early killed you by the power of
their sweetness. Her cheek was the softest thing in nature, and the
colour of it, when its colour was fixed enough to be told, was a
shade of pink so faint and creamy that you would hardly dare to call
it by its name. Her mouth was perfect, not small enough to give that
expression of silliness which is so common, but almost divine, with
the temptation of its full, rich, ruby lips. Her teeth, which she but
seldom showed, were very even and very white, and there rested on her
chin the dearest dimple that ever acted as a loadstar to mens's eyes.
The fault of her face, if it had a fault, was in her nose,--which
was a little too sharp, and perhaps too small. A woman who wanted to
depreciate Violet Effingham had once called her a pug-nosed puppet;
but I, as her chronicler, deny that she was pug-nosed,--and all the
world who knew her soon came to understand that she was no puppet. In
figure she was small, but not so small as she looked to be. Her feet
and hands were delicately fine, and there was a softness about her
whole person, an apparent compressibility, which seemed to indicate
that she might go into very small compass. Into what compass and
how compressed, there were very many men who held very different
opinions. Violet Effingham was certainly no puppet. She was great
at dancing,--as perhaps might be a puppet,--but she was great also
at archery, great at skating,--and great, too, at hunting. With
reference to that last accomplishment, she and Lady Baldock had had
more than one terrible tussle, not always with advantage to the
dragon. "My dear aunt," she had said once during the last winter,
"I am going to the meet with George,"--George was her cousin, Lord
Baldock, and was the dragon's son,--"and there, let there be an end
of it." "And you will promise me that you will not go further," said
the dragon. "I will promise nothing to-day to any man or to any
woman," said Violet. What was to be said to a young lady who spoke in
this way, and who had become of age only a fortnight since? She rode
that day the famous run from Bagnall's Gorse to Foulsham Common, and
was in at the death.

Violet Effingham was now sitting in conference with her friend Lady
Laura, and they were discussing matters of high import,--of very high
import, indeed,--to the interests of both of them. "I do not ask you
to accept him," said Lady Laura.

"That is lucky," said the other, "as he has never asked me."

"He ha