there was a good deal of unnecessary hopping about the piano in that sort cf thing — nothing concrete, or that came to a focus; a succession of airy meanderings.fa fairy dance in the treble, a goblin hunt in the bass. But the French chansons, the dainty little melodies with words of infantile innocence, all about leaves and buds, and bird’s nests and butterflies, pleased him infinitely. He hung over the piano wdth an enraptured air; and again his friends made note of his subjugation, and registered the fact for future discussion. CHAPTER V. HOW SHE TOOK THE NEWS. It was past midiiight when the Tempest carriage drove through the dark rhododendron shrubberies up to the old Tudor porch. There was a great pile of logs burning in the hall, giving the home-comers cheery welcome. There was an antique silver spirit stand with its accompaniments on one little table for the squire, and there was another little table on the opposite side of the hearth for Mrs. Tempest, with a dainty tea-service sparkling and shining in the red glow. A glance at these arrangements would have told you that there were old servants at the Abbey House — servants who know their master's and mistress’s ways, and for whom service was more or less a labor of love. “ How nice!” said the lady, with a contented sigh. ‘‘Pauline has thought of my cup of tea.” “ And Forbes has not forgotten my soda-water,” remarked the squire. He said nothing about the brandy, which he was pouring into the tall glass with a liberal hand. Pauline came to take off her mistress’s cloak, and was praised for her thoughtfulness about the tea, and then dismissed for the night. The squire liked to stretch his legs before his own fireside after dining out; and with the squire, as with Mr. Squeers, the leg- stretching process involved the leisurely consumption of a good deal of brandy and water. Mr. and Mrs. Tempest talked over the Briar wood dinner party, and arrived — with perfect good nature — at the conclusion that it had been a failure. “ The dinner was excellent,” said the squire, “but the wine went round too slow; my glasses were empty half the time. That’s always the way when you’ve a woman at the helm. Slie won’t put out enough w ine, and she won't trust her servants with the keys of her cellars.” “ The dresses were lovely,” said Mrs. Tempest, “ but every one looked bored. How did you like my dress, Edward? I think VIXEN. 41 it’s rather p:ood style. Theodore will charge me horribly for it, I dare say.” “ I don’t know much about your dress, Pam, but you were the prettiest woman in the room.” ‘‘Oh, Edward, at my age I” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, with a pleased look, “ when there was that lovely Lady Mabel Ash- bourne.” “ Do you call her lovely ? — I don’t. Lips too thin; waist too slim; too much blood, and too little bone.” “Oh, but surely, Edward, she is grace itself; quite an ethereal creature. If Violet had more of that refined air ” “Heaven forbid! Vixen is worth twenty such fine-drawn misses. Lady Mabel has been spoiled by overtraining.” “ Roderick is evidently in love with her,” suggested Mrs. Tem- pest, pouring out another cup of tea. Tlie clocks had just struck two, the household was at rest, the logs blazed and cracked merrily, the red light shining on those mail-clad effigies in the corners, lighting up helm and hauberk, glancing on greaves and gauntlets. It was an hour of repose and gossip which the squire dearly loved. Hush! what is this creeping softly down the old oak staircase ? A slender white figure, with cloudy hair, a small pale face, and two dark eyes shining with excitement: little feet, in black vel- vet slippers, tripping lightly upon the polished oak. Is it a ghost ? No: ghosts" are noiseless, and those little slippers descend from stair to stair with a gentle pit-a-pat. “ Bless my soul and body!” cried the squire, “what’s this?” A gush of girlish laughter was his only answer. “ Vixen!” “ Did you take me for a ghost, papa?” cried Violet, descending the last five stairs with a flying leap, and then bounding across the hall to perch, light as a bird, upon her father’s knee. “ Did I really frighten you ? Did you think the good old Abbey House was going to set up a family ghost — a wliite lady with a dismal history of a broken heart ? You darling papa! I hope you took me for a ghost!” “ Well, upon my word, you know. Vixen, I was just the least bit staggered. Your little wliite figure looked like something uncanny against the black oak balustrades, half in light, half in shadow.” “How nice!” exchaimed Violet. “But, my dear Violet, what can have induced you to come down-stairs at such an hour?” said Mrs. Tempest, in an aggrieved voice. “ I want to hear all about the party, mamma,” answered Vixen, coaxingly. “Do you think I could sleep a wink on the night of Rorie’s coming of age ? I heard the joy-bells ringing in my ears all night.” “That was very ridiculous.” said Mrs. Tempest, “for there were no joy-bells after eleven o’clock yesterday.” “ But they rang all the same, mamma. It was no U'^je burying my head in tlie pillows: those bells only rang the louder. Ding- dong, ding-dong, deU, Rorie’s come of age; ding-dong, deil, 42 VIXEN. Rorie’s twenty-one. Then I thought of the speeches that would be made, and I fancied I could hear Rorie speaking. Did he make a good speech, papa ?” “ Capital, Vix; the only one that was worth hearing.” ‘‘I am so glad! And did he look handsome while he was speaking? I think the Swiss sunshine has rather overcooked him, you know; but he is not unbecomingly brown.” “ He looked as handsome a young fellow as you need wish to set e7/es on.” ‘‘ My dear Edward,” remonstrated Mrs. Tempest, languidly, ‘‘ do you think it is quite wise of you to encourage Violet in that kind of talk?” “ Why should she not talk of him ? She never had a brother, and he stands in the place of one to her. Isn’t Rorie the same to you as an elder brother, Vix?” The girl’s head was on her father's shoulder, one slim arm round his neck, her face hidden against the squire’s coat collar. He could not see the deep, warm flush that dyed his daughter’s cheek at this home question. “I don’t quite know what an elder brother would be like, papa. But I’m very fond of Rorie — when he’s nice, and comes to see us before any one else, as he did to-day.” “ And when he stays away ?” “ Oh, then I hate him awfuUy,” exclaimed Vixen, with such energy that the slender figure tremlded faintly as she spoi-'e. “ But tell me all about the party, mamma. Your dress was quite the prettiest, I am sure V” “ I’m not certain of that, Violet,” answered Mrs. Tempest, with grave deliberation, as if the question were far too serious to be answered lightly. ‘‘ There was a cream-colored silk, with silver bullion fringe, that was very striking. As a rule, I detest gold or silver trimmings : but this was really elegant. It had an effect like moonlight.” “Was that Lady Mabel Ashbourne's dress?’ asked Vixen, eagerly. “No ; Lady Mabel wore blue gauze, the very palest blue, all puffings and ruchings — like a cloud.” “ Oh, mamma ! the clouds have no puffings and ruchings.” “ My dear, I mean the general effect — a sort of shadowy ness which suits Lady Mabel’s ethereal style.” “Ethereal!” repeated Violet, thoughtfully. “You seem to admire her very much, mamma.” “ Everybody admires her, my dear.” “ Because she is a duke’s only daughter.” “No : because she is very lovely, and extremely elegant, and most accomplished. She played and sang beautifully to night.’' “ What did she play, mamma?” “ Chojun !” “ Did she?” cried Vixen. “Then I pity her. Yes, even if she were my worst enemy, I should still pity hen” “ People who are fond of music don’t mind difficulties,” said Mrs. Tempest. “Don’t they? Then I suppose I’m not fond of it, because I VIXEN. 43 shirk my practice. But I should be very fond music if I could grind it on a barrel-organ.” “Oh, Violet, when will you be like Lady Mabel Ashbourne ?” “ Never, I devoutly hope,” said the squire. Here the squire gave his daughter a hug which might mean anything. “Never, mamma,” answered Violet, with conviction. “First and foremost, I never can be lovely, because I have red hair and a wide mouth. Secondly, I can never be elegant — much less ethereal — ^because it isn’t in me. Thirdly, I shall never be ac- complished, for poor Miss M’Croke is always giving me up as the baddest lot in the way of pupils that ever came in her way.” “If you persist in talking in that horrible way, Violet ” “ Let her talk as she likes, Pam,” said the fond father. “I won’t have her bitted too heavily.” Mrs. Tempest gave her gentle sigh of resignation. The squ^e was all that is dear and good as husband and father, but refine- ment was out of his line. “Do go on about the party, mamma. Did Rorie seem to enjoy himself very much ?” “ i think so. He was very devoted to his cousin all the even- ing. I believe thev are engaged to be married.” “Mamma!” exclaimed Vixen, starting up from her reclining attitude upon her father’s shoulder, and looking intently at the speaker: “ Rorie engaged to Lady Mabel Ashbourne!” “ So I am told,” replied Mrs. Tempest. “ It will be a splendid match for him.” The pretty chestnut head dropped back into its old place upon the squire’s shoulder, and Violet answered never a word. “Past two o’clock,” cried her mother. “This is really too dreadful. Come, Violet, you and I must go up-stairs at any rate.” “ We’ll all go,” said the squire, finishing his second brandy and soda. So they all three went up-stairs together. Vixen had grown suddenly silent and sleepy. She yawned dolefully, and kissed her mother and father at the end of the gallery, without a word, and then scudded off, swift as a scared rabbit, to her own room. “God bless her!” exclaimed the squire; “she grows prettier and more winning every day.” “ If her mouth were only a little smaller,” sighed Mrs. Tem- pest. “ It’s the prettiest mouth I ever saw upon woman — bar one,” said the squire. What was Vixen doing while the fond father w'as praising her? She had locked her door and thrown herself face downward on the carpet, and was sobbing as if her heart would break. Rorie was going to be married. Her little kingdom had been overturned by a revolution, her little world had crumbled all to pieces. Till to-night she had been a queen in her own mind, and her kingdom had been Rorie, her subjects had begun and 44 VIXEK ended in Rorie. All was over. He belonged to some one else. She could never tyrannize over him again — never scold him and abuse him and ridicule him any more. He was her Rorie no longer. Had she ever thought that a time might come when he would be something more to her than playfellow and friend ? No, never. The young, bright mind was too childishly simple for any such foresight or calculation. She had only thought that ho was in some wise her property, and would be so till the end of both their lives. He was hers, and he was very fond of her, and she thought him a rather absurd young fellow, and looked down upon him from the altitude of her childish wonianliness. And now he was gone. The earth had opened all at once and swallowed him, like that prophetic gentleman in the Greek play, whose name she could never remember — chariot and horses and all. He belonged, henceforth, , to Lady Mabel Ash- bourne. She could never be rude to him any more; she could not take such u, liberty with another young lady's lover. “And to think that he should never have told me he was going to be engaged to her!'’ slie said. “ He must have been fond of her from the very beginning; and he never said a word; and he let me think he rather liked me — or at least tolerated me. And how conld he like two people who are the very antipodes of eaoh other? If he is fond of her, he must detest me. If he respects her, lie must despise me.’’ The thought of such treachery rankled deep in the young, warm heart. Vixen started up to her feet, and stood in the midst of the fire-lit room, with clinched fists, like a young fury. The light chestnut tresses should have been Medusa’s snakes to have harmonized with that set white face. God had given Vio- let Tempest a heart to feel deeply, too deeply for perfect peace, or tliat angelic softness v^hich seems to us most worthy in woman — the power to suffer and be patient. CHAPTER VI. RORIE HAS PLANS OF HIS OWN. Roderick Vawdrey’s ideas of what was due to a young man who attains his majority were in no wise satisfied by his birth- c\aj dinner party. It had been pleasant enough in its way, but far too much after the pattern of all other dinner parties to please a young man who hated all common and hackneyed things, and all the beaten tracks of life, or who, at any rate, fancied he did, which comes to nearly the same thing. “ Mother,” he began, at breakfast next morning, in his loud, cheery voice, “ we must have something for the small tenants and shop-keepers and cottagers.” ‘‘What do you mean, Roderick?” “Some kind of entertainment to celebrate my majority. The people will expect it. Last night polished off the swells very nicely. The ^whole thing did you credit, mother.” “Tliank you,” said Lady Jane, with a plight contraction of her thin lips. VIXEN. 45 This October mornins:, so pleasant for Rorie, was rather a bitter day for his mother. She liad been reigning sovereign at Briar wood hitherto; henceforth she could only live there on sufferance. The house was Rorie’s. Even tlie orchid houses were his. He might take her to task if he pleased for having spent so much money on glass. “ But I must have my humble friends round me,” continued Rorie. ‘‘The young people, too — the boys and girls. ITl tell you what, mother, we must have a meet. The hounds have never met here since my grandfather’s time — fifty years ago. The duke’s stud groom was celling me about it last year. He’s a Hampshire man, you know, born and bred in the forest. We’ll have a meet and a hunting breakfast; and it shall be open house for every one — liigh and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple. Don’t be frightened, mother,” interjected Rorie, seeing Lady Jane’s look of horror: “ we won’t do any miscluef. Your gardens shall be respected.” “ They are your gardens now, Roderick. You are sole master here, and can do what you please.” “ My dear mother, how can you talk like that ? Do you sup- pose I shall ever forget wlio made the place what it is ? The gardens have been your pet hobby, and they shall be your gar- dens to the end of time.” “That is very generous of you, my dear Roderick; but you are promising too much. When you marry, your wife will be mistress of Briarwood, and it will be necessary for me to find a new home.” “ I am in no hurry to get married. It will be half a dozen years before I shall even think of anything so desperate.” “ I hope not, Roderick. With your jDOsition, and your respon- sibilities, you ought to marry young. Marriage — a suitable mar- riage, that is to say — would give you an incentive to earnestness and ambition. I want to see you follow your father’s footsteps; I want you to make a name by and by.” “I’m afraid it will be a distant by and by,” said Rorie, with a yawn. “ I don’t feel at all drawn toward the senate. I love the country, my dogs, my horses, the free, fresh air, the stir and movement of life, too well to pen myself up in a study and pore over blue-books, or to waste the summer evening listening to the member for Little Pedcllington laying down the law about com- bination drainage or local government. I’m afraid it isn’t in me, mother, and that youTl be disappointed if you set your heart upon my making a figure as a senator.” “ I should like to see you worthy of your father’s name,” Lady Jane said, vrith a regretful sigh. “ Providence hasn’t made me in the same pattern,” answered Rorie. “ Look at my grandfather’s portrait over the sideboard, in pink and mahogany tops. What a glorious old fellow he must have been! You should hear how the old people talk of him. I think I inherit his tastes instead of my father’s. Per- haps, if I have a son, he will be a heaven-born statesman, and yon may have your ambition gratified by a grandson. And 46 VIXEN. now about the hunting breakfast. Would this day week suit you?” “ This is your house, Roderick. It is for you to give your orders.” “ Bosh!” exclaimed the son, impatiently. “Don’t I tell you that you are mistress here, and will be mistress ” “My dear Roderick, let us look things straight in the face,” said Lady Jane. “ If I were sole mistress here, there would be no hunting breakfast. It is just the very last kind of entertain- ment I should ever dream of giving. I am not complaining, mind. It is natural enough for you to like that kind of thing; and, as master of this house, it is your right to invite whomso- ever you please. I am quite happy that it should be so, but let there be no more talk about my being mistress of this house. That is too absurd.” Rorie felt all his most generous impulses turned to a sense of constraint and bitterness. He could say no more. “Will you give me a list of the people you would like to be asked ?” said his mother, after rather an uncomfortable silence, “I'll go and talk it over with the duke,” answered Rorie. “ He’ll enter into the spirit of the thing.” Rorie found the duke going the round of the loose boxes, and uncle and nephew spent an hour together pleasantly, overhaul- ing the fine stud of hunters which the duke kept at Ashbourne, and going round the paddocks to look at the brood-mares and their foals; these latter being eccentric little animals, all head and legs, which nestled close to the mother’s side for a minute, and tlien took fright at their own tails and shot off across the field like a sky-rocket traveling horizontally, or suddenly stood up on end, and executed a wild waltz in mid air. The duke and Roderick decided which among the leggy little beasts had the elements of future excellence; and after an hour’s perambulation of the paddocks went to the house, where they found the duchess and Lady Mabel in the morning-room; the duchess busy making scarlet cloaks for her school- children, Lady Mabel reading a German critic on Shakespeare. Here the hunt breakfast was fully discussed. Everybody was to be asked. The duchess put in a plea for her school-chiidren. It would be such a treat for the little things to see the meet, and their red cloaks and hoods would look so pretty on the lawn. “ Let them come, by all means,” said Roderick; “ your school — half a dozen schools. I’ll have three or four tents rigged up for refreshments. There shall be plenty to eat and drink for everybody. And now I’m off to the Tempests’, to arrange about the hounds. The squire will be pleased, liknow.” “ Of cours(%” said Lady Mabel, “ and the squire’s daughter.” “Dear little thing!” exclaimed Rorie, with an elder brother’s tenderness; “she’ll be as pleased as Punch. You’ll hunt, of course, Mabel?” “I don’t know. I don’t shine in the field, as Miss Tempest does.” ‘ ‘ Oh, but you must come, Mab. Tlie duke will find you a safe mount,” VIXEN. 47 ** She has a hunter I bred on purpose for her,” said the duke; **but she’ll never be such a horsewoman as lier mother.” “She looks lovely on Mazeppa,” said Korie; “and she must come to my hunting breakfast.” “Of course, Rorie, if you wish I shall come.” Rorie stayed to luncheon, and then went back to Briar wood to mount his horse to ride to the Abbey House. The afternoon was drawing in when Rorie rode up to the old Tudor porch — a soft, sunless, gray afternoon. The door stood open, and he saw the glow of the logs on the wide hearth, and the squire’s stalwart figure sitting in the great arm-chair, lean- ing forward with a newspaper across his knec^, and Vixen on a stool at his feet, the dogs grouped about them. “ Shall I send my horse round to the stables, squire?” asked Rorie. “Do, my lad,” answered Mr. Tempest, ringing the bell, at which summons a man appeared and took charge of Roderick’s tall chestnut. “Been hunting to-day, squire?” asked Rorie, when he had shaken hands with Mr. Tempest and his daughter, and seated himself on the opposite side of the hearth. “ No,” answered the squire, in a voice that had a duMer sound than usual. “ We had the hounds out this morning at Hilberry Green, and there was a good muster. Jack Purdy says; but I felt out of sorts, and neither Vixen nor I went. It was a loss for Vixen, poor littie girl!” “ It was a grief to see you ill, papa,” said Violet, nestling closer to liim. She had hardly taken any notice of Roderick to-day, shaking hands with him in an absent-minded way, evidently full of anxiety about her father. She was very pale, and looked older and more womanly than when he saw her last, Roderick thought. “I’m not ill, my dear,” said the squire; “ only a little muddled and queer in my head; been riding too hard lately, perhaps. I don’t get lighter, you know, Rorie, and a quick run shakes me more than it used. Old Martin, our family doctor, has been against my hunting for a long tinse; but I should like to know w^hat kind of life men of my age would lead if they listened to the doctors. They wouldn't let us have a decent dinner.” “ I'm so sorry!” said Rorie. “ I came to ask you a favor, and now I feel as if I hardly ought to say anything about it,” And then Roderick proceeded to tell the squire his views about a meet at Briarwood, and a hunting breakfast for rich and poor. “It shall be done, my boy,” answered the squire, heartily. “ It’s just the sort of thing you ought to do to make yourself popular. Lady Jane is a charming woman, you know, thorough- iDred to the finger-nails; but she has kept herself a little too much to herself. There are people old enough to remember what Briarwood was in your grandfather’s time. This day week, you say. I’ll arrange everything. We’ll have such a gathering as hasn’t been seen for the last twenty years.” 48 VIXEN. ‘‘ Vixen must come with yon,” said Rorie. “ Of course.” ‘‘If papa is well and strong enough to hunt.” “ My love, there is nothing amiss with me— nothing that need trouble me this day week. A man may have a headache, mayn't he, child, without people making any fuss about ?” I should like you to see Dr. Martin, papa. Don’t you think he ought to see the doctor, Rorie ? It's not natural for him to be ill.” “ I’m not going to be put upon half rations, Vixen. Martin would starve me; that's his only idea of medical treatment. Yes, Vixen shall come, Rorie.” CHAPTER VII. VIXEN'S FIRST SORROW. The morning of the Briar wood Meet dawned fairly. Roderick watched the first lifting of the darkness from his bedroom win- dow, and rejoiced in the promise of a fine day. Tlie heavens, which had been so unpropitious upon his birthday, seemed to promise better things to-day. He did not desire the traditional huntintT morning — a southerly u ind and a cloudy sky. He cared very little about the scent lying well, or the actual result of the day's sport. He wanted rather to see the kind, familiar faces round him, the autumn sunshine lighting up all the glow and color of the picture, the red coats, the rich bay and brown of the horses, the verdant background cf lawn and shrubberies. Two huge marquees had been erected for the commonalty — one for the school-children, the other for the villagers. There were long tables in the billiard-room for the farming class, and for the quality there was the horse-shoe table in the diiiing-rcom, as at Roderick’s bii’thday dinner. But on this occasion the table was decorated only with liardy ferns and flowers. The orchids were not allowed to appear. Roderick noticed the omission. “Why, where are the thing-nm-tites, mother?” he asked, with some surprise; “the pitcher-plants and tropical what’s- its- names ?” “I did not think there was any occasion to have them brought out of the houses, Roderick,” Lady Jane answered, quietly; “ there is always a risk of their being killed, or some of your sporting friends might be picking my prize blossoms to put in their button-holes. Men who give their minds to horses would hardly appreciate orchids.” “ All right, mother. As long as there is plenty to eat, I don’t suppose it much matters,” answered Rorie. He had certainly no cause for complaint upon this score. Briarwood had been amply provisioned for an unlimited liospi- talit3\ The red coats and gveen coats and bine coats and brown coats came in and out, slashed away at hoar’s head and truffled turkey, sent Champagne corks fl^ung, and added more dead men to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, dressed in uniform brown, which the astonished butler ranged rank and file in a VIXEN. 49 lobby outside the dining-room. He had never seen this kind of tiling at Briarwood since he had kept the keys of the cellars, and he looked upon this promiscuous hospitality with a disax>proving eye. The duke supported his nephew admirably, and was hail-fel- low-well-met with everybody. He had always been popular at Ashbourne. It was his own place, his particular selection, bought with his own money, improved under bis own eye, and he liked it better than any of his hereditary seats. “ If I had a son like you, Eorie,” he said, as he stood beside the young man on the "gravel sweep before the hall door, wel- coming the new-comers, “I should have been a happy man. Well, I suppose 1 must be satisfied with a grandson, but it’s a hard thing that the title ahd estates are to go to that scamp of a cousin of mine.” Roderick, on this particular morning, was a nephew whom any uncle might be proud to own. His red coat and buckskins became him; so did his position as host and master at Briar- wood. His tall, erect figure showed to advantage amidst the crowd. His smile lit up the dark sunburned face like sunshine. He had a kind word, a friendly hand-clasp, for everybody — even for gaffers and goodies who had hobbled from their village shanties to see the sport, and to get their share of cold sirloin and old October. He took the feeble old creatures into the tent, and saw that they got a place ar the board. Squire Tempest and his daughter were among the later arri- vals. The meet was to be at one, and they only rode into the grounds at half past twelve, when every one else had break- fasted. Mrs. Tempest had not come. The entertainment was much too early for a lady who never left her rooms till after noon. Vixen looked lovely in her smart little habit. It was not the Lincoln-green with the brass buttons which Lady Mabel had laughed at a year ago. To-day Miss Tempest wore a dark brown habit, molded to the full erect figure, with a narrow rim of white at the throat, a little felt hat of the same dark brown, with a brown feather, long white gauntlets, and a whip with an ivory handle. The golden bay’s shining coat matched Violet's shining hair. It was the prettiest picture in the world, the little rider in dark brown on the bright bay horse, the daintily quilted saddle, the gauntleted hands playing so lightly with the horse’s velvet mouth — horse and rider devotedlv attached to each other. How do you like him ?” asked Vixen, directly she and Rorie had shaken hands. ‘ Isn't he absolutely lovely?” “ Absolutely lovely,” said Rorie, patting the hone’s shoulder and looking at the rider, ^ “ Papa gave him to me on my last birthday. I was to have ridden Titmouse another year; but I got the brush one day after a hard run, when almost every bodyelse was left behind, and papa said I should have a horse. Poor Titmouse is put into a basket-chaise. Isn’t it sad for him?’ “ Awfully humiliating,” 50 VIXEN. Lady Mabel was close by on her chestnut thorough-bred, se^ verely costumed in darkest blue and chimney-pot hat. I don’t think you’ve ever met my cousin,” said Korie. Mabel, this is Miss Tempest, whom you’ve heard me talk about. Miss Tempest, Lady Mabel Ashbourne.” Violet Tempest gave a startled look and blushed crimson. Then the two girls bowed and smiled; a constrained smile on Vixen’s part, a prim and chilly smile from Lady Mabel. “ I want you two to be awful good friends,” said Rorie; “ and when you come out, Vixen, Lady Mabel will take you under her wing. She knows everybody, and the right thing to be done on every occasion.” Vixen turned from red to pale, and said nothing. Lady Mabel looked at the distant blue line of the Wight, and murmured that she would be happy to be of use to Miss Tempest if ever they met in London. Rorie felt somehow that it was not encourag- ing. Vixen stole a glance at her rival. Yes, she was very pretty — a delicate patrician beauty that Vixen had never seen before. No wonder Rorie was in love with her. Where else could he have seen anything so exquisite ? It was the most natural thing in the world that these cousins should be fond of each other and engaged to be married. Vixen wondered that the thing had never occurred to her as inevitable — that it should have come upon her as a blow at the last. “ I think Rorie ought to have told me,” she said to herself. “ He is like my brother, and a brother would not hide his love affairs from his sister. It was rather mean of Rorie.” The business of the day began presently. Neither Vixen nor the squire dismounted. They had breakfasted at home; and Vixen, who did not care much for Lady Jane Vawdrey, was glad to escape with no further communication than a smile and a bow. At a quarter past one they were all riding away toward the forest, and presently the serious business began. Vixen and her father were riding side by side. ‘‘ How pale you look, papal Is your head bad again to-day ‘‘ Yes, my dear. I’m afraid I’ve started a chronic headache. But the fresh air will blow it away presently, I dare say. You’re not looking overwell yourself, Vixen. Wiiat have you done with your roses ?” ‘‘I— I don’t care much about hunting to-day, papa,” said Violet, sudden tears rushing into her eyes. * Shall we go hc'me together? You’re not well, and I'm not enjoying myself. No- body wants us either, so why should we stay ?” Rorie was a little way behind the taking care of Lady Mabel, whose slim-legged chestnut wei through as many ma- neuvers as if he had been doing the manege business in a circus, and got over the ground very slowly.” “ Nonsense, child!” Go back! I should think not! We shall find down in Dingley Bottom, I dare say, and get a capital run across the hills to Beaulieu.” They found just as the squire had anticipated, and after that there was a hard run for the next hour and a quarter. Roderick was at the heel of the hunt all the time, opening gates and VIXEN. 51 keeping his cousin out of bogs and dangers of all kinds. They killed at last on a wild bit of common near Beaulieu, and there were only a few in at the death, amongst them Vixen on her fast young bay, flushed with excitement and triumph by this time, and forgetting all her troubles in the delight of winning one of the pads. Mrs Millington, the famous huntress from the shires, was there to claim the brush. “How tired you look, iDapal” said Vixen, as they rode quietly homeward. “A little done up, my dear, but a good dinner will set me all right again. It was a capital run, and your horse behaved beautifully. I don’t think I made a bad choice for you. Rorie and his cousin were miles behind, I dare say. Pretty girl, and sits her horse like a picture, but she can’t ride. We shall meet them going home, perhaps.” A mile or two further on they met Roderick alone. His cousin had gone home with her father. “It was rather a bore losing the run,” he said, as he turned his horse’s head and rode by "V ixen ; “ but I was obliged to take care of my cousin.” One of the squire’s tenants, a seventeen-stone farmer, on a stout gray cob, overtook them presently, and Mr. Tempest rode on by his side, talking agricultural talk about overfed beasts and cattle shows — the last popular form of cruelty to animals. Roderick and Violet were alone, riding slowly side by side in the darkening grg y, bet ween woods where solitary robins car- oled sweetly, or the rare gurgle of the thrmsh sounded now and then from thickets of beech and holly. A faint color came back to Vixen’s cheek. She was very angry with her playfellow for his want of confidence, for his un- friendly reserve. Yet tliis was the one happy hour of her day. There had been a flavor of dcsolateness and abandonment in all the rest. “ I hope you enjoyed the run,” said Rorie. “ I don’t think you can care much whether we did or didn’t,” retorted Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. “If you had cared you would have been with us. Sultan”— meaning the taU chestnut — “must have felt cruelly humiliated by being kept so far behind.” “If a man could be in two places at once, half of me — ^the better half of me — would have been with you. Vixen; but I was bound to take care of my cousin. I had insisted upon her com- ing.” “ Of course,” answered Vixen, with a little toss of her head; “ it would have been quite wrong if she had been absent.” They rode on in silence for a little while after this. Vixen was longing to say, “Rorie, you have treated me very badly. You ought to have told me you were going to be married.” But something restrained her. She patted her horse’s neck, listened to the lonely robins, and said not a word. The squire and his tenant were a hundred ya-rds ahead, talking loudly. rresently they came to a point at which their roads par^^^d, but Rorie stiU rode on by Vixen, 52 VIXEN. ‘‘ Inn’t that your nearest way ?” asked Vixen, pointing down the cross-road with the ivory handle of her whip. “ I am not going the nearest way. I am going to the Abbey Honse with you.” “ I wouldn’t be so rude as to say don’t, but I think poor Sultan must be tired.” “ Sultan shall have an off day to-morrow.” They went into an oak plantation, where a broad opening led from one side of an in closure to the other. The wood had a mysterious look in the late afternoon, when the shadows were thickening under the tall, thin trees. There was an all-pervad- ing ghostly grayness as in a shadowy under-world. They rode Silently over the thick, wet carpet of fallen leaves, the horses starting a little now and then at the aspect of a newly-barked trunk lying white across the track. They were silent, having, in sooth, very little to say to each other just at this time. Vixen was nursing her wrathful feelings, Eoriefelt that his future was confused and obscure. He ought to do something with his life, perhaps, as his mother had so warmly urged. But his soul was stirred by no ambitious promptings. They were within two hundred yards of the gate at the end of the inclosure, when Vixen gave a sudden cry. “ Did papa’s horse slip?” she asked. “ Look how he sways in his saddle?” Another instant, and the squire reeled forward, and fell head- foremost across his horse’s shoulder. The fail was so sudden and so heavy that the horse fell with him, and then scrambled up on to his feet again affrighted, swung himself round, and rushed past Eoderick and Vixen along the splashing track. Vixen was off her horse in a moment, and had flown to her father’s side. He lay like a log, face downward upon the sod- dened leaves just inside the gate. The farmer had dismounted and was stooping over him, bridle in hand, with a frightened face. ‘ “ Oh, what is it ?” cried Violet, frantically. ‘‘Did the horse throw him? — Bullfinch, his favorite horse. Is he much hurt? Oh, help me to lift him up— help me — help me!” Eorie was by her side by this time, kneeling jdown with her heside the prostrate squire, trying to raise the heavy figure which lay like lead across his arm. “ It wasn’t the horse, miss,” said the farmer. “ I’m afraid it’s a seizure.” “A fit!” cried Vixen. “Oh, papa! papa! — darling — dar- ling ” She was sobbing, clinging to him, trembling like a leaf, and turning a white, stricken face up toward Eoderick. “ Do something to help him — for God’s sake, do something!” she cried. “You won’t let him lie there and die for want of help? Some brandy — something!” she gasped, stretching out her trembhng hand. The farmer had anticipated her tliought. He had taken his fiask from the saddle pocket, and was kneeling down bv the squire. Eoderick had lifted the heavy head, and turned the VIXEN. sa ghastly face to the waning light. He tried to force a little brandy between the livid lips, but vainly. “ For God’s sake get her away!’’ he whispered to John Wim- ble, the farmer. ‘‘It’s all over with him.” “Come a\^ay with me, my dpar Miss Tempest,” said Wimble, trying to raise Violet from her knees beside the squire. She was gazing iuto that awful face distractedly, half divining its solemn meaning, yet watching for the kind eyes to open and look at her again. “ Come away with me, and we will get a doctor Mr. Vawdry will take care of your father.” “You go for the doctor,” she answered, firmly. I’ll stay with papa. Take my horse; he’s faster than yours. Oh, he’ll carry you well enough. You don’t know how strong he is. Go, quick — quick — Dr. Martin, at Lyndhurst — it’s a long way, but you must get him. Papa will recover, and be able to ride home, perhaps, before you can get back to us, but go! go!” “You go for the doctor, miss; your horse will carry you fast enough. He’d never carry me, and my cob is dead beat. You go, and Mr. Vaudrey will go with you. I’ll take care of the squire.” Violet looked from one to the other helplessly. “ I'd rather stay with papa,” she said. “Yougo, Eorie — yes —go! go! I’ll stay with papa.” She crouched down beside the prostrate figure on the damp, marshy gromid, took the heavy head on her lap, and looked up at the two men with a pale, set face which indicated a resolve that neither of them was strong enough to overrule. They tried their utmost to persuade her, but in vain. She was fixed as a new Niobe — a stony image ci young despair. So Eoderick mounted his horse and rode off to Lyndhurst, and honest Jack Wimble tied the other two horses to the gate, and took his stand beside them a few paces from those two motionless figures on the ground, patiently waiting for the issue of this bitter hour. It was one of the longest, weariest, saddest hours that ever youth and hope lived through. There was an awful heart-sick- ening fear in Violet’s mind, but she gave it no definite shape. She would not say to herself. My father is dead. The position in which he was lying hampered her arms so that she could not reach out her hand to lay it upon his heart. She bent her face down to his lips. Oh God! not a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it against the open mouth. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful- looking way; but Violet had seen her father look like that some- times as he slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a Jong swoon, a suspension of consciousness. Dr. Martin would come presently — oh, how long, how long, the time seemed! — and make all things right. The crescent moon shone silver pale above that gray wood. The barked trunks gleamed white and phantom-like in the gathering dark. Owls began to hoot in the distance, frogs were awaking near at hand, belated rabbits flitted ghost-like across the track. All nature seemed of one gray or shadowy hue — sil- Tery where the moonbeams fell. 54 VIXEN. The October air was chill and penetrating. There was a dull aching in Violet’s limbs from the weight of her burden, but she was hardly conscious of physical pain. It seemed to her that she had been sitting there for hours waiting for the doctor’s help. She thought the night must have nearly worn itself out. “ Dr. Martin could not have been at home,” she said, speaking for the first time since Eoderick rode away. “Mr. Vawdrey would fetch some one else, surely.” “ My dear young lady, he hasn’t had time to ride to Lyndhurst yet.” “ Not yet?” cried Vixen, despairingly — “ not yet? And it has been so long. Papa is getting so cold. The chill will be so bad for him.” “ Worse for you, miss. I do wish you’d let me take you home.” “ And leave papa here — alone — ^unconscious! How can you be so cruel as to think of such a thing ?” “ Dear Miss Tempest, we’re not doing him any good, and you may be getting a chill that will be nigh your death. If you would only go home to your mamma, now— it’s hard upon her not to know — she’ll be fretting about you, I dare say.” “Don’t waste your breath talking to me,” cried Vixen, indig- nantly; “ I shall not leave this spot till papa goes with me.” They waited for another quarter of an hour in dismal silence. The horses gnawed the lower branches of the trees, and gave oc- casional evidence of their impatience. Bullfinch had gone home to his stable, no doubt. They were only about a mile and a half from the Abbey House. Hark! what was that? The splish-splash of horses’ hoofs on the soft turf. Another minute, and Eorie rode up to the gate with a stranger. “I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman,” he said — “a doctor from Southampton, who was at the hunt to-day. Violet dear, will you let me take you home now, and leave the doctor and Mr. Wimble with your father ?” “ No,” answered Vixen, decisively. The strange doctor knelt down and looked at his patient. He was a middle-aged man, grave-looking, with iron-gray hair — a man who impressed Vixen with a sense of power and authority. She looked at him silently, with a despairing, appealing look that thrilled him, used as he was to such looks. He made his examination quietly, saying not a word, and keeping his face hidden. Then he turned to the two men who were standing close by, watching him anxiously. “ You must get some kind of litter to carry him home,” he whispered. And then with gentle firmness, with strong irresistible hands, he separated the living from the dead, lifted Violet from the ground, and led her to her horse. “You must let Mr. Vawdrey take you home, my dear young lady,” he said. “ You can do nothing here.” “ But you — you can do something,” sobbed Violet; “ you will bring him back to life — you — VIXEN. 65 T will do all that can be done,” answered the doctor gently. His tone told her more than his words. She gave one wild shriek, and threw herself down beside her dead father. A clond came over the distracted brain, and she lay there senseless. The doctor and Rorie lifted her up and carried her to the gate, wher« her horse was waiting. The doctor forced a little brandy through the locked lips, and between them Rorie and he placed her in the saddle. She had just consciousness enough by this time to hold the reins mechanically and to sit upright on her horse; and thus led by Roderick she rode slowly back to the home that was never any more to be the same home that she had known and lived in through the joyous sixteen years of her life. All things were to be different to her henceforward. The joy of life was broken short off, like a flower snapped from its stem. CHAPTER YIIT. A HOUSE OF MOURNING. There was sorrow at the Abbey House deeper and wilder than had entered within those doors for many a year. To Mrs. Tem- pest the shock of her husband’s death was overwhelming. Her easy, luxurious, monotonous life hac. been very sweet to her, but her husband had been the dearest part of her life. She had taken little trouble to express her love for him, quite willing that be should take it for granted. She had been self-indulgent and vain, seeking her wn ease, sper'^ding money and care on her own adornment; but she had never forgotten to make the squire’s life pleasant to him also. Newly wedded lovers in the fair honeymoon stage of existence could not have been fonder of each other than the middle-aged squire and his somewhat faded wife. His loving eyes had never seen time’s changes in Pamela Tempest’s pretty face, the lessening brightness of tlie eyes, the duller tints of the complexion, the loss of youth’s glow and glory. To him she had always appeared the most beautiful woman in the world. And now the fondly indulged wife could do nothing but* lie on her sofa and shed a rain of incessant tears, and drink strong tea, which had lost its power to comfort or exhilarate. She would see no one. She could not even be roused to interest her- self in the mourning, though, with a handsome widow, Pauline thought that ought to be all-important. There are so many styles of widows’ caps now, ma’am. You really ought to see them, and choose for yourself,” urged Pau- line — an honest young Englishwoman, who had begun life as Polly, but whom Mrs. Tempest had elevated into Pauline, y What does it matter, Pauline? Take anything you like. He will not be there to see.” Here the ready tears flowed afresh. That was the bitterest of all. That she should look nice in her mourning, and Edward not be there to praise her! In her feebleness she could not imagine life without him. She would hear his step at her door surely, his manly voice in the corridor. She would awake from this awful dream, in which he was not* and find him, and fall into 66 VIXEN. his arms, and sob out her grief upon his breast, and tell him all she had suffered. That was the dominant feeling in this weak soul. Ho could not be gone. Yet the truth came back upon her in hideous distinctness every now and then — came back suddenly and awfully, like tho swift revelation of a desolate, plague-stricken scene under a lightning flash. He was gone. He was lying in his coffin in the dear old Tudor hall where they liad sat so coziiy. Those dis- mal reiterated strokes of the funeral bell meant that his burial was at hand. They were moving the coffin already, perhaps. His place knew him no more. She tottered to the darkened window, lifted the edge of the blind, and looked out. The funeral train was moving slowdy along the carriage sweep, through the winding shrubberiedroad. How long and black and solemnly splendid the procession looked! Everybody had loved and respected him. It was a grand funeral. Tlie thought of the general homage gave a faint thrill of comfort to the widow’s heart. “My noble husband,” she ejaculated, “ who could help loving him 1” It seemed to her only a little while ago that she had driven up to the Tudor porch for the first time after her happy honey- moon, when she was in the bloom of youth and beauty, and life was like a school-giiTs happy dream. “ How short life is!” she sobbed; “ how cruelly short for those who are happy!” With Violet grief was no less passionate; but it did not find its sole vent in tears. The stronger soul was in rebellion against Providence. She kept aloof from her mother in this time of aorrow. What could they say to each other? They could only cry together. Vi(^let shut herself in her room and refused to see any one except patient Miss M’Croke, who was always bring- ing her cups of tea or basins of arrowroot, trying to coax her to take some kind of nourishment, dabbing her hot forehead with eau-de-Cologne; doing all those fussy little kindnesses which are so acutely aggravating in a great sorrow. “ Let me lie on the ground, alone, and think of him and wail for liim/’ That is what Violet Tempest would have said if she could have expressed her desire clearly. Roderick Vawdrey, went back to the Abbey Plouse after the funeral, and contrived to see Miss !M’Croke, who was full cf sympathy for everjdoody. “ Do let me see Violet, that’s a dear creature,” he said. “ 1 can’t tell you how unhappy I am about her. I can’t get her face out of my thouglits, as I saw it that dreadful night when I led her horse home — the wild, sad eyes, the white lips.” “ She is not fit to see any one,” said Miss M’Croke; “ but per- haps it might rouse her a little to see you.” Miss M’Croke had an idea that all mourners ought to be roused; that mucii indulgence in grief for the dead was repre- hensible. VIXEJ^. 57 “ Yes,” answered Rorie, eagerly; “ she would see me, I know. We are like brother and sister.” “ Come into the school-room,” said the governess, “and 111 see what I can do.” The school-room was Vixen’s own particular den, and was not a bit like the popular idea of a school-room. It was a pretty little room, with a high wooden dado painted pale green, and a high-art paper of amazing ugliness, with brown and red storks on a dull green ground. The high-art paper was enlivened with horsy caricatures by Leech, and a menagerie of pottery animals on various brackets. A pot or a pan had been stuck into every corner that would hold one. There were desks and boxes and wicker-work baskets of every shape and kind, a dwarf -oak book-case on either side of the fireplace, v\ ith the books all at sixes and sevens, leaning against each other as if they were intoxicated. The broad man- tel-piece presented a confusion of photographs, cups and saucers, violet jars, and Dresden shepherdesses. Over the quaint old Venetian glass dangled Vixen’s first trophy, the fox's brush, tied with a scarlet ribbon. Tliero were no birds, or squirrels, or dor- mice, for Vixen was too fond of the animal creation to shut l:er favorites up in cages; but there was a black bear-skin spread in a corner for Argus to lie upon. In the wide low windows there were two banks of bright autumn flowers, pompons and dwarf roses, mignonette and veronica. Miss M’Croke drew up the blind and stirred the fire. “ I’ll go and ask her to come,” she said.' “ Do, like a dear,” said Rorie. He paced the room while she was gone, full of sadness. He had been very fond of the squire, and that awfully sudden death, an apopleptic seizure, instantaneous as a thunder-bolt, had impressed him very painfully. It was his first experience of the kind, and it was infinitely terrible to him. It seemed to him a long time before Vixen appeared, and then the door opened and a slim black figure came in, a white fixed face looked at him piteously with tearless eyes, made big by a great grief. She came leaning on Miss M’Croke, as if she could hardly walk unaided. The face was stranger to him than an altogether unknown face. It was Violet Tempest with all the vivid, joyous life gone out of her, like a lamp that is extin- guished. " . He took her cold trembling hands and drew her gently to a chair, and sat down beside her. “I wanted so much to see you, dear,” he said, “to tell you how^ sorry we all are for you — my mother, my aunt, and cousin ’’—Violet gave a faint shiver — “all of us. The duke liked your dear father so much. It was quite a shock to him.” “You are very good,” Violet said, mechanically. She sat by him, pale and still as marble, looking at the ground. His voice and presence impressed her but faintly, like something a long way oifc She was thinking of her dead father. She saw nothing but that one awful figure. They bad laid him in his grave by this time. The cold cruel earth had fallen upon him 68 VIXEN. and hidden him forever from the light; he was shut away for- ever from the fair, glad world; he who had been so bright and cheerful, whose presence had carried gladness everywhere. “ Is tlie funeral quite over?” she asked, presently, without lift- ing her heavy eyelids. “Yes, dear. It was a noble funeral. Everybody was ibere ^rich and poor. Everybody loved him.” “ The poor most of all,” she said. I know how good he was to them.” Somebody knocked at the door and asked something of Miss M’Croke, which obliged the governess to leave her pupil. Rod- erick was glad at her departure, That substantial figure in its new black dress had been a hinderance to freedom of conver- sation. Miss M’Croke’s absence did not loosen Violet’s tongue. She sat looking at the ground, and was dumb. That silent grief was very av/ful to Roderick. “ Violet, why don’t you talk to me about your sorrow ?” he said. “ Surely you can trust me — your friend — your brother!” That last word stung her into speech. The dark eyes shot a swift angry glance at him. “You have no right to call yourself that,” she said; “you have not treated me like a sister.” “ How not, dear ?” “ You should have told me about your engagement— that you were going to marry Lady Mabel Ashbourne.” “Should 1?’' exclaimed Rorie, amazed. “If I had. I should have told you an arrant falsehood. I am not engaged to my cousin Mabel. I am not going to marry her.” “Oh, it doesn’t matter in the least whether you are or not,” returned Vixen, with a weary air. “Papa is dead, and trifles like that can’t affect me now. But I felt it unkind of you at the time I heard it.” “And where and how did you hear this wonderful news. Vixen?” asked Rorie, very pleased to get her thoughts away from her grief, were it only for a minute. “ Mamma told me that everybody said you were engaged, and that the fact was quite obvi uSc’' “What everybody says, an i what is quite obvious, is very 8f‘ldom true, Violet. You may take that for a first principle in worldly philosphy. I am not engaged to any one. I have no thought of getting married — for tlie next three years.” Vixen received this information wdth chilling silence. She would have been very glad to near it, perhaps, a week ago — at which time slie had found it a sore thing to think of her old play fellow as Lady Mabe. s affianced husband — but it mattered nothing now. The larger grief had swallowed up all smaller grievances. Roderick Vawdrey had receded into remote dis- tance. He was no one, nothing, in a world that was suddenly emptied of all delight. “ What ar' you '’•oing to do, dear ?” asked Roderick, presently. “ If you shut yourself up in your room and abandon yourself to VIXEN. 59 grief, you will make yourself very ill. You ought to go away somewhere for a little while.” Forever!” exclaimed Vixen, passionately. “ Do you think I can ever endure this dear home without papa? There is not a thing I look at that doesn’t speak to me of him. The dogs, the horses — T almost hate them for reminding me so cruelly. Yes, we are going away at once, I believe. Mamma said so when 1 saw her this morning.” “ Your poor mamma! How does she bear her grief ?” ** Oh, she cries, and cries, and (Ties,” said Vixen, rather con- temptuously. ‘‘I think it comforts her to cry. I can’t cry. I am like the dogs. If I did not restrain myself with ali my might I should howl. I should like to lie on the ground outside his door — just as his dog does — and to refuse to eat or drink till I died.” But, dear Violet, you are not alone in the world. You have your poor mamma to think of.” “ Mamma — yes. I am sorry for her, of course. But she is only like a lay figure in my life. Papa was everything.” “ Do you know where your mamma is going to take you?” “ No, I neither know nor care. It will be to a house with four walls and a roof, I suppose, It will be all the same to me wherever it is.” What could Roderick say ? It was too soon to talk about hope or comfort. His heart was rent by this dull, silent grief; but he could do nothing except sit there silently by Vixen’s side with her cold, unresponsive hands held in his. Miss M’Croke came back presently, followed by a maid carry- ing a pretty little Japan'^se tea-tray. ‘‘I have just been giving your poor mamma a cup of tea, Violet,” said the governess. “Mr. Clements has been telling her about the will, and it has been quite too much for her. She was almost hysterical. But she’s better now, poor dear. And now we’ll all have some tea. Bring the table to the fire, Mr. V'awdrey, please, and let us make ourselves comfortable,’' con- cluded Miss M’Croke, with an assumption of mild cheerfulness. Perhaps there is not in all nature so cheerful a thing as a gooci sea-coal fire. It will be cheerful in the face of affliction. It sends out its gushes of warmth and brightness, its gay little arrowy flames that appear and disappear like elves dancing their midnight waltzes on a barren moor. It seems to say, “ Look at me and be comforted; look at me and hope. So from the dull blackness of sorrow rise the many colored lights of new-born joy.” Vixen suffered her chair to be brought near that cheery fire, and just then Argus crept into the room and nestled at her side. Roderick seated himself at the other end of the hearth — a bright little hearth with its border of high-art tiles, illuminated with the story of “ Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” done in pre-Raphael- ite style by a famous painter. Miss M’Croke poured out the tea in the quaint old red and blue Worcester cups, and kept up that assumption of cheerfulness. She would not have per- mitted herself to smile yesterday; but now the funeral was 60 VIXEN. over, the blinds were drawn np, and a mild cheerfulness was allowable. , “If you would condescend to tell me where you are going, Vixen, 1 might contrive to come there too by and by. We could have some rides together. You’ll take Arion, of course “ I don’t know that I shall ever ride again,” answered Violet, with a shudder. ^ Could she ever forget that awful ride? Eoderick hated him- self for his foolish speech. “Violet will have to devote herself to her studies very assid- uously for the next two years,” said Miss M’Croke. “ She is much more backward than I like a pupil of mine to be at six- teen.” “ Yes, I am going to grind at three or four foreign grammars, and to give my mind to latitude and longitude, and fractions and decimals,” said Vixen, with a bitter laugh. “Isn’t that cheer- ing ?” “Whatever you do. Vixen,” cried Roderick, earnestl}^” don’t be a paradigm.” “What’s that?” “An example, a model, a paragon, ‘a perfect woman nobly planned,’ etc. Be anything but that, Vixen, if you love me.’ “I don’t think there is much fear of any of us being perfect,” said Miss M’Croke, severely. “ Imperfection is more in the line of humanity.” “Do you think so? I find there is a great deal too much per- fection in this world, too many faultless people; I hate them.” “ Isn't that a confession of faultiness on your sid^e?” suggest- ed Miss M’Croke. “ It may be. But it’s the truth.” Vixen sat with dry hollow eyes staring at the fire. She had heard their talk as if it had been something a long way off. Argus nestled closer and closer at her knee, and she patted his big blunt head absently, with a dim sense of comfort in this brute love, which she had not derived from human sympathy. Miss M’Croke went on talking and arguing with Rorie, with a view to sustaining that fictitious cheerfulness which might be- guile Vixen into brief oblivion of her griefs. But Vixen was not so to be beguiled. She was with them, but not of them. Her haggard eyes stared at the fire, and her thoughts "svere with the dear dead father, over whose newly filled grave the evening shadows were closing. CHAPTER IX. CAPTAIN CAUmCHAEL. Two years later, and Vixen was sitting, with the same faithful Argus nestling beside her, by the fireside of a spacious Brighton drawing-room — a large, lofty, commonplace room, with tall win- dows facing seaward. Miss M’Croke was there too, standing at one of the windows taking up a dropped stitch in her knit- ting, while Mrs. Tempest w'alked slowly up and down the ex- panse of Brussels carpet, stopping now and then at a window in VIXEN. 61 lock idly out at the red suusefc beyond the low-lying roofs and spars of Shoreham. Those two years had changed Violet Tem- pest from a slender girl to a nobly formed woman — a woman whom a sculptor would have worshiped as his dream of per^ fection, whom a painter would have reverenced for her glow and splender of coloring, but about whose beauty the common run of mankind, and more especially womankind, had n.ot quite made up their minds. The pretty little women with eighteen- inch waists opined that Miss Tempest was too hig. “ She’s very handsome, you know, and all tliat,” they said, deprecatingly, “and her figure is quite splendid; but she’s on such a very large scale. She ought to be painted in fresco, you know, on a high cornice. As Autumn, or Plenty, or Ceres, or something of that kind, carrying a cornucopia. But in a draw- ing-room she looks so very massive.” The amber-haired women — palpably indebted to auricomous fluids for the color of their tresses — objected to the dark burnished gold of Violet Tempest's hair. There was too much red in the gold, they said, and a color so obviously genuine was very unfashionable. That milk-white skin of hers, too, found objectors, on the score of a slight powdering of freckles— spots which the kindly sun leaves on the fruit he best loves. In fact, there were many reservations made by Miss Tempest’s pretended admirers when they summed up her good looks, but when she rode her pretty bay horse along the King’s Poad, strangers turned to look at her admiringly; when she entered a crowded room, she threw all paler beauties in the shade. The cabbage- rose is a vulgar flower, perhaps, but she is queen of the garden not withstand in g. Lest it should be supposed after this that Vixen was a giantess, it may be as well to state that her height was five feet six, her waist twenty-two inches at most, her shoulders broad but finelv sloping, her arms full and somewhat muscular, her hands not small, but exquisitely tapering, her foot long and narrow, her instep arched like an Arab’s, and all her movements instinct with an untutored grace and dignity. She held her head higher than is common to women, and on that score was found guilty of pride. “ I think we ought to go back before . Christmas, Violet,” said Mrs. Tempest, continuing a discussion that had been dragging itself slowly adong for the last half-hour. “I am ready, mamma,” answered Vixen, submissively. “It will break our hearts afresh whenever we go home, but I sup- pose we must go home some day.” “ But you would like to see the dear old house again, surely, Violet?” “Like to see the frame without the picture? No, no, no, mamma. The frame was very dear while the picture was in it; but — yes,” cried Vixen, passionately, “ I should like to go back. I should like to see papa’s grave, and carry fresh flowers there every day. It has been too much neglected.” ^ “ Neglected, Violet! How can pay such things, when Manotti’s ill for the monumeut was over nine hundred pounds?’’ 62 VIXEK. ' Oil, mamma, there is more love in a bunch of primroses that imy own ha/id gathers and carries to the grave, than in all the marble or granite in Westrhinster Abbey.” “My dear, for poor people wild flowers are very nice, and show good feeling, but the rich must have monuments. There could be nothing too splendid for your dear papa,” added the widow, tearfully. She was always tearful when she spoke of her dear Edward, even now, though she was beginning to find that life had some savor without him. “No,” said Vixen; “but I think papa will like the flowers best.” y “Then I think, Miss M’Croke,” pursued Mrs. Tempest, “wo^ will go back at the end of November. It would be a pity to lose the season here.” Vixen yawned despondently. “ What do we care about the season, mamma?” she exclaimed.. “ Can it matt^ to us whether there are two or three thousand extra people in the place ? It only makes the King’s Eoad a lit- tle more uncomfortable.” “ My dear Violet, at your age gayety is good for you,” said Mrs. Tempest. “ Yes, and like most other things that are good, it’s very dis- agreeable,” retorted Vixen. “ And now about this ball,” pursued Mrs. Tempest, taking up a dropped stitch in the previous argument — “ I really think we ought to go, if it were only on Violet's account. Don’t you, Maria ?” Mrs. Tf mpest always called her governess Maria when she was anxious (o conciliate her. “ Violet is old enough to enter society, certainly,” said Miss M’Croke, with some deliberation, “but whether a public ball ” “If it's on my account, mamma, pray don’t think of going,” protested Vixen, earnestly. “I hate the idea of a ball, I hate — “Captain Carmichael,” announced Forbes, in the dusky end of the drawing-room by the door. “ Ho has saved me the trouble of finishing my sentence,” mut- tered Vixen. The visitor came smiling though the dusk into the friendly glow of the fire. He shook hands with Mrs. Tempest with the air of an old friend, went over to the window to shake hands with Miss M’Croke, and then came back to Vixen, who gave him a limp, cold hand with an indifference that was almost in- solent, while Argus lefted his head an inch or so from the carpet and saluted him with a suppressed growl. Whether this arose from a wise instinct in the animal, or from a knowledge that hi^ mistress disliked the gentleman, would be too nice a point to decide. “ I was that moment thinking of you, Captain Carmichael,” s' id the widow. “ An honor and a happiness for me,” murmured the captain. Mrs, Tempest seated herself m her own particular chair, be- VIXEN. lade which was her owu particular table, with one of those pretty tea services which were her chief delight — a miniature silver tea- kettle with a spirit-lamp, a cozy little ball-shaped tea-pot, cups and saucers of old Battersea. “You’ll take a cup of tea?” she sa d, insinuatingly. “ I shall be delighted. I feel as if I ought to go home and write verses or smart paragraphs lor the comic papers after drinking your tea, it is so inspiring. Addison ought to have drunk just such tea before writing one of his Spectcdors, but un- fortunately his Muse required old port.’‘ “ If the Spectator came out nowadays, I’m afraid we should think it stupid,” suggested Mrs. Tempest. “Simply because the slipshod writers of the present day have spoiled our taste for fine English,” interjected Miss M’Croke, severely. “Well, I fear we should find Addison a little thin,” said Cap- tain Carmichael. “ I can’t imagine London society existing for a week on such literary pabulum as ‘ The Vision of Mirza.’ We want something stronger than that: a little scandal about our neighbors, a racy article on field-sports, some sharpish hits at the City, and one of Addison’s papers on hoods or breast-knots, patches or powder, thrown in by the way of padding. Our dear Joseph is too purely literary for the present age.” “ What monsters newspapers have grown!” remarked Mrs. Tempest. “ It’s almost impossible to get through them.” “Not if you read anything else,” answered the captain. “ The majority do not.” “We were talking about the ball just as you came in,” said Mrs. Tempest. “ I really think Vixen ought to go.” “ I am sure she ought,” said the captain. Vixen sat looking at the fire and i^atting Argus. She did not favor the captain with so much as a glance; and yet he was a man upon whom the eyes of women were apt to dwell favor- ably. He was not essentially handsome. The most attractive men rarely are. He was tall and thin, with a waist as small as a woman’s, small hands, small feet — a general delicacy of mold that was accounted thorough-bred. He had a long nose, a darkly pale complexion, keen gray eyes under dark brows, dark hair cropped close to his small head, thin lips, white teeth, a neat black mustache, and a strictly military appearance, though he had sold out of a crack regiment three years ago, and was now a gentleman at large, doing nothing, and living in a gentleman- like manner on a very small income. He was not in debt, and was altogether respectable. Nothing could be said against him, unless it were some dark hint of a gambling transaction, some vague whisper about the mysterious appearance of a king at ecarte — the kind of a rumor which is apt to pursue a man who, like Bulwer’s Dudley Smooth, does not cheat, but always wins. Despite these vague slanders, which are generally baseless— the mere expression of society’s fioating malice, the scum of ill- nature on the world’s waves — Captain Carmichael was a universal favorite. He went everywhere, and was liked wherever he went^ 64 VIXEN. He was very clever, gifted with that adaptability and handiness which is, of all cleverness, most valuable in polite society. Of him, as of Goldsmith, it might be said, that he touched nothing he did not adorn. True, that the things he touched were for the most part small things, but they were things that kept him be- fore the eye of society, and found favor in that e3^e. He was a good horsemau, a good oarsman, a good sv/immer, a good cricketer. He played and sang; he was a first-rate amateur actor; he was great at billiards and all games of skill; he could talk any language society wanted liim to talk — society not re- quiring a man to excel in Coptic or Chinese, or calling iipon him suddenly for Japanese or Persian; he dressed with perfect taste, and without the slightest pretense of dandyism; he could write a first-rate letter, and caricature his dearest friends of last year in pen and ink for the entertainment of his dearest friends of this year; he was known to have contributed occasionally to fashionable periodicals, and was supposed to have a reserve of wit and satire which would quite have annihilated the hack writers of the day had he cared to devote himself to literature. Mrs. Tempest and her daughter had met the captain early in the previous spring among the Swiss mountains. He knew some of Mrs. Tempest's Hampshire friends, and with no other creden- tials had contrived to win her friendship. Vixen took it into her obstinate young head to detest him. But then Vixen at seventeen and a half was full of ridiculous dislikes and irrational caprices. Mrs. Tempest, in her lonely and somewhat depressed condition, considered the captain a particularly useful acquaint- ance. Miss M’Croke was dubious, but finding any expression of her doubts ungraciously received, took the safer line of silence. The ball in question was a charity ball at the Pavilion, a per- fectly unobjectionable ball. The list of patronesses bristled with noble names. There was nothing to be said against Vixen’s ap- pearance there, except Miss M’Croke’s objection that Squire Tempest’s daughter and heiress ought not to make her debut in society at any public ball whatever. But Mrs. Tempest had set her heart upon Vixen’s going to the ball; or, in other words, she had set her heart upon going herself. On her way through Paris in September she had gone to Worth’s — out of curiosity, just to see what the great man’s salons were like — and there she had been tempted into the purchase of an artistic combination of black silk and jet, velvet and passementerie. She did not re- quire the costume, but the thing in itself was so beautiful that she could not help buying it. And having spent a hundred guin- eas on this masterpiece, there arose in her mind a natural crav- ing to exliibit it; to feel that she was being pointed out as one of the best-dressed women in the crowded room; to know that women were whispering to each other, significantly, “Worth,’ as the velvet and silk and passementerie combination swept by. There was a good deal more discussion, and it was ultimately settled that Vixen should go to the ball. She had no positive objection. She would have liked the idea of the ball well enough, perhaps, if it had not been for Captain Carmichael. It was his advocacy that made the sub.iect odious. VIXEN. C5 “ How very rudely you behaved to Captain Carmichael, Vio- let,” said Mrs. Tempest, when her visitor had departed. “Did I, mamma?” inquired Vixen, listlessly. “ I thought I was extraordinarily civil. If you knew- how I should have liked to behave to him, you would think so too.” “I can not imagine why you are so prejudiced against him,” pursued Mrs, Tempest, fretfully. “ It is not prejudice, mamma, but instinct, like Argus’s. That man is destined to do us some great wrong, if we do not <3scape out of his clutches.” “ It is shameful of you to say such things,” cried the widow, pale with anger. “ What have you to say against him? What fault can you find with him ? You cannot deny that he is most gentleman-like. ” “No, mamma; he is a little too gentleman-like. He makes a trade of his gentlemanliness. He is too highly polished for me.” “You prefer a rough young fellow, like Roderick Vawdrey, who talks slang, and smells of ifie stables.” “ I prefer any one who is good and true,” retorted Vixen. “ Roderick is a inan, and not to be named in the same breath with your fine gentleman.” “ I admit that the comparison would be vastly to bis disad- vantage,” said the widow. “ But it’s time to dress for dinner.” “And we are to dine with the Mortimers,” yawned Vixen. “What a bore I” This young lady had not that natural bent for society which is symptomatic of her age. The wound that pierced her young heart two years ago had not healed so completely that she could find pleasure in inane conversation and the factitious liveliness of a fashionable dinner-table. CHAPTER X. “ IT SHALL BE MEASURE FOR MEASURE.” The night of the ball came, and, in spite of her aversion for Captain Carmichael, and general dislike of the whole thing, Violet Tempest began the evening by enjoying herself. She was young and energetic, and had an immense reserve of animal spirits after her two years of sadness and mourning. She danced with the partners her friends brought her — some of the most eligible men in the rooln — and was full of life and gayety; yet the festival seemed to her in some wise horrible all the time. “ If papa could know that we are dancing and smiling at each other, as if all life was made up of gladness, when he is lying in his cold grave!” thought Vixen, after joining hands with her mother in the ladies’ chain. The widow looked as if she had never known a care. She was conscious that Worth’s chef -d oeuvre was not thrown away. She saw herself in the great mirrors which once refiected George and his lovely Fitzherbert in their days of gladness — which refiected the same George later, old and sick, and weary. 66 VIXEN. ‘‘ That French grande dame was right,” thought Mrs. Tempest, “ who said le noir est si flattant pour les blondes.” Black was flattering for Vixen’s ruddy hair also. Though her indifferent eye rarely glanced at the mirrored walls, she had never looked lovelier. A tall, graceful figure, in billowy black tulle, wreathed with white chrysanthemums; a queen-like head, with a red-gold coronal; a throat like an ivory pillar, spanned with a broad black ribbon fastened with a diamond clasp; dia- mond stars in her ears, and a narrow belt of diamonds round each white arm, “How many waltzes have you kept for me?” Captain Car- michael asked, presently, coming up to Vixen. “ I have not kept waltzes for any one,” she answered, indiffer- ently. • ‘ But surely you were under a promise to keep some for me ? I asked you a week ago.” ‘ ‘ Did you ? I am sure I never promised anything of the kind.” “ Here is only one little shabby waltz left,” said the captain, looking at her programme. “May I put my name down for that?” “ If you like,” answered Vixen, indifferently; and then, with the faintest suspicion of malice, added, “as mamma does not dance round dances.” She was standing up for the Lancers presently, and her partner had just led her to her place, when she saw that she had her mother and Captain Carmichael again for her vis-a-vis. She grew suddenly pale and turned away. “ Will you let me sit this out ?” she said. “ I feel awfully iU.” Her partner was full of concern, and carried her off at once to a cooler room. “ It is too bad I” she mutterred to herself. “ The Lancers! To go romping round with a lot of wild young men and women! It is as bad as the queen in Hamlet!” This was the last dance before supper. She w^ent in presently with her attentive partner, w’ho had kept by her side devotedly while the lively scramble to good old English tunes was going on in the dancing-room. “Are you better?” he asked, tenderly, fanning her with her big black fan, painted with pale gray cupids and white chrysan- themums. “The room is abominably hot.” “Thanks. I’m quite well now. It was only a momentary faintness. But I rather hate the Lancers, don’t you ?’ “ Well, I don’t know. I think, sometimes, you know, with a nice partner, they’re good fun. Only one can’t help treading on the ladies’ trains, and they wind themselves round one’s legs like snakes. I’ve seen fellows come awful croppers, and the lady who has done it looks so sweetly unconcerned. But if one tears a lace flounce, you know, they look daggers. It’s some- thing too dreadful to feel one’s self walking into Boniton at ten guineas a yard, and the more one tries to extricate one’s self, the more harm one does.” Vixen’s supper was the merest pretense. Her mot^r sat op- posite her, with Captain Carmichael stiU in attendance. Vixen VIXEN. 67 gave them one look, and then sat like an image of scorn. Her partner could not get a word from her, and when he offered her tlie fringed end of a cracker bonbon, she positively refused to have anything to do with it. “ Please donT.” she said. “ It’s too inane. I couldn’t possibly pretend to be interested ia the motto.” When she went back to the ball-room Captain Carmichael fol- lowed her and claimed his waltz. The band was just striking up the latest love-sick German melody, “Weit von dir!” — a strain of drawling tenderness. ' “ You had better go and secure your supper,” said Vixen, coldly. I despise all ball suppers. This one most particularly, if it were to deprive me of my waltz.” Vixen shrugged her shoulders, and submitted to take those few preliminary steps which are like the strong swimmer’s shiv- erings on the bank ere he plunges in the stream. And then she was whirling round to the legato strains, “ Weit von dir! Weit von dir! Wo ist mein Leben's Lust? Weit von dir! Weit von dir!” Captain Carmichael’s waltzing was simple perfection. It was not the Liverpool Lurch or the Scarborough Scramble, the Bermondsey Bounce or the Whitechai>el V^oggle; it was waltz- ing pure and simple, unaffected, graceful; the waltzing of a man with a musical ear, and an athlete’s mastery of the art of mo- tion. Vixen hated the captain, but she enjoyed the waltz. They danced till the last bar died away in a tender diminuendo. “ You look pale,” said the captain; “ let us go into the garden.” He brought her cloak and wrapped it round her, and slie took his offered arm without a word. It was one of those rare nights in late October when the wind is not cold. There was hardly the flutter of a leaf in the Pavilion garden. The neighboring sea made the gentlest music — a melancholy ebb and flow of sound, like the murmuring of some great imprisoned spirit. In the searching light of day, when its adjacent cab stands and commonesses are visible, and its graveled walks are peopled with nurse-maids and small children, the Pavilion garden can hardly be called romantic. But by this tender moonlight, in this cool stillness of a placid autumn midnight, even the Pavilion garden had its air of romance and mystery. The various roofs and chimneys stood up against the sky, picturesque as a city of old time. And, after all, this part of Brighton has a peculiar charm which all the rest of Brighton lacks. It speaks of the past, it tells its story of the dead. They were not great or heroic, perhaps, those departed figures, whose ghosts haunt us in the red and yellow rooms, and in the stiff town garden ; but they had their histories. They lived, and loved, and suffered; and, being dead so long, come back to us in the softened light of van- ished days, and take hold of our fancy with their quaint gar- ments and antique head-gear, their powder, and court swords, and diamond shoe-buckles, and little loves and little sorrow^s. Vixen walked slowly along the shining gravel path with her black ana gold mantle folded round her, looking altogether 68 VIXEN. statuesque and unapproachable. They took one turn in abso- lute silence, and then Captain Carmichael, who was not inclined to beat about the bush when he had something particular to say and a good opportunity for saying it, broke the spell. This was perhaps the first time, in an acquaintance of more than six months, that he had ever found himself alone with Violet Tempest without hazard of immediate interruption. “ Miss Tempest,” he began, with a firmness of tone that startled her, I want to know why you are so unkind to me.” ‘‘1 hardly know what you mean by unkindness. I hope I have never said anything uncivil?” “No; but you have let me see very plainly that you dislike me.” “ I am sorry nature has given me an upleasantly candid dis- position.” Those keen gray eyes of the captain’s were watching her in- tently. An angry look shot at her from under the straight dark brows — swift as an arrow. “ You admit, then, that you do not like me ?” he said. Vixen paused before replying. Tlie position was embarrass- ing. “ I suppose if I w’ere lady-like and proper I should protest that I like you immensely; that there is no one in the world, my mother excepted, whom T like better. But I never was jjarticu- larly proper or polite. Captain Carmichael, and I must confess there are very few people I do like, and ” “ And I am not one of them,” said the captain. “You have finished the sentence for me.” “ That is hard upon me — no, Violet, you can never know how hard. Why should vou dislike me? You are the first woman who ever told me so ” (flushing with an indignant recollection of all his victories). “ I have done nothing to offend you. I have not been obtrusive. I have worshiped at a distance — but the Persian’s homage of the sun is not more reverent ” “Oh, pray don’t talk about the Persians and the sunl” cried Violet. “I am not worthy that you should be so concerned about my likes and dislikes. Please think of me as an un- taught, inexperienced girl. Two years ago I was a spoiled child. Y^ou don’t know how my dearest father spoiled me. It is no wonder I am rude. Remember this, and forgive me if I am too truthful.” “ You are all that is lovely,” he exclaimed passionately, stung by her scorn and fired by her beauty, almost beside himself as they stood there in the magical moonlight, for once in his life forgetting to calculate every move on life's chess-board before- hand. “You are too lovely for me. From the very first, in Switzerland, when I was so happy — No, I will not tell you. ^ will not lay down my heart to be trampled under your feet.” “Don’t,” cried Violet, transfixing him with the angry fire of her eyes, “ for I'm afraid I should trample on it. I am not one \)f those gentle creatures who go out of their way to avoid tread- ing on worms — or other reptiles.” “ You are as cruel as you are lovely,” he said; “ and your cru- YIXEK 69 elty is sweel cr than another woman’s kindness. Violet, I laugh at your dislike. Yes, such aversion as that is often the beginning of closest liking. I will not be disheartened. I will not be put oil by your scornful candor. What if I were to tell you that you are the only woman I ever loved?” ‘‘ Pray do not. It would transform passive dislike into active hatred." I should be sorry for that, because” — looking at him deliberately with a slow scorn — “I think mamma likes you.” ‘‘ She has honored me with her confidence, and I hope I shall not prove unworthy of the trust. I rarely fail to repay any benefit that is bestowed upon me.” “October nights are treacherous,” said Vixen, drawing her cloak closer around her. “I think we had better go back to the ball-room.” She was shivering a little with agitated feeling, in spite of that mantle of scorn in which she had wrapped herself. This was the first man who had ever called her lovely, who had ever talked to her of love with manhood’s strong passion. The captain gave her his arm, and they went back to the light and heat of the yellow dragons and scarlet griffins. Anotlier Lancer scramble was in full progress, to the : Id-fashioned jigging tunes, but Mrs. Tempest was sitting among the matrons in a cor- ner by an open window. “Are we ever going home any more, mamma?” inquired Vixen. “ My dear Violet, I have been waiting for you ever so long.” “Why should you leave so early?” exclaimed Captain Car- michael. “ There are half a dozen more dances, and you are engaged for them all, I believe, Miss Tempest.” “Then I will show mercy to my partners by going away,” said Violet. “ Are all balls as long as this? We seem to have been here ages; I expect to find my hair gray to-morrow morning.” “ I reaUy think we had better go,” said Mrs. Tempest, in her undecided way. She was a person who never quite made up her mind about anything, but balanced every question gently, letting somebody else turn the scale for her— her maid, her governess, her daugh- ter; she was always trying to have her own way, but never quite knew what her own way w'as, and just managed things skillfully enough to prevent other people having theirs. “If you are determined, I will see you to your carriage, and then the ball is over for me,” said the captain, gallantly. He offered Mrs. Tempest his arm, and they went out into the vestibule, v^here the captain left them for a few minutes while he went into the porch to hasten the arrival of the carriage. “Where were you and Captain Carmichael all that time, Violet ?” asked Mrs. Tempest. “In the garden.” “How imprudeatl” “ Indeed, dear mamma, it wasn’t cold.” “ But you were out there so long! What could you find to about all that time 70 VIXEN. ** We were not talking all the time, only enjoying the cool air and the moonlight.” “Mrs. Tempest’s carriagel” roared one of the doorkeepers, as if it had been his doing that the carriage had appeared so quickly. Captain Carmichael was ready to hand them to their brough- am. “ Come and take a cup of tea to-morrow afternoon, and let us talk over the ball,” said the widow, “With infinite pleasure.” “ Shall we drop you at your house?” “A thousand thanks; no — my lodgings are so close. I'll walk home.” He went back for his overcoat, and then walked slowly away, without another glance at the crowded ball-room, or the corri- dors where ladies who were waiting for their carriages, were contriving to improve the time by a good deal of quiet or noisy flirtation. His lodgings were on the Old Steine, close by. But he did not go home immediately. There are times in a man’s life when four walls are to small too hold the bigness of his thoughts. Captain Carmichael paced the Marine Parade for half an hour or so before he went home. “Vapour la mere,” he said to himself, at the close of that half hour’s meditations; “ she is really very nice, and the posi- tion altogether advantageous — perhaps as much as one has the right to expect in the general decadence of things. But, good heavensi how lovely that girl is! She is the first woman who ever looked me in the face and told me she disliked me; the first woman who ever gave me contemptuous looks and scornful words. And yet, for that very reason, perhaps, I — ” The dark brows contracted over the keen eyes, which seemed closer than usual to the hawk nose. “Look to yourself, my queen, in the time to come,” he said, as he turned his back on the silvery sea and moonliglit sky. “ You have been hard to me, and I will be hard to you. It shall be measure for measure.” CHAPTER XI. “ I HAVE NO WRONG, WHERE I CAN CLAIM NO RIGHT. ’ Going home again. That was hard to bear. It re-opened all the old wounds. Violet Tempest felt as if her heart must really break, as if this new grief were sharper than the old one. when the carriage drove in through the familiar gates, in the Decem- ber dusk, and along the winding shrubberied road, and up to the Tudor porch, where the lion of the Tempests stood, rc- gardant, with lifted paw and backward gaze, above the stone fehield. The ruddy fire- light was shining across the wide door- wg-y. The old hearth looked as cheerful as of old. And there stood tlie empty chair beside it. That bad been Vixen’s particu- lar wish. “ Let rqthing be disturbed, dear mamma,” she had said ever so many tlm^, ^hei^ her mpther was writing her orders to the VIXEN. 71 housekeeper. “Beg them to keep everything just as it was in papa’s time.” “ My dear, it will only make you grieve more.” “Yes; but I had rather grieve for him than forget him. I am more afraid of forgetting him than of grieving too much for him,” said Yixen. And now, as she stood on the hearth after her journey, 'wrap- ped in black furs, a little black fur toque crowning her ruddy gold hair, fancy filled the empty chair as she gazed at it. Yes, she could see her father sitting there in his hunting clothes, his whip across his knee. The old pointer, the squire’s favorite, came whining to her feet, now old he lookedi Old and broken and infirm, as if from in . ch sorrow. “Poor ’.Nipl poor Nipl” she said, patting him. “The joy of your life went with papa, didn’t it?” “It’s all very sad,” murmured Mrs. Tempest, loosening her wraps. “A sad, sad home-coming. And it seems only yester- day that I came here as u bride. Did I ever tell you about my traveling dress, Violet ? It was a shot silk — they were fashion- able then, you know — bronze and blue — the loveliest colors!*’ “ I can t imagine a shot silk being anything but detestable,” said Vixen, curtly. “PoorNipI How faithful dogs are! The dear thing is actually crying!” Tears were indeed running from the poor old eyes, as the pointer’s head lay in Vixen’s lap, as if memory, kindled by her image, brought back the past too keenly for that honest canine heart. “ It is very mournful,” said Mrs. Tempest. “Pauline, let us have a cup of tea.” She sank into an arm-chair opposite the fire. Not the squire’s old carved oak chair, with its tawny leather cushions; that must needs be sacred evermore — a memento of the dead, stand- ing beside the hearth. “ I wonder if any one is alive that we knew here?” said Vixen, lying back in her low chair and idly caressing the dogs. “ My dear Violet, why should people be dead ? We have only been away two years.” “No; but it seems so long. I hardly expect to see any of the old faces. He is not here ” — with a sudden choking sob. “Why should all be left — except him ?” “The workings of Providence are full of mystery,” sighed the widow. “ Dear Edward! How handsome he looked that day he brought me home! And he was a noble-looking man to the last. Not more than two spoonfuls of pekoe, Pauline. You ought to know how I like it by this time.” This to the handmaiden, who was making tea at th(j gypsy table in front of the fire, the table at which Vixen and Eoriehad drunk tea so merrily on that young man’s birthday. After tea they went the round of the house. How familiar, how dear, how strange, how sad, all things lookedi The faith- ful servants had done their duty. Everyttiing was in its place. The last room they entered was the squire’s study. Here were VIXEN. all his favorite books. The Sporting Magazine, from its com- mencement, in crimson morocco; JNimrod and The Druid; As- sheton Smith’s Memoirs; and many others of the same class; books on farming and farriery, on dogs and guns. Here were the squire’s guns and whips — a motley collection, all neatly ar- ranged by his own hands. The servants had done notliing but keep them free from dust. There, by the low and cozy fire- place, with its tiled hearth, stood the capacious crimson morocco chair in which the master of the Abbey House had been w^ont to sit when he held audiences wdth his kennel huntsman or game- keeper, his farm bailifif or stud groom. “ Mamma, I should like you to lock the door of this room and keep the key, so that no one may ever come here,” said Vixen. •‘My dear, that is just the w-ay to prolong your grief; but I will do it if you like.” “Do, dear mamma. Or, if you will let me keep the key, 1 will come in and dust the room every day. It would be a pleas- ure for me, a mournful one, perhaps', but still a pleasure.” Mrs. Tempest made no objection, and when they left the room Vixen locked the door and put the key in her pocket. It w^as close to Christmas, the saddest time for such a home- coming, Vixen thought. The gardeners brought in their bar- rows of holly and fir and laurel; but Vixen would take no part in the decoration of hall and corridors, staircase and gallery — she who in former years had been so active in the labor. The humble inhabitants of the village rejoiced in the return of the family at the great house, and Vixen w^as pleased to see the kind faces aga’n, the old men and women, the rosy-cheeked children and care-worn mothers. She had a friendly w^ord for every one and gifts for all. Home was sweet to her after her tvro years^ absence, despite the cloud of sadness that overhung all things. She w'ent out to the stables and made friends v/ith the old liorses, most of which had been out at grass, and had enjoyed a paradise of rest for the last two years. Slug and Brawler, Mrs. Tempest’s candage-horses, sleek, even-minded bays, had been at Brigldon, and so had Vixen’s beautiful tliorough-bred, Arion, andtia handsome brown for the groom: but all the rest had stayed in Hampshire. Not one had been sold, though the stud was a wasteful and useless one for a widow and her daughter. There was Bullfinch, the hunter Squire Tempest had ridden in his last hour of life. Violet went into his box and caressed him, and fed him, and cried over him with bitterest tears. This home-coming brought back the old sorrow with over whelming force. She ran out of the stables to hide lier tears, and ran up to her own room, and abandoned herself to her grief, almost as utterly as she had done on those dark days when her father’s corpse was lying in the house. ^ There w^as no friendly Miss M'Croke now to be fussy and anxious, and to interpose herself between Violet Tempest and her grief. Violet was supposed to be “ finished,” or, in other words, to know everything under the sun which a young lady of good birth and ample fortune can be required to knovw Every- thing, in this case, consisted of a smattering of French, Italian. VIXEN. 73 and German, a dubious recollection of the main facts in modern history, a few vague notions about astronomy, some foggy ideas upon the constitution of plants and flowers, sea-weeds and shells, rocks and hills, and a general indifference for all literature ex- cept poetry and novels. Miss M’Croke, having done her duty conscientiously after her lights, had now gone to finish three other young ladies, the motherless daughters of an Anglo-Indian colonel, over whom she was to exercise maternal authority and guidance, in a tall, narrow house in Maida Vale. She had left Mrs. Tempest with all honors, and Violet had lavished gifts upon her at parting, feeling fonder of her governess in the last week of their associa- tion than at any other period of her tutelage. To-day in her sorrow it was a relief to Violet to find herself free from the futile consolations of friendship. She flung herself into the arm-chair by the fire and sobbed out her grief. ‘‘Oh, kindest, dearest, best of fathers,” she cried, “what is home without you!” And then she remembered that awful day of the funeral when Roderick Vawdrey had sat with her beside this hearth, and had tried to comfort her, and she had heard his voice as a sound far away, a sound that had no meaning, and produced only a dull, stupefying effect upon her mind. That was the last time she had seen him. “ I don’t suppose I thanked him for his pity or his kindness,” she thought. “ He must have gone away thinking me cold and ungrateful; but I was like a creature at the bottom of some dark, dismal pit. How could I feel thankful to some one looking down at me and talking to me from the free, happy world at the top ?” Her sobs ceased gradually, she dried her tears, and that uncon- scious pleasure in life which is a part of innocent youth came slowly back. She looked round the room in which so much of her childhood had been spent, a room full of her own fancies and caprices, a room whose prettiness had been bought with her own money, and was the work of her own hands. In spite of home’s sorrowful association she was glad to find herself at home. Mountains, and lakes, and sunny bays, and dark, pathless forests may be ever so good to see, but there is something sweet in our return to the familiar rooms of home; some pleasure in being shut snugly within four walls surrounded by one’s own belongings. The wood fire burned merrily, and sparkled on the many-col- ored pots and pans upon the paneled wall. Outside the deep- naulhoned windows the winter blast was blowing, with occa- sional spurts of flying snow. Argus crept in presently and stretched himself at full length upon the fleecy white rug. Vixen lay back in her low chair, musing idly in the glow of the fire, and ;by and by the lips which had been convulsecl with grief parted in a smile, lovely brown eyes shone with happy mem- ories. She was thinking of her old playfellow and friend, Rorie. “ I wonder if he will come to-day ?” she mused. “ I think he 74 VIXEN. will. He is sure to be at home for the hunting. Yes, he will come to-day?” What will he be like, I wonder? Handsomer than he was two years ago ? No, that could hardly be. He is quite a man now. Three- and-twenty; Imusc not laugh at him anymore.” The thought of his coming thrilled her with a new joy. She seemed to have been living an artificial life in the two years of her absence, to have been changed in her very self by change of surroundings. It was almost as if the old Vixen had been sent into an enchanted sleep, while some other young lady, a model of propriety and good manners, went about the world in Vixen’s shape. Her life had been made up, more or less, of trifles and foolishness, with a background of grand scenery. Tepid little friendships with agreeable fellow-travelers at Nice; tepid little friendships of the same order in Switzerland; well-dressed young people smiling at each other, and delighting in each other’s company, and parting, probably forever, without a pang. But now she had come back to the friends, the horses, the dogs, the rooms, the gardens, the fields, the forests, of youth, and was going to be the real Vixen again ; the wild, thought- less, high-spirited girl Squire Tempest and all the peasantry round about had loved. “ I have been ridiculously well-behaved,” she said to herself, “ quite a second edition of mamma. But now I am back in the forest my good manners may go hang. ‘ My foot’s on my na- tive heath, and my name is M’Gregor.’ ” Somehow, in all her thoughts of home — after that burst of grief for her dead father — Eoderick Vawdrey was the central figure. He filled the gap cruel death had made. Would Rorie come soon to see her ? Would he be very glad to have her at home again ? What would he think of her ? Would he fancy her changed ? For the worse ? For the better ? “I wonder whether he would like my good manners or the original Vixen best?” she speculated. The morning wore on, and still Violet Tempest sat idly by the fire. She had made up her mind that Roderick would come to see her at once. She was sufficiently aware of her own impor- tance to feel sure that the fact of her return had been duly chronicled in the local papers. He would come to-day, before luncheon perhaps, and they three, mamma, Rorie, and herself, would sit at the round table in the library — ^the snug warm room where they had so often sat with papa. This thought brought back the bitterness of her loss. “ I can bear it better if Rorie is with us,” she thought, “and he IS almost sure to come. He would not be so unkind as to de- lay bidding welcome to such poor lonely creatures as mamma and I.” She looked at her little watch, a miniature hunter in a case of black enamel, with a monogram of diamonds, one of her fath- er’s last gifts. It was one o’clock already, and luncheon would be at half past. “ Only half an hour for Rorie,” she thought. The minute-hand crept slowly to the half hour, the luncheon VIXEN. 75 gong sounded below, and there had been no announcement of Mr. Vawdrey. “ He may be down-stairs with mamma all this timej” thought Vixen. “ Forbes would not tell me unless he were sent.” She went down-stairs and met Forbes in the hall. “ Oh, if you please, ma'am, Mrs. Tempest does not feel equal to coming down to luncheon. She will take a wing of chicken in her own room.” “ And I don’t feel equal to sitting in the library alone, Forbes,” said Violet; “ so you may tell Phoebe to bring me a cup of tea and a biscuit. Has nobody called this morning V” “No, ma’am.” Vixen went back to her room, out of spirits, and out of temper. It was unkind of Rorie, cold, neglectful, heartless. “ If he had come home after an absence of two years — absence under such sad circumstances — how anxious 1 should be to see him I” she thought. “ But I dare say it is a hunting day, and he is tearing across the gorse on some big raw-boned horse, and not giving me a thought. Or perhaps he is dancing attendance upon Lady Mabel. But no, I don't think he cares much for that kind of thing.” She moved about the room a little, re-arranging things that were already arranged exactly as she had left them two years ago. She opened a book and flung it aside, tried the piano, wbicli sounded muffled and woolly. “ My poor Broad wood is no better for being out at grass,” she said. She w^ent to one of the windows and stood there looking out, expecting every instant to see a dog-cart, with a rakish fiorse, a wasp-like body, and high red wheels, spin round the curve of the shrubbery. She stood thus for a long time, as she had done on that wet October afternoon of Rorie’s home-coming, but no rakish horse came swinging round the curve of the carriage drive. The flying snow drifted past the wdndow; the winter sky looked blue and clear between the brief showers; the tall feathery flr-trees and straight slim cypresses stood up against the afternoon light, and Vixen gazed at them with angry eyes, full of resentment against Roderick Vawdrey. “ The ground is too hard for the scent to lie w^ell; that’s one comfort,” she reflected savagely. And then she thought of the dear old kennels given over to a new master— the hounds whose names and idiosyncrasies she had known as well as if they had been human acquaintances. She had lost all interest in them now. Ponto and Gellert, Light- foot, Juno, Ringlet, Lord Dundreary — they had forgotten her, no doubt. Here was some one at last, but not the one for whom she was watching. A figure clothed in a long loose black cloak and slouched felt hat, and carrying a weedy umbrella, trudged stur- dily around the curve, and came briskly toward the porch. It was Mr. Scobel, the incumbent of the little Gothic church in the village — a church like a toy. He was a good man and a benevolent, this Mr. Scobel, a hard 78 VIXEN. worker, and a blessing in the neighborhood. But just at this moment Violet Tempest did not feel grateful to him for coming. “What does he want?” she thought. “Blankets and coals and things, I suppose.” She turned sullenly from the window, and went back to her seat by the fire, and threw on a log, and gave herself up to dis- appointment. The blue winter sky had changed to gray; the light was fading behind the feathery fir-tops. * “Perhaps he will come to afternoon tea,” she thought; and then, with a discontented shrug of her shoulders: “ No, he is not coming at all. If he cared about us, he would have been the first to bid us welcome, knowing, as he must, how miserable it was for me to come home at all— without papal” She sat looking at the fire. “ How idle I ami” she mused; “ and poor Crokey did so im- plore me to go on with my education, and read some useful books, and enlarge my mind. I don’t think my poor little mind would bear any more stretching, or that I should be much hap- pier if I knew all about Central Africa, and the nearest way from Hindostan to China, or old red sandstone, and tertiary, and the rest of them. What does it matter to me what the earth is made of, if I can but be happy upon it ? No, I shall never try to be learned. I shall read Byron and Tennyson and Wordsworth and Keats and Bulwer and Dickens and Thack- eray, and remain an ignoramus all the days of my life. I think that would be quite enough for Eorie, if he and I were ever to be much together; for I don’t believe he ever opens a book at all. And what would be the use of my talking to him about old red sandstone or the center of Africa ?” Phoebe, Miss Tempest’s fresh-faced Hampshire maid, appeared at this moment. “ Oh, if you please, miss, your ma says would you go to the drawing-room? Mr. Scobel is with her, and would like to see you.” Violet rose with a sigh. “ Is my hair awfully untidy, Phoebe ?” “ I think I had better arrange the plaits, miss.” “ That means that I’m an object. It’s four o’clock. I may as well change my dress for dinner. I suppose I must go down to dinner.” “ Lor, yes, miss; it will never do to shut yourself up in j^our own room and fret. You’re as pale as them Christmas roses already.” Ten minutes later Vixen went down to the drawing-room, looking very stately in her black Irish poplin, whose heavy folds became the tall full figure, and whose dense blackness set off tlie ivory skin and warm auburn hair. She had given just one passing glance at herself in the cheval-glass, and vanity had whispered : “ Perhaps Rorie would have thought me improved, but he has not taken the trouble to come and see. I might be honey- combed by the small-pox, or bald from the effects of the typhus, for aught he cares.” VIXEN. 77 The drawing-room was all aglow with blazing logs, and the sky outside the windows looking pale and gray, when Violet went in. Mrs. Tempest was in her favorite arm-chair by the fire, Tennyson’s latest poem on the velvet colored gypsy table at her side, in company with a large black fan and a smelling- bottle. Mr. Scobel was sitting in a low chair on the other side of the. hearth, with his knees almost up to his chin, and his trousers wrinkled up ever so far above his stout Oxford shoes, leaving a considerable interval of gray stocking. He was a man of about thirty, pale, and unpretending of aspect, who fortified his native modesty with a pair of large binoculars, which inter- posed a kind of barrier between himself and the outer world. He rose as Violet came toward him, and turned the binoculars upon her, glittering in the glow of the fire. “ How tall you have grown!” he cried, when they had shaken hands. “And how ” Here he stopped, with a little nervous laugh, “ I really don’t think I should have known you if we had met elsewhere.’ “ Perhaps Eorie would hardly know me,” thought Vixen. “ How are all the poor people ?” she asked, when Mr. Scobel had resumed his seat, and was placidly caressing his knees, and blinking, or seeming to blink, at the fire v ith his binoculars. “ Oh, poor souls!” he sighed. “ There has been a great deal of sickness and distress, and people out of work. Yes, a great deal. The winter began early, and we have had ^me severe weather. James Parsons is in prison again for rabbit-snaring. Mrs. Koper’s eldest son, Tom — I dare say you remember Tom, an idle little ruffian, who was always birdnesting — has managed to get himself run over by a pair of Lord Ellangowan’s wagon- horses, and now Lady Ellangowan is keeping the whole family. An aunt came from Salisbury to sit up with the boy, and was quite angry because Lady Ellangowan did not pay her for nurs- ing him.” “ That’s the worst of the poor,” said Mrs. Tempest, languidly, the fire-light playing upon her diamond rings as she took her fan from the velvet table and slowly unfolded it to protect her cheek from the glare; “ they are never satisfied.” “ Isn’t it odd they are not,” cried Vixen, coming suddenly out of a deep reverie, “ When they have everything that can make life delightful.” “ I don’t know about everything, Violet; but really, when they have such nice cottages as your dear papa built for them, so w^ell drained and ventilated, they ought to be more contented.” “ What a comfort good drainage and ventilation must be when there is no bread in the larder!” said Violet. “My dear, it is ridiculous to talk in thatwray; just in the style of horrid Radical newspapers. I am sure the poor have an im- mense deal done for them. Look at Mr. Scobel: he is always trying to help them.” “I do what I can,” said the clergyman, modestly; “but I only wish it w’ere more. An income of sixteen shillings j. week for a family of seven requires a good deal of eking out. If it were 78 VIXEN. not for the assistance I get here, and in one or two other direc- tions, things would be very bad in Beechdale.” Beechdale was the name of the village nearest the Abbey House, the village to which belonged Mr. Scobel’s toy church. “ Of course we must have the usual distribution of blankets and wearing apparel on Christmas Eve,” said Mrs. Tempest. “ It will seem very sad without my dear husband. But we came home before Christmas on purpose.” “ How good of youl It was very sad last year when the poor people came up to the hall to receive your gifts, and there were no familiar faces except the servants. There were a good many tears shed over last year’s blankets, I assure you.’' “Poor dear things!” sighed Mrs. Tempest, not making it too clear whether she meant the blankets or the recipients thereof. Violet said nothing after her little ironical protest about the poor. She sat opposite the fire, between her mother and Mr. Scobel, but at some distance from both. The ruddy light glowed on her ruddy hair, and lit up her pale cheeks and shone in her brilliant eyes. The incumbent of Beechdale thought he had never seen anything so lovely. She was like a painted window — a Madonna, with the glowing color of Kubens, the divine grace of Raffaelle. And those little speeches about the poor had warmed his heart. He was Violet’s friend and champion from that moment. Mrs. Tempest fanned herself listlessly. “ I wish Forbes would bring the tea,” she said. “Shall I ring, mamma?” “ No, dear. They have not finished tea in the housekeeper’s room, perhaps. Forbes doesn’t like to be disturbed. Is there any news, Mr. Scobel ? We only came home yesterday evening, and have seen no one.” “ News. Well, no, I think not much. Lady Ellangowan has got a new orchid.” “ And there has been a new baby, too, hasn’t there ?” “ Oh, yes. But nobody talks about the baby, and everybody is in raptures with the orchid.” “ What is it like ?” “ Eather a fine boy. I christened him last week.” “ I mean the orchid.” “ Oh, something really magnificent; a brilliant blue, a butter- fly-shaped blossom that positively looks as if it were alive. They say Lord Ellangowan gave five hundred guineas for it. People come from the other side of the county to see it.” “ I think you all orchid mad,” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. “ Oh, here comes the tea!” as Forbes entered with the old silver tray and Swansea cups and saucers. “ You’ll take some, of course, Mr. Scobel. I cannot understand this rage for orchids. Old china, or silver, or lace, I can understand; but orchids — ^things that require no end of trouble to keep them alive, and which I dare say are as common as buttercups and daises in the savage places where they grow. There is Lady Jane Vawdrey now, a perfect slave to the orchid-houses.” Viokit’s face flamed crimson at this mention of Lady Jane« VIXEK 79 Not for worlds would sbe have asked a question about her old playfellow, though she was dying to hear about him. Happily no one saw the sudden blush, or it passed for a reflection of the fire glow. “ Poor Lady Jane!” sighed the incumbent of Beechdale, look- ing very solemn, ‘‘she has gone to a land in which there are fairer flowers than ever grew on the banks of the Amazon,” “ What do you mean ?” “ Surely you have heard — “ Nothing,” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. “ I have corresponded with nobody but my housekeeper while I have been away. I am a wretched correspondent at the best of times, and aJterdear Edward s death I was too weary, too depressed, to write letters. What is the matter with Lady Jane Vawdrey ?” “ She died at Florence last November of bronchitis. She was very ill last winter, and had to be taken to Cannes for the early part of the year. But she came back in April quite well and strong, as every one supposed, and spent the summer at Briar- wood. Her doctors told her, however, that she was not to risk another winter in England, so in September she went to Italy, taking Lady Mabel with her.” “And Roderick?” inquired Vixen, ‘‘He went with them, of course?” “Naturally,” replied Mr. Scobel. “ Mr. Vawdrey was with his mother till the last. “Very nice of him,” murmured !Mrs. Tempest, approvingly; “for in a general way, I don’t think they got on too well together. Lady Jane was rather dictatorial. And nov7, I sup- pose, Roderick will marry his cousin as soon as he is out of mourning.” “Why should you suppose so mamma?” exclaimed Violet, “ It is quite a mistake of yours about their being engaged. Rod- erick told me so himself. He was not engaged to Lady Mabel. He had not the least idea of marrying her.” “He has altered his mind since then, I co:- elude,” said Mr. Scobel, cheerily — those binoculars of his could never have seen through a stone wall, and were not much good at seeing things under his nose — “ for it is quite a settled thing that Mr. Vawdrey and Lady Mabel are to be married. It will be a splendid match for him, and will make him the largest land-owner in the Foresf, for Ashbourne is settled on Lady Mabel. The duk<^ bought it himself, you know, and it is not in the entail,” added the incum- bent, explaining a fact that was as familiar as the Church Catt- chism to Violet, who sat looking straight at the fire, holding her head as high as Queen Guinevere after she had thrown the diamonds out of the window. “I always knew that it would be so,” said Mrs. Tempest, with the air of a sage. “Lady Jane had set her heart upon it. World- ly greatness was her idol, poor thing! It is sad to think of her being snatched away from everything. What has become of the orchids r” “Lady Jane left them to her niece. They are building houses to receive them at Ashbourne,” 80 VIXEN. ‘‘Eather a waste of money, isn’t it?” suggested Violet, in a cold, hard voice. “Why not let them stay at Briar wood till Lady Mabel is mistress there ?” Mr. Scobel did not enter into this discussion. He sat serenely gazing at the fire and sipping his t^a, enjoying this hour of rest and warmth after a long day’s fatigue and hard weather. He had an Advent service at seven o'clock that evening, and would but just have time to tramp home through tlie winter dark and take a hurried meal before he ran across to his neat little vestry and sliuffled on his surplice, while Mrs. Scobel played her plain- tive voluntary on the twenty-guinea harmonium. “And where is young Vawdrey now?” ihqidred Mrs. Tem- pest, blandly. She could only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from Eton — clumsy, shy, given to breaking tea-cups and leaving the track of his footsteps in clay or mud upon the Aubusson carpets. “ He has not come home yet. Tlie duke and duchess went to Florence just before Lady Jane’s death, and I believe Mr. Vaw- drey is with them at Rome. Briarwood has been shut up since September.” “ Didn’t I tell you, mamma, that somebody would be dead?” cried Violet. “ I felt when we came into this house yesterday evening that everything* in our lives was changed,” “ I should hardly think mourning can be very becoming to Lady Mabel,” ruminated Mrs. Tempest. “Those small, sylph- like figures rarely look well in black.” Mr. Scobel rose with an effort to make his adieus. The deli- cious warmth of the wood fire, the perfume of arbutus logs, had made him sleepy. “ You’ll come and see our new school, I hope,” he said to Violet, as they shook hands. “ You and your dear mamma have contributed so largely to its erection that you have a right to be critical; but I really think you will be pleased.” “ We’ll come to-morrow afternoon, if it’s fine,” said Mrs. Tempest, graciously. “ You must bring Mi*s. Scobel to dinner at seven, and then we can talk over all we have seen.” “ You are very kind. I’ve my young women’s Scripture class at a quarter past eight; but if you will let me run away for an hour ” “ Certainly.” “ I can come back for Mrs. Scobel. Thanks. We shall be de- lighted.” When he was gone Violet walked toward the door without a word to her mother. “ Violet, are you going away again? Tray stop, child, and let us have a chat.” “I have nothing to talk about, mamma.” “ Nonsense. You have quite deserted me since we came home. And do you suppose I don’t feel dull and depressed as well as you ? It is not dutiful conduct, Violet. I shall really have to engage a companion if you go on so. Miss M’Croke was dreary, VIXEN, 81 but she was not altogether uncompanionable. One could talk to her,” ‘‘You had better have a companion, mamma — some one who will be lively, and talk pleasantly about nothing particular all day long. No doubt a well-trained companion can do that. She has an inexhaustible well-spring of twaddle in her own mind, I feel as if I could never be cheerful again.” “ We had better have stopped at Brighton — ” “ I hate Brighton!” “ Where we knew so many nice people “ 1 detest nice people!” “Violet, do you know that you have an abominable temper?” “ I know that I am made up of wickedness,” answered Vixen, vehemently. She left the room without another word, and went straight to her den up-stairs, not to throw herself on the ground and abandon herself to a childish, unreasoning grief, as she had done on the night of Koderick’s coming of age, but to face the situation boldly in the strength of her newly-fledged woman- hood. She walked up and down the dim fire-lit room, thinking of what she had just heard. “What does it matter to me? Why should I be so angry?” she asked herself. “We were never more than friends and play- fellows. And I think that, on the whole, I rather disliked him. I know I was seldom civil to him. He was papa’s favorite. I should hardly have tolerated him but for that.” She felt relieved at having settled this point in her mind. Yet there was a dull blank sense of loss, a vague aching in her troubled heart, which she could not get rid of easily. She walked to and fro, to and fro, while the fire faded out and the pale windows darkened. “I hate myself for being so vexed about this,” she said, clasp- ing her hands above her head with a vehemence that showed the intensity of her vexation. “ Could I — I, Violet Tempest— ever be so despicable a creature as to care for a man who does not care for me? to be angry, sorry, broken-hearted, because a man does not want me for his wife? Such a thing is not possible; if it were, I think I would kill myself. I should be ashamed to live. I could not look human beings in the face. I should take poison, or turn Eoman Catholic and go into a convent, where I should never see the face of a man again. No; I am not such an odious creature. I have no regard for Eorie except as my old playfellowj and when he comes home I will walk straight up to him and give him my hand, and con- gratulate him heartily on his approaching marriageo Perhaps Lady Mabel will ask me to be one of her bride-maids. She will have a round dozen, I dare say. Six in pink and six in blue, no doubt, like wax dolls at a charity fair. Why can’t people get married without making idiots of themselves ?” The half-hour gong sounded at this moment, and Vixen ran down to the drawing-room, where the candles and lamps were lighted, an