, or I should have called at the Abbey
House. We have been coming home, or talking about it, for the last
three weeks. A few days ago the Duchess took it into her head that she
ought to be at Lady Almira's wedding--there's some kind of
relationship, you know, between the Ashbournes and the
Southminsters--so we put on a spurt, and here we are."

"I am very glad," said Vixen, not knowing very well what to say; and
then seeing Captain Winstanley standing stiffly at her side, with an
aggrieved expression of countenance, she faltered: "I beg your pardon;
I don't think you have ever met Mr. Vawdrey. Captain Winstanley--Mr.
Vawdrey."

Both gentlemen acknowledged the introduction with the stiffest and
chilliest of bows; and then the Captain offered Violet his arm, and
she, having no excuse for refusing it, submitted quietly to be taken
away from her old friend. Roderick made no attempt to detain her.

The change in him could hardly have been more marked, Vixen thought.
Yes, the old Rorie--playfellow, scapegoat, friend of the dear old
childish days--was verily dead and gone.

"Shall we go and look at the presents?" asked Captain Winstanley.

"What presents?"

"Lady Almira's wedding presents. They are all laid out in the library.
I hear they are very splendid. Everybody is crowding to see them."

"I daresay mamma would like to go, and Mrs. Scobel," suggested Vixen.

"Then we will all go together."

They found the two matrons side by side on a settee, under a lovely
girlish head by Greuze. They were both delighted at the idea of seeing
the presents. It was something to do. Mrs. Tempest had made up her mind
to abjure even square dances this evening. There was something
incongruous in widowhood and the Lancers; especially in one's own
neighbourhood.

CHAPTER XVI.

Rorie asks a Question.

The library was one of the finest rooms at Southminster. It was not
like the library at Althorpe--a collection for a nation to be proud of.
There was no priceless Decameron, no Caxton Bible, no inestimable "Book
of Hours," or early Venetian Virgil; but as a library of reference, a
library for all purposes of culture or enjoyment, it left nothing to be
desired. It was a spacious and lofty room, lined from floor to ceiling
with exquisitely bound books; for, if not a collector of rare editions,
Lord Southminster was at least a connoisseur of bindings. Creamy
vellum, flowered with gold, antique brown calf, and russia in every
shade o