eys lying beneath
her--orchards and meadows and pink homesteads, under a sultry summer
haze.

The daughter was not particularly alarmed by her mother's complaint of
declining health. It was that old cry of "wolf," which Violet had heard
ever since she could remember.

"Poor mamma!" she said to herself, with a half-pitying tenderness, "it
has always been her particular vanity to fancy herself an invalid; and
yet no doctor has ever been able to find out anything amiss. She ought
to be very happy now, poor dear; she has the husband of her choice, and
no rebellious daughter to make the atmosphere stormy. I must write to
Mrs. Scobel, and ask if mamma is really not quite so well as when I
left home."

And then Vixen's thoughts wandered away to Rorie, and the alterations
that were being made at Briarwood. He was preparing a bright home for
his young wife, and they would be very happy together, and it would be
as if Violet had never crossed his path.

"But he was fond of me, last midsummer twelvemonth," thought Vixen,
half seated half reclining against a grassy bank, with her hands
clasped above her head, and her open book flung aside upon the long
grass, where the daisies and dandelions grew in such wild abundance.
"Yes, he loved me dearly then, and would have sacrificed interest,
honour, all the world for my sake. Can he forget those days, when they
are thus ever present to my mind? He seemed more in love than I: yet, a
little year, and he is going to be married. Have men no memories? I do
not believe that he loves Lady Mabel any better than he did a year ago,
when he asked me to be his wife. But he has learnt wisdom; and he is
going to keep his word, and to be owner of Briarwood and Ashbourne, and
a great man in the county. I suppose it is a glorious destiny."

In these last days of July a strange restlessness had taken possession
of Violet Tempest. She could not read or occupy herself in any way.
Those long rambles about the island, to wild precipices looking down on
peaceful bays, to furzy hills where a few scattered sheep were her sole
companions, to heathery steeps that were craggy and precipitous and
dangerous to climb, and so had a certain fascination for the lonely
wanderer--these rambles, which had been her chief resource and solace
until now, had suddenly lost their charm. She dawdled in the garden, or
roamed restlessly from the garden to the orchard, from the orchard to
the sloping meadow, where Miss Skipwith