wdrey, and
the hand that held hers as they two stood side by side in the sunshine
was the broad strong hand of her girlhood's friend.

When she went downstairs between eight and nine next morning she found
Miss Skipwith pacing slowly to and fro the terrace in front of the
drawing-room windows, conning over the pencil notes of her yesterday's
studies.

"Your stepfather has been gone half-an-hour, my dear," said the lady of
the manor. "He was very sorry to have to go without wishing you
good-bye."

CHAPTER II.

Chiefly Financial.

Violet was gone. Her rooms were empty; her faithful little waiting-maid
was dismissed; her dog's deep-toned thunder no longer sounded through
the house, baying joyous welcome when his mistress came down for her
early morning ramble in the shrubberies. Arion had been sent to grass,
and was running wild in fertile pastures, shoeless and unfettered as
the South American mustang on his native prairie. Nothing associated
with the exiled heiress was left, except the rooms she had inhabited;
and even they looked blank and empty and strange without her. It was
almost as if a whole family had departed. Vixen's presence seemed to
have filled the house with youth and freshness, and free joyous life.
Without her all was silent as the grave.

Mrs. Winstanley missed her daughter sorely. She had been wont to
complain fretfully of the girl's exuberance; but the blank her absence
made struck a chill to the mother's heart. She had fancied that life
would be easier without Violet; that her union with her husband would
be more complete; and now she found herself looking wistfully towards
the door of her morning-room, listening vaguely for a footstep; and the
figure she looked for at the door, and the footsteps she listened for
in the corridor were not Conrad Winstanley's. It was the buoyant step
of her daughter she missed; it was the bright frank face of her
daughter she yearned for.

One day the captain surprised her in tears, and asked the reason of her
melancholy.

"I daresay it's very weak of me, Conrad," she said piteously, "but I
miss Violet more and more every day."

"It is uncommonly weak of you," answered the Captain with agreeable
candour, "but I suppose it's natural. People generally get attached to
their worries; and as your daughter was an incessant worry, you very
naturally lament her absence. I am honest enough to confess that I am
very glad she is gone. We had no domestic peace whil