er his own belongings, and left
the Abbey House desolate--a temple dedicated to the dead.

Mrs. Tempest's manner towards her daughter during this period was at
once conciliatory and reproachful. She felt it a hard thing that Violet
should have taken up such an obnoxious position. This complaint she
repeated piteously, with many variations, when she discussed Violet's
unkindness with her lover. She had no secrets from the Captain, and she
told him all the bitter things Violet had said about him.

He heard her with firmly-set lips and an angry sparkle in his dark
eyes, but his tone was full of paternal indulgence presently, when Mrs.
Tempest had poured out all her woes.

"Is it not hard upon me, Conrad?" she asked in conclusion.

"My dear Pamela, I hope you are too strong-minded to distress yourself
seriously about a wilful girl's foolishness. Your daughter has a noble
nature, but she has been spoiled by too much indulgence. Even a
race-horse--the noblest thing in creation--has to be broken in; not
always without severe punishment. Miss Tempest and I will come to
understand each other perfectly by-and-by."

"I know you will be a second father to her," said Mrs. Tempest
tearfully.

"I will do my duty to her, dearest, be assured."

Still Mrs. Tempest went on harping upon the cruelty of her daughter's
conduct. The consciousness of Violet's displeasure weighed heavily upon
her.

"I dare not even show her my _trousseau_," she complained, "all
confidence is at an end between us. I should like to have had her
opinion about my dresses--though she is sadly deficient in taste, poor
child! and has never even learnt to put on her gloves perfectly."

"And your own taste is faultless, love," replied the Captain
soothingly. "What can you want with advice from an inexperienced girl,
whose mind is in the stable?"

"It is not her advice I want, Conrad; but her sympathy. Fanny Scobel is
coming this afternoon. I can show her my things. I really feel quite
nervous about talking to Violet of her own dress. She must have a new
dress for the wedding, you know; though she cannot be a bridesmaid. I
think that is really unfair. Don't you, Conrad?"

"What is unfair, dearest?" asked the Captain, whose mind had scarcely
followed the harmless meanderings of his lady's speech.

"That a widow is not allowed to have bridesmaids or orange-blossoms. It
seems like taking the poetry out of a wedding, does it not?"

"Not to my mind, Pamela. The