iss Skipwith
talked of Buddha, and Confucius, and Mahomet, and Zuinglius, and
Calvin, and Luther, as familiarly as if they had been her most intimate
friends; and the Captain led her on and played her as he would have
played a trout in one of the winding Hampshire streams. His gravity was
imperturbable. Vixen sat and wondered whether she was to hear this kind
of thing every day of her life, and whether she would be expected to
ask Miss Skipwith leading questions, as the Captain was doing. It was
all very well for him, who was to spend only one day at Les Tourelles;
but Vixen made up her mind that she would boldly avow her indifference
to all creeds and all theologians, from Confucius to Swedenborg. She
might consent to live for a time amidst the dullness and desolation of
Les Tourelles, but she would not be weighed down and crushed by Miss
Skipwith's appalling hobby. The mere idea of the horror of having every
day to discuss a subject that was in its very nature inexhaustible,
filled her with terror.

"I would sooner take my meals in that abandoned kitchen, in the company
of the rats and beetles, than have to listen every day to this kind of
thing," she thought.

When dinner was over the Captain went off to smoke his cigar in the
garden, and this Vixen thought a good time for making her escape.

"I should like to take a walk with my dog, if you will excuse me, Miss
Skipwith," she said politely.

"My dear, you must consider yourself at liberty to employ and amuse
yourself as you please, of course always keeping strictly within the
bounds of propriety," solemnly replied the lady of the manor. "I shall
not interfere with your freedom. My own studies are of so grave a
nature that they in a measure isolate me from my fellow-creatures, but
when you require and ask for sympathy and advice, I shall be ready to
give both. My library is at your service, and I hope ere long you will
have found yourself some serious aim for your studies. Life without
purpose is a life hardly worth living. If girls of your age could only
find that out, and seek their vocation early, how much grander and
nobler would be woman's place in the universe. But, alas! my dear, the
common aim of girlhood seems to be to look pretty and to get married."

"I have made up my mind never to marry," said Violet, with a smile that
was half sad half cynical; "so there at least you may approve of me,
Miss Skipwith."

"My nephew tells me that you refused an exce