sly betraying that
aching desire for forgetfulness natural to a wounded heart. "Sweden, or
Norway, for instance. I think I should like to spend a year in one of
those cold strange lands, with good old McCroke for my companion. There
would be nothing to remind me of the Forest," she concluded with a
stifled sob.

"My dear Violet, you have such wild ideas," exclaimed her mother with
an injured air. "It is just as Conrad says. You have no notion of the
proprieties. Sweden or Norway, indeed! Was there ever anything so
outlandish? What would people say, I wonder?"

"Ah, what indeed, mamma. Perhaps, they might for once say what is true:
that I could not get on with Captain Winstanley, and so was forced to
find another home."

"And what a reproach that would be to me," cried her mother. "You are
so selfish, Violet; you think of no one but yourself."

"Perhaps that is because nobody else thinks of me, mother."

"How can you say such abominable things, Violet? Am I not thinking of
you this moment? I am sure I have thought of you this evening until my
head aches. You force one to think about you, when you behave in such a
disgraceful manner."

"What have I done that is disgraceful, mamma? I have ridden out at an
unusual hour to get a place for an old servant--a man who has served in
this house faithfully for forty years. That is what I have done, and I
should not be ashamed if it were known to everybody in Hampshire. Yes,
even to Lady Mabel Ashbourne, that pattern of chilly propriety. The
disgrace is Captain Winstanley's. It is he who ought to be ashamed of
turning off my father and grandfather's old servant. What you have to
be sorry for, mamma, is that you have married a man capable of such an
action."

"How dare you speak against him!" cried the offended wife. "He has done
everything for the best. It was your own foolish conduct that obliged
him to dismiss Bates. To think that a daughter of mine should have so
little self-respect as to go roaming about the Forest with an engaged
man! It is too dreadful."

"You need not make yourself unhappy about the engaged man, mamma," said
Vixen scornfully. "He is out of danger. Rorie and I need never see each
other again. I should be more than content that it should be so. Only
arrange with Captain Winstanley for some allowance to be made me--just
money enough to enable me to live abroad with dear old McCroke. I want
no gaieties, I want no fine dresses, The simplest mode of life,