hunting-field, mamma. They go over a good many stone walls in Ireland,
you know, and he may have come to grief."

"If you would only leave off talking in that horrid way, Violet. He is
a very agreeable young man. How he enjoyed a cup of tea after his
journey, instead of wanting soda-water and brandy. Conrad tells me he
has a lovely place near Mallow--on the slope of a hill, sheltered on
the north with pine woods; and I believe it is one of the prettiest
parts of Ireland--so green, and fertile, and sweet, and such a happy
peasantry."

"I think I'd better leave you to dress for dinner, mamma. You like a
clear hour, and it's nearly half-past six."

"True, love; you may ring for Pauline. I have been wavering between my
black and maize and my amethyst velvet, but I think I shall decide upon
the velvet. What are you going to wear?"

"I? oh, anything. The dress I wore last night."

"My love, it is positively dowdy. Pray wear something better in honour
of Lord Mallow. There is the gown you had for my wedding," suggested
Mrs. Winstanley, blushing. "You look lovely in that."

"Mamma, do you think I'm going to make a secondhand bridesmaid of
myself to oblige Lord Mallow? No; that dress too painfully bears the
stamp of what it was made for. I'm afraid it will have to rot in the
wardrobe where it hangs. If it were woolen, the moths would inevitably
have it; but, I suppose, as it is silk it will survive the changes of
time; and some clay it will be made into chair-covers, and future
generations of Tempests will point to it as a relic of my great-aunt
Violet."

"I never heard anything so absurd," cried Mrs. Winstanley fretfully.
"It was Theodore's _chef-d'oeuvre_, and no doubt I shall have to pay an
awful price for it."

"Ah, mamma, we are continually doing things for which we have to pay an
awful price," said Vixen, with one of her involuntary bursts of bitter
sadness.

CHAPTER X.

Something like a Ride.

It was impossible to go on hating Lord Mallow for ever. He was a man
whose overflowing good-nature would have conciliated the direst foe,
could that enemy have been exposed long enough to its softening
influence. He came upon the dull daily life of the Abbey House like a
burst of sudden sunshine on a gloomy plain. The long winter evenings,
when there was no company, had been sorely oppressive to Vixen. Out of
respect to her mother she had kept her place in the drawing-room,
reading, or working at some uninterest