Mrs. Pendletime and consented to be
married in February--only not during the first week in February, but
about the middle of the month--the fourteenth, say. Saint Valentine's
day, the birds' bridal day, would be a very appropriate time for a wood
violet to wed.

When Mr. Fabian came to pay his usual visit the next morning, Mrs.
Pendletime received him, thanked him profusely for his munificent gift,
telling him at the same time that she should certainly never have
accepted such a costly present from any one who was not connected or
about to be connected with her family. Mr. Fabian bowed deprecatingly
and asked if he might be permitted to see Miss Wood. Surely he might,
she had only intercepted him to thank him for his gift. Then she told
him that he would find Violet alone in the drawing room. He went in, and
found the little creature perched upon the music stool, before the open
piano, trying a new piece of music. She lighted down like a little bird
from a twig and came to meet him. He greeted his betrothed with more
warmth of love than a younger man might have ventured upon--but, then,
Mr. Fabian was no freshman in the college of love. And Violet, though
she did not like to be squeezed so tight and kissed so much, thought it
was all right, since he was her first lover and her betrothed husband.
She was not sufficiently in love with him to be afraid of him. This was
as if one of her school girl friends had hugged and kissed her so much.
When they were seated side by side on the sofa, Mr. Fabian told her that
immediately after their wedding breakfast they should take the train for
New York and thence sail for Liverpool. They should reach London near
the beginning of the fashionable season, which is not winter, as with
us, but spring.

Violet listened in the rapture of anticipation.

"And at the end of the London season we will make a leisurely tour
through England--see the monuments of its great old history; palaces and
castles of kings and chieftains who have been dust for ages. Then the
homes and haunts of the great poets and painters."

The door opened, and the servant announced a visitor. Mr. Fabian, secure
now of his prize, arose and said good morning, leaving Violet to
entertain one of her young adorers. Mr. Fabian went home and sought his
father in the library, where the old man now passed much of his time.

"Well, my dear sir, it is all settled. With your approbation, we--Miss
Violet Wood and myself--will be