pay me compliments,
because I am Miss Tempest of the Abbey House, but not one honest friend
to stand by me, and turn that man out of doors. How dare he come here?
I thought I spoke plainly enough that night at Brighton."

She rode slowly up to the house, slipped lightly out of her saddle, and
led her horse round to the stables, just as she had led the pony in her
happy childish days. The bright thoroughbred bay was as fond of her as
if he had been a dog, and as tame. She stood by his manger caressing
him while he ate his corn, and feeling very safe from Captain
Winstanley's society in the warm clover-scented stable.

She dawdled away half-a-hour in this manner, before she went back to
the house, and ran up to her dressing-room.

"If mamma sends for me now, I shan't be able to go down," she thought.
"He can hardly stay more than an hour. Oh, horror! he is a tea-drinker;
mamma will persuade him to stop till five o'clock."

Violet dawdled over her change of dress as she had dawdled in the
stable. She had never been more particular about her hair.

"I'll have it all taken down, Phoebe," she told her Abigail; "I'm in no
hurry."

"But really, miss, it's beautiful----"

"Nonsense after a windy ride; don't be lazy, Phoebe. You may give my
hair a good brushing while I read."

A tap at the door came at this moment, and Phoebe ran to open it.

"Mrs. Tempest wishes Miss Tempest to come down to the drawing-room
directly," said a voice in the corridor.

"There now, miss," cried Phoebe, "how lucky I didn't take your hair
down. It never was nicer."

Violet put on her black dress, costly and simple as the attire Polonius
recommended to his son. Mrs. Tempest might relieve her costume with
what bright or delicate hues she liked. Violet had worn nothing but
black since her father's death. Her sole ornaments were a pair of black
earrings, and a large black enamel locket, with one big diamond shining
in the middle of it, like an eye. This locket held the Squire's
portrait, and his daughter wore it constantly.

The Louis Quatorze clock on the staircase struck five as Violet went
down.

"Of course he is staying for tea," she thought, with an impatient shrug
of her shoulders. "He belongs to the tame-cat species, and has an
inexhaustible flow of gossip, spiced with mild malevolence. The kind of
frivolous ill-nature which says: 'I would not do anyone harm for the
world, but one may as well think the worst of everybody.'"

Yes,