ire that I should keep an engagement made
beside my mother's death-bed. If Miss Tempest had thought otherwise, I
should have been at her feet. I would have flung that engagement to the
winds; for Violet Tempest is the only woman I ever loved. And now all
the world may know it, for my cousin has jilted me, and I am a free
man."

"Good gracious! Can I really believe this?" asked Miss Skipwith,
appealing to Violet.

"Rorie never told a falsehood in his life," Vixen answered proudly.

"I feel myself in a most critical position, my dear child," said Miss
Skipwith, looking from Roderick's frank eager face to Vixen's downcast
eyelids and mantling blushes. "I had hoped such a different fate for
you. I thought the thirst for knowledge had arisen within you, that the
aspiration to distinguish yourself from the ruck of ignorant women
would follow the arising of that thirst, in natural sequence. And here
I find you willing to marry a gentleman who happens to have been the
companion of your childhood, and to resign--for his sake--all hopes of
distinction."

"My chances of distinction were so small, dear Miss Skipwith," faltered
Vixen. "If I had possessed your talents!"

"True," sighed the reformer of all the theologies. "We have not all the
same gifts. There was a day when I thought it would be my lot to marry
and subside into the dead level of domesticity; but I am thankful to
think I escaped the snare."

"And the gentleman who wanted to marry you, how thankful must he be!"
thought Rorie dumbly.

"Yet there have been moments of depression when I have been weak enough
to regret those early days," sighed Miss Skipwith. "At best our
strength is tempered with weakness. It is the fate of genius to be
lonely. And now I suppose I am to lose you, Violet?"

"I am summoned home to poor mamma," said Vixen.

"And after poor mamma has recovered, as I hope she speedily may, Violet
will be wanted by her poor husband," said Rorie. "You must come across
the sea and dance at our wedding, Miss Skipwith."

"Ah," sighed Miss Skipwith, "if you could but have waited for the
establishment of my universal church, what a grand ceremonial your
marriage might have been!"

Miss Skipwith, though regretful, and inclined to take a dismal view of
the marriage state and its responsibilities under the existing
dispensation, was altogether friendly. She had a frugal supper of cold
meat and salad, bread and cheese and cider, served in honour of Mr.
Vawd