Hardly had the carriage driven from the door, when Hilary had reason to repent of having yielded. “I shall go home first, if it is the same to you,” said her companion, calmly; “on several accounts; one of which is, that you must not go without your dinner, and we shall be sure to find luncheon ready when we get there.” Hilary remonstrated, and assured her she should have no appetite; and she did not wish her to go out of the way on that account. But Victoria was one of those gayly-selfish and cheerfully-obstinate individuals, who are never really turned out of their way, or persuaded out of their opinion. She listened with a smile to Hilary’s remonstrances, and agreed to her remarks, but never in the smallest point altered her mind or her conduct. To “the Ferns” she meant to go, and accordingly to “the Ferns” they went; avowedly for Hilary’s comfort, actually for Miss Fielding’s pleasure. On first reaching it the master was invisible, and Hilary, for a few minutes, entertained the hope that, though thus forced against her will into his house, she should escape meeting him. But this hope soon proved vain, for presently he entered; and not only did his tone and manner in addressing her speak of the feelings she did not wish to encourage, but they evinced so entire an absence of surprise at her visit, as made her unavoidably suspect that the whole had been a scheme between the cousins to entrap her into coming there with or without her will. This was confirmed by the fact of his bringing in with him a basket of most beautiful flowers, which he began arranging as he sat by her, observing, as he did so, that he wished to replace the bouquet she had lost on the day of her accident. What a world of thoughts rushed through her memory at these words, and dyed her cheek with hot crimson blushes. How Charles interpreted her confusion she did not know; her ideas flew off to another person; there was another voice ringing in her ears――a voice which petitioned, in never-forgotten whispers, for one violet; and then she wondered, as she had often done before, not only what had become of those flowers themselves, but of the feelings they seemed to express, and the hopes they had awakened; had that bunch of violets sunk, where she had so narrowly escaped, and were they to be the type, the emblem of the fate which would attend her own shy affections, and shrinking, undeveloped expectations?