e'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 upstairs at any rate."

"We'll all go," said the Squire, finishing his second brandy and soda.

So they all three went upstairs 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. Tempest.

"It's the prettiest mouth I ever saw upon woman--bar one," said the
Squire.

What was Vixen doing while the fond father was praising her?

She had locked her door, and thrown herself face downwards 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 ended in Rorie. All was over. He
belonged to some one else. She could never tyrannise over him
again--never scold him and abuse him and patronise 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 he was in somewise 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 with airs of ineffable superiority from the altitude of
her childish womanliness.

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 Vixen
could never remember--chariot and horses and all. He belonged
henceforth to Lady Mabel Ashbourne. She could never be rude to him any
more. She could not take such a 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," she 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