cy!" and jumped
down into mine.

"But Viola, your mother--"

"I could not help it," she said with a laughing light in her eyes. "No,
indeed, I could not. I was riding along the lane by Lade Wood, on my
white palfrey, when in the great dark glade there stood one, two, three
great men with guns, and when one took hold of the damsel's bridle and
told her to come with him, what could she do?"

I think I said something feeble about "Harold, how could you?" but he
first shook his head, and led off the pony to the stable, observing,
"I'll come for you in an hour," and Dora rushing after him.

And when I would have declared that it was very wrong, and that Lady
Diana would be very angry, the child stopped my mouth with, "Never
mind, I've got my darling Lucy for an hour, and I can't have it spoilt."

Have I never described my Viola? She was not tall, but she had a way
of looking so, and she was not pretty, yet she always looked prettier
than the prettiest person I ever saw. It was partly the way in which
she held her head and long neck, just like a deer, especially when she
was surprised, and looked out of those great dark eyes, whose colour
was like that of the lakes of which each drop is clear and limpid, and
yet, when you look down into the water, it is of a wonderful clear deep
grey.

Those eyes were her most remarkable feature; her hair was light, her
face went off suddenly into rather too short a chin, her cheeks wanted
fulness, and were generally rather pale. So people said, but plump
cheeks would have spoilt my Viola's air, of a wild, half-tamed fawn,
and lessened the wonderful play of her lips, which used often to
express far more than ever came out of them in words. Lady Diana had
done her utmost to suppress demonstrativeness, but unless she could
have made those eyes less transparent, the corners of that mouth less
flexible, and hindered the colour from mantling in those cheeks, she
could not have kept Viola's feelings from being patent to all who knew
her.

And now the child was really lovely, with the sweet carnation in her
cheeks, and eyes dancing with the fear and pretence at alarm, and the
delight of a stolen interview with me.

"Forth stepped the giant! Fee! fo! fum!" said she; "took me by the
bridle, and said, 'Why haven't you been to see my Aunt Lucy?'"

"I must not," she said.

"And I say you must," he answered. "Do you know she is wearying to see
you?"

Then I fancy how Viola's tears wo