It happened that this particular year Mr Pringle was in London upon some business or other, and had brought his daughter Violet with him to see the world. Vi was seventeen, and being an only daughter, and the chief delight of her parents’ hearts, and pride of her brothers’, big and little, was already “out,” though many people shook their heads at Mrs Pringle’s precipitancy in producing her daughter. Violet’s hair was somewhat darker now that it was turned up, but showed the pale golden hue of her childhood still in the locks which, when the wind blew upon her, would shake themselves out in little rings over her ears and round her pretty forehead. Her eyes were as dark and liquid as they had been when she was a child, with a wistful look in them, which was somewhat surprising, considering how entirely happy a life she had led from her earliest breath, surrounded with special love and fondness; but so it was, account for it who will. Those tender eyes that shone out of her happy youthful face were surely conscious of some trouble, which, as it did not exist in the present, must be to come, and which, with every pretty look, she besought and entreated you to ward off from her, to help her through. But a happy little maiden was Vi, looking through those pretty eyes, surprised and sweet, at London--tripping everywhere by her proud father’s side, with her hand on his arm, looking at the fine pictures, looking at the fine people and the fine horses in the Park, and going over the sights as innocent country people do when such a happy chance as a child to take about happens to them. Some one suggested to Mr Pringle the fact of the Eton celebration during this pleasant course of dissipation, and Vi’s eyes lighted up with a sweet glow of pleasure beyond words when it was finally decided that they were to go.