in Jersey," said Lady Mabel, in languid
wonderment. "It is an altogether impossible place. Nobody in society
goes there. It sounds almost as disreputable as Boulogne."

"You'd better open the packet," said Rorie, with a quiver in his voice.

"Perhaps it is from some of your friends," speculated Mabel.

She broke the seal, and tore the cover off a small morocco case.

"What a lovely pair of earrings!" she exclaimed.

Each eardrop was a single turquoise, almost as large, and quite as
clear in colour, as a hedge-sparrow's egg. The setting was Roman,
exquisitely artistic.

"Now I can forgive anyone for sending me such jewellery as that," said
Lady Mabel. "It is not the sort of thing one sees in every jeweller's
shop."

Rorie looked at the blue stones with rueful eyes. He knew them well. He
had seen them contrasted with ruddy chestnut hair, and the whitest skin
in Christendom--or at any rate the whitest he had ever seen, and a
man's world can be but the world he knows.

"There is a letter," said Lady Mabel. "Now I shall find out all about
my mysterious Jersey friend."

She read the letter aloud.

"Les Tourelles, Jersey, July 25th.

"Dear Lady Mabel,--I cannot bear that your wedding-day should go by
without bringing you some small token of regard from your husband's old
friend. Will you wear these earrings now and then, and believe that
they come from one who has nothing but good wishes for Rorie's
wife?--Yours very truly,

"VIOLET TEMPEST."

"Why, they are actually from your old playfellow!" cried Mabel, with a
laugh that had not quite a genuine ring in its mirth. "The young lady
who used to follow the staghounds, in a green habit with brass buttons,
ever so many years ago, and who insisted on calling you Rorie. She does
it still, you see. How very sweet of her to send me a wedding-present.
I ought to have remembered. I heard something about her being sent off
to Jersey by her people, because she had grown rather incorrigible at
home."

"She was not incorrigible, and she was not sent off to Jersey," said
Roderick grimly. "She left home of her own free will; because she could
not hit it with her stepfather."

"That is another way of expressing it, but I think we both mean pretty
much the same thing," retorted Mabel. "But I don't want to know why she
went to Jersey. She has behaved very sweetly in sending me such a
pretty letter; and when she is at home again I shall be very happy to
see her at my gard