g's entertainment and its
bearings on their mistress's life. There was a feeling in the servants'
hall that these little dinners, however seeming harmless, had a certain
bent and tendency inimical to the household, and household peace.

"He was more particular in his manner to-night than hever," said the
butler, as he dismembered a duck which had been "hotted up" after
removal from the dining-room. "He feels hisself master of the whole lot
of us already. I could see it in his hi. 'Is that the cabinet 'ock,
Forbes?' he says to me, when I was a-filling round after the bait.
'No,' says I, 'it is not. We ain't got so much of our cabinet 'ocks
that we can afford to trifle with 'em.' Of course I said it in a
hundertone, confidential like; but I wanted him to know who was master
of the cellar."

"There'll be nobody master but him when once he gets his foot inside
these doors," said Mrs. Trimmer, the housekeeper, mournful shake of her
head. "No, Porline, I'll have a noo pertater. Them canister peas ain't
got no flaviour with them."

While they were enjoying themselves, with a certain chastening touch of
prophetic melancholy, in the servants' hall, Violet was going slowly
upstairs and along the corridor which led past her mother's rooms.

"I must go in and wish mamma good-night," she thought; "though I am
pretty sure of a lecture for my pains."

Just at this moment a door opened, and a soft voice called "Violet,"
pleadingly.

"Dear mamma, I was just coming in to say good-night."

"Were you, darling? I heard your footstep, and I was afraid you were
going by. And I want very particularly to see you to-night, Violet."

"Do you, mamma? I hope not to scold me for going with the
school-children. They had such a happy afternoon; and ate! it was like
a miracle. Not so little serving for so many, but so few devouring so
much."

Pamela Tempest put her arm round her daughter, and kissed her, with
more warmth of affection than she had shown since the sad days after
the Squire's death. Violet looked at her mother wonderingly. She could
hardly see the widow's fair delicate face in the dimly-lighted room. It
was one of the prettiest rooms in the house--half boudoir half
dressing-room, crowded with elegant luxuries and modern inventions,
gipsy tables, book-stands, toy-cabinets of egg-shell china, a toilet
table _a la_ Pompadour, a writing-desk _a la_ Sevigne. Such small
things had made the small joys of Mrs. Tempest's life. When she