his palm-house last year, you know. What a
dreadful thing if I were to become a Norfolk giant--giants are
indigenous to Norfolk, aren't they?--and were obliged to take the roof
off Briarwood. Have you seen the Duchess?"

"Only in the distance. I hardly know her at all, you know."

"That's absurd. You ought to know her very well. You must be quite
intimate with her by-and-by, when we are all settled down as
steady-going married people."

The little gloved hand on his arm quivered ever so slightly. This was a
distinct allusion to his approaching marriage.

"Lovely room, isn't it? Just the right thing for a ball. How do you
like the Rubens? Very grand--a magnificent display of
carmines--beautiful, if you are an admirer of Rubens. What a
draughtsman! The Italian school rarely achieved that freedom of pencil.
Isn't that Greuze enchanting? There is an innocence, a freshness, about
his girlish faces that nobody has ever equalled. His women are not
Madonnas, or Junos, or Helens--they are the incarnation of girlhood;
girlhood without care or thought; girlhood in love with a kitten, or
weeping over a wounded robin-redbreast."

How abominably he rattled on. Was it the overflow of joyous spirits? No
doubt. He was so pleased with life and fate, that he was obliged to
give vent to his exuberance in this gush of commonplace.

"You remind me of Miss Bates, in Jane Austen's 'Emma,'" said Vixen,
laughing.

The band struck up "_Trauriges Herz_," a waltz like a wail, but with a
fine swing in it.

"Now for the old three-time," said Roderick; and the next minute they
were sailing smoothly over the polished floor, with all the fair
pictured faces, the crimson draperies, the pensive Madonnas, Dutch
boors, Italian temples, and hills, and skies, circling round them like
the figures in a kaleidoscope.

"Do you remember our boy-and-girl waltzes in the hall at the Abbey
House?" asked Rorie.

Happily for Vixen her face was so turned that he could not see the
quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain that paled her
cheeks.

"I am not likely to forget any part of my childhood," she answered
gravely. "It was the one happy period of my life."

"You don't expect me to believe that the last two years have been
altogether unhappy."

"You may believe what you like. You who knew my father, ought to
know----"

"The dear Squire! do you think I am likely to undervalue him, or to
forget your loss? No, Violet, no. But there are comp