secret all this time!" said
Vixen.

"You see I am not a woman, and can keep a secret. I wanted to have one
little surprise for you, as a reward when you had been especially good.

"You are good," she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "And though I
have loved you all my life, I don't think I have loved you the least
little bit too much."

EPILOGUE.

Vixen and Rorie were married in the spring, when the forest glades were
yellow with primroses, the mossy banks blue with violets, and the
cuckoo was heard with monotonous iteration from sunrise to sundown.
They were married in the little village church at Beechdale, and Mrs.
Scobel declared that Miss Tempest's wedding was the prettiest that ever
had been solemnised in that small Gothic temple. Never, perhaps, even
at Eastertide, had been seen such a wealth of spring blossoms, the
wildlings of the woods and hills. The Duchess had offered the contents
of her hot-houses, Lady Ellangowan had offered waggon-loads of azaleas
and camellias, but Vixen had refused them all. She would allow no
decorations but the wild flowers which the school-children could
gather. Primroses, violets, bluebells, the firstlings of the fern
tribe, cowslips, and all the tribe of innocent forest blossoms, with
their quaint rustic names, most of them as old as Shakespeare.

It was a very quiet wedding. Vixen would have no one present except the
Scobels, Miss McCroke, her two bridesmaids, and Sir Henry Tolmash, an
old friend of her father, who was to give her away. He was a
white-haired old man, who had given his latter days up to farming, and
had not a thought above turnips and top-dressing; but Violet honoured
him, because he had been her father's oldest friend. For bride-maids
she had Colonel Carteret's daughters, a brace of harmless young ladies,
whose conversation was as stereotyped as a French and English
vocabulary, but who dressed well and looked pretty.

There was no display of wedding gifts, no ceremonious wedding
breakfast. Vixen remembered the wedding feast at her mother's second
marriage, and what a dreary ceremonial it had been.

The bride wore her gray silk travelling-dress, with gray hat and
feather, and she and her husband went straight from the church to the
railway station, on their way to untrodden paths in the Engadine,
whence they were to return at no appointed time.

"We are coming back when we are tired of mountain scenery and of each
other," Violet told Mrs. Scobel