ht upon the astounded Irishman.

"Not half a reason if he does not love her," he answered boldly. "But I
believe young Englishmen of the present day marry for reason and not
for love. Cupid has been cashiered in favour of Minerva. Foolish
marriages are out of fashion. Nobody ever thinks of love in a cottage.
First, there are no more cottages; and secondly, there is no more love."

Christmas was close at hand: a trying time for Vixen, who remembered
the jolly old Christmas of days gone by, when the poor from all the
surrounding villages came to receive the Squire's lavish bounty, and
not even the tramp or the cadger was sent empty-handed away. Under the
new master all was done by line and rule. The distribution of coals and
blankets took place down in Beechdale under Mr. and Mrs. Scobel's
management. Vixen went about from cottage to cottage, in the wintry
dusk, giving her small offerings out of her scanty allowance of
pocket-money, which Captain Winstanley had put at the lowest figure he
decently could.

"What can Violet want with pocket-money?" he asked, when he discussed
the subject with his wife. "Your dressmaker supplies all her gowns, and
bonnets, and hats. You give her gloves--everything. Nobody calls upon
her for anything."

"Her papa always gave her a good deal of money," pleaded Mrs.
Winstanley. "I think she gave it almost all away to the poor."

"Naturally. She went about pauperising honest people because she had
more money than she knew what to do with. Let her have ten pounds a
quarter to buy gloves and eau-de-cologne, writing-paper, and
postage-stamps, and trifles of that kind. She can't do much harm with
that, and it is quite as much as you can afford, since we have both
made up our minds to live within our incomes."

Mrs. Winstanley sighed and assented, as she was wont to do. It seemed
hard that there should be this need of economy, but it was in a manner
Violet's fault that they were all thus restricted, since she was to
take so much, and to reduce her mother almost to penury by-and-by.

"I don't know what would become of me without Conrad's care," thought
the dutiful wife.

Going among her poor this Christmas, with almost empty hands, Violet
Tempest discovered what it was to be really loved. Honest eyes
brightened none the less at her coming, the little children flocked as
fondly to her knee. The changes at the Abbey House were very well
understood. They were all put down to Captain Winstanley's