Violet Lestrange was a girl of this type; sweet without being foolish, simple-minded, but not an idiot, capable of screaming mechanically at the sight of a mouse, and of facing a lion in cold blood to protect the man she loved. She was the last person in the world to be suspected of making a run away match with the man of her choice, and the first person in the world to do it. It is a much easier matter to draw the pen portrait of a Mr Mahony than of a Violet Lestrange. Dark, with violet eyes and a beautiful complexion, she had that lost touch of beauty only to be found, I think, and that very rarely, amongst the women of Ireland; a faint permanent blush over the cheek bones, like the reflection on alabaster of a June rose. One might have thought that when General Grampound chose a future husband for all this beauty, he might at least have chosen a man with two eyes. Whilst Mr Fanshawe was shooting by the little lake, the unfortunate Violet was dispensing afternoon tea. She had made up her mind and given her word that morning when seated under the hedge. Ever since, she had been rocking upon a sea whose alternate billows seemed compounded of Bliss and Fright. When the fright was upon her, the sight of Lady Molyneux calmly munching her muffins seemed awful; General Grampound stirring his tea was tragic, as the figure of a man whom she had betrayed and murdered; Uncle Molyneux and his eye-glass seemed the incarnation of saintly propriety; and the “Violet, dear, another cup of tea, without quite so much milk,” of Lady Seagrave, the last word of pathos, and a thing to make one weep. All these people were about to be betrayed. They all seemed either so foolish or so old, all so unsuspecting. That they were, in fact, a company of robbers of the worst description, banded together with the object of stealing her happiness and ruining her life, never for a moment occurred to her. She pitied them. Then, rocked suddenly on a billow of bliss, pity and fear vanished utterly; Dicky Fanshawe entered her mind, and she put two lumps of sugar instead of two tabloids of saccharine in General Grampound’s cup, and scarcely heard the explosion. “Miss Lestrange!” Violet was crossing the hall after the tea ordeal; she looked up. A pasty little face was looking over the banisters. It was Lord Gawdor’s. “We’re decorating the nursery for Christmas; come’n help.” Miss Lestrange came up the stairs, and little Lord Gawdor seized her in a loving embrace with his arm half round her waist. Like this they marched along, up another flight of stairs and down the corridor to the nursery.