im heartily on his approaching marriage. Perhaps Lady
Mabel will ask me to be one of her bridesmaids. She will have a round
dozen, I daresay. Six in pink, and six in blue, no doubt, like wax
dolls at a charity-fair. Why can't people be 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, and where there
was plenty of light literature lying about to distract the troubled
mind. Violet went to her mother's chair and knelt beside it.

"Dear mamma, forgive me for being cross just now," she said gently; "I
was out of spirits. I will try to be better company in future--so that
you may not be obliged to engage a companion."

"My dear, I don't wonder at your feeling low-spirited," replied Mrs.
Tempest graciously. "This place is horribly dull. How we ever endured
it, even in your dear papa's time, is more than I can understand. It is
like living on the ground-floor of one of the Egyptian pyramids. We
must really get some nice people about us, or we shall both go
melancholy mad."

CHAPTER XIII.

"He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species."

Life went on smoothly enough at the Abbey House after that evening.
Violet tried to make herself happy among the surroundings of her
childhood, petted the horses, drove her basket-carriage with the
favourite old pony, went among the villagers, rode her thoroughbred bay
for long wild explorations of the Forest and neighbouring country,
looked with longing eyes, sometimes, at the merry groups riding to the
meet, and went her lonely way with a heavy heart. No more hunting for
her. She could not hunt alone, and she had declined all friendly offers
of escort. It would have seemed a treason against her beloved dead to
ride across country by anyone else's side.

Everyone had called at the Abbey House and welcomed Mrs. Tempest and
her daughter back to Hampshire. They had been asked to five-o'clock at
Ellangowan Park, to see the marvellous orchid. They had been invited to
half-a-dozen dinner-parties.

Violet tried her utmost to persuade her mother that it was much too
soon after her father's death to think of visiting.

"My dear Violet," cried the widow, "after going to that ball at
Brighton, we could not possibly decline invitations here. It would be
an insult to our friends. If we had not gone to the ball----"

"We ought not to have gone," exclaimed Vixen.

"My love, you sh