She worked on till tea-time, and was too engrossed to hear the bell,
which clanged lustily for every meal in the orderly household: a bell
whose clamour was somewhat too much for the repast it heralded.

This evening Vixen did not hear the bell, inviting her to weak tea and
bread-and-butter. The ringing of those other bells obscured the sound.
She was sitting with her book before her, but her eyes fixed on
vacancy, when Miss Skipwith, newly interested in her charge, came to
inquire the cause of her delay. The girl looked at her languidly, and
seemed slow to understand what she said.

"I don't care for any tea," she replied at last. "I would rather go on
with the history. It is tremendously interesting, especially the
hieroglyphics. I have been trying to make them out. It is so nice to
know that a figure like a chopper means a god, and that a goose with a
black ball above his hack means Pharaoh, son of the sun. And then the
table of dynasties: can anything be more interesting than those? It
makes one's head go round just a little at first, when one has to grope
backwards through so many centuries, but that's nothing."

"My dear, you are working too hard. It is foolish to begin with such
impetuosity. A fire that burns so fiercely will soon exhaust itself.
_Festina lente_. We must hasten slowly, if we want to make solid
progress. Why, my poor child, your fore-head is burning. You will read
yourself into a fever."

"I think I am in a fever already," said Vixen.

Miss Skipwith was unusually kind. She insisted upon helping her charge
to undress, and would not leave her till she was lying quietly in bed.
She was going to draw down the blinds, but against this Vixen protested
vehemently.

"Pray leave me the sky," she cried; "it is something to look at through
the long blank night. The stars come and go, and the clouds are always
changing. I believe I should go mad if it were not for the sky."

Poor Miss Skipwith felt seriously uneasy. The first draught from the
fountain of knowledge had evidently exercised an intoxicating effect
upon Violet Tempest. It was as if she had been taking opium or hashish.
The girl's brain was affected.

"You have studied too long," she said. "This must not occur again. I
feel myself responsible to your parents for your health."

"To my parents," echoed Vixen, with a sudden sigh; "I have only one,
and she is happier in my absence than when I was with her. You need not
be uneasy about me