n the last
week of their association than at any other period of her tutelage.
To-day, in her sorrow, it was a relief to Violet to find herself free
from the futile consolations of friendship. She flung herself into the
arm-chair by the fire and sobbed out her grief.

"Oh, kindest, dearest, best of fathers," she cried, "what is home
without you!"

And then she remembered that awful day of the funeral when Roderick
Vawdrey had sat with her beside this hearth, and had tried to comfort
her, and remembered how she had heard his voice as a sound far away, a
sound that had no meaning. That was the last time she had seen him.

"I don't suppose I thanked him for his pity or his kindness," she
thought. "He must have gone away thinking me cold and ungrateful; but I
was like a creature at the bottom of some dark dismal pit. How could I
feel thankful to someone looking down at me and talking to me from the
free happy world at the top?"

Her sobs ceased gradually, she dried her tears, and that unconscious
pleasure in life which is a part of innocent youth came slowly back.
She looked round the room in which so much of her childhood had been
spent, a room full of her own fancies and caprices, a room whose
prettiness had been bought with her own money, and was for the most
part the work of her own hands.

In spite of home's sorrowful association she was glad to find herself
at home. Mountains, and lakes, and sunny bays, and dark pathless
forests, may be ever so good to see, but there is something sweet in
our return to the familiar rooms of home; some pleasure in being shut
snugly within four walls, surrounded by one's own belongings.

The wood-fire burnt merrily, and sparkled on the many-coloured pots and
pans upon the panelled wall; here an Etruscan vase of India red, there
a Moorish water-jar of vivid amber. Outside the deep mullioned windows
the winter blast was blowing, with occasional spurts of flying snow.
Argus crept in presently, and stretched himself at full length upon the
fleecy rug. Vixen lay back in her low chair, musing idly in the glow of
the fire, and by-and-by the lips which had been convulsed with grief
parted in a smile, the lovely brown eyes shone with happy memories.

She was thinking of her old playfellow and friend, Rorie.

"I wonder if he will come to-day?" she mused. "I think he will. He is
sure to be at home for the hunting. Yes, he will come to-day. What will
he be like, I wonder? Handsomer than he