was two years ago? No, that
could hardly be. He is quite a man now. Three-and-twenty! I must not
laugh at him any more."

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-travellers 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 for ever, 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, thoughtless, high-spirited girl whom
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 native heath, and my name is
McGregor.'"

Somehow in all her thoughts of home--after that burst of grief for her
dead father--Roderick 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 importance 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 delay bidding