him always, and thought him the soul of wisdom in all he did,
could not be blind to the change, and a new sense of peacefulness stole
into her feeble mind. It was so pleasant to see dear Conrad so sweetly
kind to Violet.

"What are we going to do with Lord Mallow this morning, Violet?" asked
the Captain at breakfast, the day after the Irishman's arrival. "We
must try to amuse him somehow."

"I don't think I have much to do with it," Vixen answered coldly. "You
will find plenty of amusement. I daresay, in the billiard-room, in the
stables, or in showing Lord Mallow your improvements."

"That would do very well for a wet morning, but it would be a
profligate waste of fine weather. No; I propose that you should show
Mallow some of the prettiest bits in the Forest. I am not half so
accomplished a guide as you; but we'll all go. I'll order the horses at
once if you like my plan, Mallow," said Captain Winstanley, turning to
his friend, and taking Violet's consent for granted.

"I shall be quite too delighted, if Miss Tempest will honour us with
her company," replied the Irishman, with a pleasant look at Vixen's
fresh morning face, rosy-red with vexation.

It was the first time her stepfather had ever asked her to ride with
him, and she hated doing it. It was the first time she had ever been
asked to ride with anyone but her father or Roderick Vawdrey. Yet to
refuse would have been impossible, without absolute discourtesy to her
mother's husband and her mother's guest. So she sat in her place and
said nothing; and Lord Mallow mistook the angry carnation for the warm
red of happy girlhood, which blushes it knows not wherefore.

Captain Winstanley ordered the horses to be at the door in
half-an-hour: and then he took Lord Mallow off to look at the stables,
while Violet went upstairs to put on her habit. Why was the Captain so
unusually amiable? she speculated. Was his little soul so mean that he
put on better manners to do honour to an Irish peer?

She came tripping down the wide old staircase at the end of the
half-hour, in habit and hat of Lincoln green, with a cock's feather in
the neat little hat, and a formidable hooked hunting-crop for opening
gates, little feet daintily shod in patent leather, but no spur. She
loved her horse too well to run a needle into his sleek hide at the
slightest provocation.

There were three horses, held by Bates and Lord Mallow's groom.
Bullfinch, looking as if he had just taken a priz