nder-linen in those days were very limited. Those lovely satin-stitch
monograms only came in when the Princess of Wales was married. Dear
Edward! He was one of the handsomest men I ever saw. How could Violet
believe that I should sell his favourite horse?"

"Well, mum, hearing Captain Winstanley talk about it, she naturally----"

"Captain Winstanley would never wish me to do anything I did not like."

The Captain had not said a word about Bullfinch since that morning in
the stable. The noble brute still occupied his loose-box, and was fed
and petted daily by Vixen, and was taken for gallops in the dry glades
of the Forest, or among the gorse and heath of Boldrewood.

Mrs. Tempest had dined--or rather had not dined--in her own room on
this last day of her widowhood. Captain Winstanley had business in
London, and was coming back to Hampshire by the last train. There had
been no settlements. The Captain had nothing to settle, and Mrs.
Tempest confided in her lover too completely to desire to fence herself
round with legal protections and precautions. Having only a life
interest in the estate, she had nothing to leave, except the
multifarious ornaments, frivolities, and luxuries which the Squire had
presented to her in the course of their wedded life.

It had been altogether a trying day, Mrs. Tempest complained: in spite
of the diversion to painful thought which was continually being offered
by the arrival of some interesting item of the _trousseau_, elegant
trifles, ordered ever so long ago, which kept dropping in at the last
moment. Violet and her mother had not met during the day, and now night
was hurrying on. The owls were hooting in the Forest. Their monotonous
cry sounded every now and then through the evening silence like a
prophesy of evil. In less than twelve hours the wedding was to take
place; and as yet Vixen had shown no sign of relenting.

The dress had come from Madame Theodore's. Pauline had thrown it over a
chair, with an artistic carelessness which displayed the tasteful
combination of cream colour and pale azure.

Mrs. Tempest contemplated it with a pathetic countenance.

"It is simply perfect!" she exclaimed. "Theodore has a most delicate
mind. There is not an atom too much blue. And how exquisitely the
drapery falls! It looks as if it had been blown together. The Vandyke
hat too! Violet would look lovely in it. I do not think if I were a
wicked mother I should take so much pains to select an el