third," the captain told Mrs. Tempest, while
Roderick was putting Violet's cloak round her in the vestibule; "there
are a good many people leaving already."

Roderick went with them to the carriage door, and stayed in the porch
till they were gone. The last object Vixen saw under the Southminster
lamps was the pale grave face of her old playfellow.

He went straight from the porch to the supper-room, not to find himself
a place at one of the snug little tables, but to go to the buffet and
pour out a glass of brandy, which he drank at a draught. Yet, in a
general way, there was no man more abstemious than Roderick Vawdrey.

A quarter of an hour afterwards he was waltzing with Lady
Mabel--positively the last dance before their departure.

"Roderick," she said in an awe-stricken undertone, "I am going to say
something very dreadful. Please forgive me in advance."

"Certainly," he said, with a somewhat apprehensive look.

"Just now, when you were talking to me, I fancied you had been drinking
brandy."

"I had."

"Absolute undiluted brandy!"

"Neat brandy, sometimes denominated 'short.'"

"Good heavens! were you ill?"

"I had had what people call 'a turn.'"

CHAPTER XVII.

Where the Red King was slain.

May had come. The red glow of the beech-branches had changed to a
tender green; the oaks were amber; the winding forest-paths, the deep
inaccessible glades where the cattle led such a happy life, were blue
with dog-violets and golden with primroses. Whitsuntide was close at
hand, and good Mr. Scobel had given up his mind to church decoration,
and the entertainment of his school-children with tea and buns in that
delightful valley, where an iron monument, a little less artistic than
a pillar post-office marks the spot where the Red King fell.

Vixen, though not particularly fond of school-feasts, had promised to
assist at this one. It was not to be a stiff or ceremonious affair.
There was to be no bevy of young ladies, oppressively attentive to
their small charges, causing the children to drink scalding tea in a
paroxysm of shyness. The whole thing was to be done in an easy and
friendly manner; with no aid but that of the school-mistress and
master. The magnates of the land were to have no part in the festival.

"The children enjoy themselves so much more when there are no
finely-dressed people making believe to wait upon them," said Mrs.
Scobel; "but I know they'll be delighted to have you, Violet. Th