obliged to turn senator. But I mean to take life
easily--you may be sure of that, Vixen; and I intend to have the best
stud of hunters in Hampshire. And now I think I must be off."

"No, you mustn't," cried Violet. "The dinner is not till eight. If you
leave here at six you will have no end of time for getting home to
dress. How did you come?"

"On these two legs."

"You shall have four to take you to Briarwood. West shall drive you
home in papa's dog-cart, with the new mare. You don't know her, do you?
Papa only bought her last spring. She is such a beauty, and
goes--goes--oh, like a skyrocket. She bolts occasionally; but you don't
mind that, do you?"

"Not in the least. It would be rather romantic to be smashed on one's
twenty-first birthday. Will you tell them to order West to get ready at
once."

"Oh, but you are to stop to tea with Miss McCroke and me--that's part
of our bargain. No kettledrum, no Starlight Bess! And you'd scarcely
care about walking to Briarwood under such rain as that!"

"So be it, then; kettledrum and Starlight Bess, at any hazard of
maternal wrath. But really now I'm doing a most ungentlemanly thing,
Vixen, to oblige you!"

"Always be ungentlemanly then for my sake--if it's ungentlemanly to
come and see me," said Vixen coaxingly.

They were standing side by side in the big window looking out at the
straight thin rain. The two pairs of lips were not very far away from
each other, and Rorie might have been tempted to commit a third offence
against the proprieties, if Miss McCroke had not fortunately entered at
this very moment. She was wonderfully surprised at seeing Mr. Vawdrey,
congratulated him ceremoniously upon his majority, and infused an
element of stiffness into the small assembly.

"Rorie is going to stay to tea," said Vixen. "We'll have it here by the
fire, please, Crokey dear. One can't have too much of a good fire this
weather. Or shall we go to my den? Which would you like best, Rorie?"

"I think we had better have tea here, Violet," interjected Miss
McCroke, ringing the bell.

Her pupil's _sanctum sanctorum_--that pretty up-stairs room, half
schoolroom, half boudoir, and wholly untidy--was not, in Miss McCroke's
opinion, an apartment to be violated by the presence of a young man.

"And as Rory hasn't had any luncheon, and has come ever so far out of
his way to see me, please order something substantial for him," said
Vixen.

Her governess obeyed. The gipsy table wa