ot anything very bad."

Violet told how Bullfinch had been sold.

"It looks mean, certainly," said Mr. Vawdrey; "but I daresay to Captain
Winstanley, as a man of the world, it might seem a foolish thing to
keep a horse nobody rode; especially such a valuable horse as
Bullfinch. Your father gave two hundred and fifty for him at Andover, I
remember. And you really have too many horses at the Abbey House."

"Arion will be the next to be sold, I daresay."

"Oh, no, no. He could not be such an insolent scoundrel as to sell your
horse. That would be too much. Besides, you will be of age in a year or
two, and your own mistress."

"I shall not be of age for the next seven years. I am not to come of
age till I am five-and-twenty."

"Phew!" whistled Rorie, "That's a long shot off. How is that?"

"Papa left it so in his will. It was his care of me, no doubt. He never
would have believed that mamma would marry again."

"And for the next seven years you are to be in a state of tutelage,
dependent on your mother for everything?"

"For everything. And that will really mean dependent upon Captain
Winstanley; because I am very sure that as long as he lets mamma wear
pretty dresses and drink orange pekoe out of old china, she will be
quite contented to let him be master of everything else."

"But if you were to marry----"

"I suppose that would entangle or disentangle matters somehow. But I am
not likely to marry."

"I don't see that," said Rorie. "I should think nothing was more
likely."

"Allow me to be the best judge of my own business," exclaimed Vixen,
looking desperately angry. "I will go so far as to say that I never
shall marry."

"Oh, very well, if you insist upon it, let it be understood so. And
now, Vix----Violet, don't you think if you could bring yourself to
conciliate Captain Winstanley--to resign yourself, in fact, to the
inevitable, and take things pleasantly, it would make your life happier
for the next seven years? I really would try to do it, if I were you."

"I had made up my mind to an existence of hypocrisy before he sold
Bullfinch," replied Vixen, "but now I shall hate him frankly."

"But, Violet, don't you see that unless you can bring yourself to live
pleasantly with that man your life will be made miserable? Fate
condemns you to live under the same roof with him."

"I am not sure about that. I could go out as a governess. I am not at
all clever, but I think I could teach as much as would be