prostrate. To have no carriage to meet me on
such an occasion! I daresay everybody in the Forest knows all about it
by this time. When I came home from my honeymoon with your poor papa,
the joy-bells rang all the afternoon, and the road was lined with
people waiting to get a glimpse of us, and there were floral arches----"

"Ah, mamma, those things cannot happen twice in a lifetime," said
Vixen, with irrepressible bitterness. "One happy marriage is as much as
any woman can expect."

"A woman has the right to expect her own carriage," said Captain
Winstanley.

"I am afraid I have paid my visit at rather at unfortunate moment,"
said Roderick, coming forward and addressing himself solely to Mrs.
Winstanley; "but I could not go without saying How do you do? I hope
you had a pleasant journey from Scotland--bar the fly."

"How do you do, Roderick? Yes; it was all pleasant except that last
contretemps. Imagine the Duchess of Dovedale's feelings if she arrived
at the station adjoining her own estate, and found no carriage to meet
her!"

"My aunt would tuck up her petticoats and trudge home," answered
Roderick, smiling. "She's a plucky little woman."

"Yes, perhaps on an ordinary occasion. But to-day it was so different.
Everybody will talk about our return."

"Most people are still away," suggested Rorie, with a view to comfort.

"Oh, but their servants will hear it, and they will tell their masters
and mistresses. All gossip begins that way. Besides, Colonel Carteret
saw us, and what he knows everybody knows."

After this, Roderick felt that all attempts at consolation were
hopeless. He would have liked to put Mrs. Winstanley into a better
temper, for Violet's sake. It was not a pleasant home atmosphere in
which he was obliged to leave his old playfellow on this the first day
of her new life. Captain Winstanley maintained a forbidding silence;
Mrs. Winstanley did not even ask anyone to have a cup of tea; Violet
sat on the opposite side of the hearth, pale and quiet, with Argus at
her knee, and one arm wound caressingly round his honest head.

"I've been inspecting the kennels this morning," said Roderick, looking
at the new master of the Abbey House with a cheerful assumption that
everything was going on pleasantly. "We shall begin business on the
first. You'll hunt, of course?"

"Well, yes; I suppose I shall give myself a day occasionally."

"I shall not have a happy moment while you are out," said Mrs.
Winsta