the particulars of the Squire's will. For six years he
saw himself sole master of a very fine estate, and at the end of six
years reduced to an income which seemed, comparatively, a pittance, and
altogether inadequate for the maintenance of such a place as the Abbey
House. Still, fifteen hundred a year and the Abbey House were a long
way on the right side of nothing: and Captain Winstanley felt that he
had fallen on his feet.

That was a dreary June for Vixen. She hugged her sorrow, and lived in a
mental solitude which was almost awful in so young a soul. She made a
confidante of no one, not even of kind-hearted Mrs. Scobel, who was
quite ready to pity her and condole with her, and who was secretly
indignant at the widow's folly.

The fact of Mrs. Tempest's intended marriage had become known to all
her friends and neighbours, with the usual effect of such intelligence.
Society said sweet things to her; and praised Captain Winstanley; and
hoped the wedding would be soon; and opined that it would be quite a
nice thing for Miss Tempest to have such an agreeable stepfather, with
whom she could ride to hounds as she had done with the dear Squire. And
the same society, driving away from the Abbey House in its landaus and
pony-carriages, after half-an-hour's pleasant gossip and a cup of
delicately flavoured tea, called Mrs. Tempest a fool, and her intended
husband an adventurer.

Vixen kept aloof from all the gossip and tea-drinking. She did not even
go near her old friends the Scobels, in these days of smothered wrath
and slow consuming indignation. She deserted the schools, her old
pensioners, even the little village children, to whom she had loved to
carry baskets of good things, and pocketfuls of halfpence, and whose
queer country dialect had seemed as sweet to her as the carolling of
finches and blackbirds in the woods. Everything in the way of charity
was left to Mrs. Trimmer now. Vixen took her long solitary rides in the
Forest, roaming wherever there was a footway for her horse under the
darkening beeches, dangerously near the swampy ground where the wet
grass shone in the sunlight, the green reedy patches that meant peril;
into the calm unfathomable depths of Mark Ash, or Queen's Bower; up to
the wild heathy crest of Boldrewood; wherever there was loneliness and
beauty.

Roderick had gone to London for the season, and was riding with Lady
Mabel in the Row, or dancing attendance at garden-parties, exhibitions,
and