kettledrum was in full swing. Mrs. Scobel had come over from her
tiny Vicarage for half-an-hour's chat, and was sitting opposite her
hostess's fire, while Captain Winstanley lounged with his back to the
canopied chimneypiece, and looked benignantly down upon the two ladies.
The Queen Anne kettle was hissing merrily over its spirit-lamp, the
perfume of the pekoe was delicious, the logs blazed cheerily in the low
fireplace, with its shining brass andirons. Not a repulsive picture,
assuredly; yet Vixen came slowly towards this charming circle, looking
black as thunder.

Captain Winstanley hurried forward to receive her.

"How do you do?" she said, as stiffly as a child brought down to the
drawing-room, bristling in newly-brushed hair and a best frock, and
then turning to her mother, she asked curtly: "What did you want with
me, mamma?"

"It was Captain Winstanley who asked to see you, my dear. Won't you
have some tea?"

"Thanks, no," said Vixen, seating herself in a corner between Mrs.
Scobel and the mantelpiece, and beginning to talk about the schools.

Conrad Winstanley gave her a curious look from under his dark brows,
and then went on talking to her mother. He seemed hardly disconcerted
by her rudeness.

"Yes, I assure you, if it hadn't been for the harriers, Brighton would
have been unbearable after you left," he said. "I ran across to Paris
directly the frost set in. But I don't wonder you were anxious to come
back to such a lovely old place as this."

"I felt it a duty to come back," said Mrs. Tempest, with a pious air.
"But it was very sad at first. I never felt so unhappy in my life. I am
getting more reconciled now. Time softens all griefs."

"Yes," said the Captain, in a louder tone than before, "Time is a
clever horse. There is nothing he won't beat if you know how to ride
him."

"You'll take some tea?" insinuated Mrs. Tempest, her attention absorbed
by the silver kettle, which was just now conducting itself as
spitfireishly as any blackened block-tin on a kitchen hob.

"I can never resist it. And perhaps after tea you will be so good as to
give me the treat you talked about just now."

"To show you the house?" said Mrs. Tempest. "Do you think we shall have
light enough?"

"Abundance. An old house like this is seen at its best in the twilight.
Don't you think so, Mrs. Scobel?"

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel, with a lively recollection of her
album. "'They who would see Melrose aright, should