e is even
gallant enough to take her parasol, while she carries a pretty satin
satchel-like box of bonbons for Cecil. Denise comes at his nod; she has
two or three of her mistress's parcels, and they take up their homeward
journey. He carries her parasol so high that the sun shines in her
eyes; but the distance is short, and she says nothing.

Fortunately they reach home just in time for dinner. Cecil is out on
the porch, in the last stages of desolation.

"Come up with me and get this pretty box," cries Violet, holding it out
temptingly. "And to-morrow we will both spend with Denise, who will
make us tarts and chocolate cream."

"You stayed such a long, long while," groans Cecil, not quite pacified.

"But I shall not do it again," she promises. She is so bright that the
child feels unconsciously aggrieved.

Mrs. Grandon is very stately, and wears an air of injured dignity that
really vexes her son, who cannot see how she has been hurt by his
marriage, so long as he does not make Violet the real mistress of the
house. He has proposed that she affix her own valuation on the
furniture she is willing to part with; he will pay her income every six
months, and she will be at liberty to go and come as she pleases. What
more can he do?

He explains to Violet a day or two afterward, that between the factory
and his own writing he will hardly have an hour to spare, and that she
must not feel hurt at his absence. Lindmeyer has come, and with Joseph
Rising they are going over all with the utmost exactness. There are
sullen looks and short answers on the part of the workmen. It has been
gently hinted to them that other vacations may be given without any
advance wages. Wilmarth is quietly sympathetic. It is necessary, of
course, that the best should be done for Mr. Grandon, who has managed
to get everything in his own hands and entangle his private fortune.
And though Wilmarth never has been a thorough favorite as old Mr.
Grandon, and Mr. Eugene, with his _bonhomie_, yet now the men question
him in a furtive way.

"I have very little voice in the matter," explains Jasper Wilmarth,
with an affected cautiousness. "I have tried to understand Mr. St.
Vincent's views about the working of his patent, but machinery is not
my forte. I can only hope----"

"We did well enough before the humbugging thing was put in," says one
of the workmen, sullenly. "Mr. Grandon made money. We had decent wages
and decent wool, and we weren't stoppi