As for Violet, she was far from being so happy. She went up the brae more leisurely, in no hurry to go in. Poor child! all her anxieties came back to her with double force. How was she to tell this, how to keep it secret? the one was almost as hard as the other. And then the great chimera in her mind, which she tried to say to herself was nothing, nothing! that dread which she could not explain or define--the consciousness that her father was going to do something against Val. What could she do to hinder him? She shrank from encountering his sharp looks, from telling him her story,--and yet was it not her duty to make one final effort? She went round the new buildings to the little old front of the cottage, which still commanded that view over the Esk which Violet loved so well. Her father was walking about alone smoking his cigar. No one else was visible. The peace of evening had fallen upon the house; but it was cold after the sunset, and Mrs Pringle had not come out to cheer her husband while he smoked his cigar; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not sufficiently in his wife’s good graces to have this indulgence. If Vi, his favourite child, could do anything, now was the moment. Her heart began to beat violently as she stood and looked at him, hesitating, drawn forward by one impulse and back by another. A mere chance movement settled the question. He held out his hand to her as she stood looking at him. “Come, Vi, give me your company,” he said; “your mother thinks it too cold to come out. Where have you been, child, so late?” “I have been down at the linn,” said Violet; “it is always so pretty there.” “But you need not have forgotten your dinner, my dear; your mother does not like it; and I thought you were tired after your drive to Castleton,” said Mr Pringle, in slightly reproachful tones. “I am not tired, papa; I was a little--troubled in my mind. Papa, must we go on the election day, and put ourselves up again, against Val? Oh papa, why? might we not stay at home at least? That is what I was thinking of. Valentine never did any harm to us, papa.” “Has not he?” said Mr Pringle, fiercely. “You are a goose, Vi, and know nothing about it; you had better not speak of what you don’t understand.” “Why shouldn’t I understand?” said Violet, roused. “I am just as able to understand as anyone. The only harm Val has done is by being born, and how could he help that? But papa, dear,” said the girl, twining her arm suddenly within his, and leaning on him closely--“that was not what I was thinking of. Down at the linn, where we used to be so much together, how could I help thinking? Val was always so----” Vi paused, with injudicious words on her lips which she stopped just in time--“nice to me,” she added, with a quick breath of fright at her own temerity. “Even the boys were never so good to me; they never took me out into the woods to play truant. Oh papa, if you could only know how delightful it was!”