y the first of May, or a fair dish of asparagus by
about the same time. If their produce was late it was because nature
went against them. They could not command the winds, or tell the sun
that he must shine. The gardens at the Abbey House were beautiful, but
nature had done more for them than the Squire's old gardeners. The same
rose-trees budded and bloomed year after year; the same rhododendrons
and azaleas opened their big bunches of bloom. Eden could have hardly
owed less to culture. The noble old cedars, the mediaeval yews, needed
no gardener's hand. There was a good deal of weeding, and mowing, and
rolling done from week's end to week's end; and the borders were
beautified by banks of geranium and golden calceolaria, and a few other
old-fashioned flowers; but scientific horticulture there was none. Some
alterations had been begun under Captain Winstanley's directions; but
the work languished in his absence.

It was the twentieth of September, and the travellers were expected to
return within a few days--the exact date of their arrival not being
announced. The weather was glorious, warmer than it had been all
through the summer; and Vixen spent her life out of doors. Sad thoughts
haunted her less cruelly in the great wood. There was a brightness and
life in the Forest which cheered her. It was pleasant to see Argus's
enjoyment of the fair weather; his wild rushes in among the underwood;
his pursuit of invisible vermin under the thick holly-bushes, the
brambles, and bracken; his rapturous rolling in the dewy grass, where
he flung himself at full length, and rolled over and over, and leaped
as if he had been revelling in a bath of freshest water; pleasant to
see him race up to a serious-minded hog, and scrutinise that stolid
animal closely, and then leave him to his sordid researches after
edible roots, with open contempt, as who should say: "Can the same
scheme of creation include me and that vulgar brute?"

All things had been set in order for the return of the newly-married
couple. Mrs. Trimmer had her dinner arranged and ready to be put in
hand at a moment's notice. Violet felt that the end of her peaceful
life was very near. How would she bear the change? How would she be
able to behave herself decently? Well, she would try her best, Heaven
giving her strength. That was her last resolve. She would not make the
poor frivolous mother unhappy.

"Forgive me, beloved father, if I am civil to the usurper." she said