beginning of things. "What stupid
people the Germans are! Why can't they have one little word for
everything, as we have? T, h, e, the. Any child can learn that. What do
they mean by chopping up their language into little bits, like the
pieces in a puzzle? Why, even the French are more reasonable--though
they're bad enough, goodness knows, with their hes and shes--feminine
tables, and masculine beds. Why should I be bothered to learn all this
rubbish? I'm not going to be a governess, and it will never be any use
to me. Papa doesn't know a single sentence in French or German, and
he's quite happy."

"But if your papa were travelling on the Continent, Violet, he would
find his ignorance of the language a great deprivation."

"No, he wouldn't. He'd have a courier."

"Are you aware, my dear, that we have wasted five minutes already in
this discursive conversation?" remarked Miss McCroke, looking at a fat
useful watch, which she wore at her side in the good old fashion. "We
will leave the grammar for the present, and you can repeat Schiller's
Song of the Bell."

"I'd rather say the Fight with the Dragon," said Vixen; "there's more
fire and life in it. I do like Schiller, Crokey dear. But isn't it a
pity he didn't write it in English?"

And Vixen put her hands behind her, and began to recite the wonderful
story of the knight who slew the dragon, and very soon her eyes kindled
and her cheeks were aflame, and the grand verses were rolled out
rapidly, with a more or less faulty pronunciation, but plenty of life
and vehemence. This exercise of mind and memory suited Vixen a great
deal better than dull plodding at the first principles of grammar, and
the perpetual _der_, _die_, _das_.

This day was the last of October, and Roderick Vawdrey's birthday. He
had not been seen at the Abbey House yet. He had returned to Briarwood
before this, no doubt, but had not taken the trouble to come and see
his old friends.

"He's a man now, and has duties, and has done with us," thought Vixen
savagely.

She was very glad that it was such a wretched day--a hideous day for
anyone's twenty-first birthday, ominous of all bad things, she thought.
There was not a rift in the dull gray sky; the straight fine rain came
down persistently, soaking into the sodden earth, and sending up an
odour of dead leaves. The smooth shining laurels in the shrubbery were
the only things in nature that seemed no worse for the perpetual
downpour. The gravel dr