olet, but
dependence on madame might be made a bitter draught. And if the
business goes to ruin, there will be no one save Floyd.

Violet reaches over and takes Gertrude's hand. She feels as well as
sees a certain delicate sympathy in the faded face.

"If you would let me do anything for you," she entreats, in that
persuasive tone. "I seem of so little use. You know I was kept so busy
at school."

Gertrude feels that, fascinating as Cecil is with her bright,
enchanting ways, Violet may be capable of higher enjoyments. For a
moment she wishes she had some strength and energy, that she might join
hands with her in the coming struggle.

Indeed, now, the child and Denise are Violet's only companions. Floyd
is away nearly all day, and writes, it would seem, pretty nearly all
night. His mind is on other matters, she sees plainly. She has been
used to her father's abstraction, and does not construe it into any
slight. But in the great house, large as it is, Mrs. Grandon seems to
trench everywhere, except in their own apartments. Floyd installed
Violet in the elegant guest-chamber, but Mrs. Grandon always speaks of
it as the spare room, or madame's room.

Violet's heart had thrilled at the thought of the exquisite-toned
piano. She had tried it a day or two after her advent and found it
locked.

"Do you know who keeps the key?" she had asked timidly of Jane.

"It is Miss Laura's piano," is the concise answer, and no more is said.

But one morning Mr. Grandon asks if Violet can go over to the cottage
with him. Her lovely eyes are all alight.

"Get your hat, then," he says, as if he were speaking to the child.

Violet starts eagerly. Cecil rises and follows.

"Oh, she may go, too?" the pretty mamma asks.

Floyd nods over his paper. Mrs. Grandon bridles her head loftily.

"Denise has something for us, I know," cries Violet. "We were not there
yesterday. Poor Denise, she must have missed us, but I did want to
finish Maysie's dress." Maysie is Cecil's doll, and has had numerous
accessions to her wardrobe of late.

Grandon has an odd little smile on his face as he looks up. Violet and
he are friends again when they are not Mr. and Mrs. Grandon. The little
episode of the wedding journey has faded, or at least has borne no
further fruit. Yet as the days go on she feels more at home in the
friendship.

"Oh," she begins, in joyous accents, "you have a surprise for us!" She
has such a pretty way of bringing in Cecil.