V,' was his answer, in so bright a tone as should
surely have appeased her; but far from it; she exclaimed,

'Ventnor! Why, will no other time do for THAT?'

'I have promised,' Arthur answered, vexed at her tone.

'What possible difference can it make to her which day you go?'

'I have said.'

'Come, write and tell her it is important to me. Rachel will not appear
again, and papa is engaged. She must see the sense of it. Come, write.'

'Too much trouble.'

'Then I will. I shall say you gave me leave.'

'Indeed,' said Arthur, fully roused, 'you will say no such thing. You
have not shown so much attention to Mrs. Martindale, that you need
expect her to give way to your convenience.'

He walked away, as he always did when he thought he had provoked a
female tongue. She was greatly mortified at having allowed her eagerness
to lower her into offering to ask a favour of that wife of his; who, no
doubt, had insisted on his coming, after having once failed, and could
treat him to plenty of nervous and hysterical scenes.

Him Theodora pitied and forgave!

But by and by her feelings were further excited. She went with her
mother to give orders at Storr and Mortimer's, on the setting of some
jewels which her aunt had given her, and there encountered Arthur in the
act of selecting a blue enamel locket, with a diamond fly perched on it.
At the soiree she had heard him point out to Emma Brandon a similar
one, on a velvet round a lady's neck, and say that it would look well
on Violet's white skin. So he was obliged to propitiate his idol with
trinkets far more expensive than he could properly afford!

Theodora little guessed that the gift was received without one thought
of the white throat, but with many speculations whether little Johnnie
would soon be able to spare a bit of flaxen down to contrast with the
black lock cut from his papa's head.

There was nothing for it but to dwell no more on this deluded brother,
and Theodora tried every means to stifle the thought. She threw herself
into the full whirl of society, rattling on in a way that nothing but
high health and great bodily strength could have endured. After her
discontented and ungracious commencement, she positively alarmed her
parents by the quantity she undertook, with spirits apparently never
flagging, though never did she lose that aching void. Books, lectures,
conversation, dancing, could not banish that craving for her brother,
nothing but the three h