"Have you seen mamma?" "Yes. She thinks I am grown. She forgets that I was one-and-twenty when we last met. That does not leave much margin for growing, unless a man went on getting taller indefinitely, like Lord Southminster's palms. He had to take the roof off his palm-house last year, you know. What a dreadful thing if I were to become a Norfolk giant--giants are indigenous to Norfolk, aren't they?--and were obliged to take the roof off Briarwood. Have you seen the Duchess?" "Only in the distance. I hardly know her at all, you know." "That's absurd. You ought to know her very well. You must be quite intimate with her by-and-by, when we are all settled down as steady-going married people." The little gloved hand on his arm quivered ever so slightly. This was a distinct allusion to his approaching marriage. "Lovely room, isn't it? Just the right thing for a ball. How do you like the Rubens? Very grand--a magnificent display of carmines--beautiful, if you are an admirer of Rubens. What a draughtsman! The Italian school rarely achieved that freedom of pencil. Isn't that Greuze enchanting? There is an innocence, a freshness, about his girlish faces that nobody has ever equalled. His women are not Madonnas, or Junos, or Helens--they are the incarnation of girlhood; girlhood without care or thought; girlhood in love with a kitten, or weeping over a wounded robin-redbreast." How abominably he rattled on. Was it the overflow of joyous spirits? No doubt. He was so pleased with life and fate, that he was obliged to give vent to his exuberance in this gush of commonplace. "You remind me of Miss Bates, in Jane Austen's 'Emma,'" said Vixen, laughing. The band struck up "_Trauriges Herz_," a waltz like a wail, but with a fine swing in it. "Now for the old three-time," said Roderick; and the next minute they were sailing smoothly over the polished floor, with all the fair pictured faces, the crimson draperies, the pensive Madonnas, Dutch boors, Italian temples, and hills, and skies, circling round them like the figures in a kaleidoscope. "Do you remember our boy-and-girl waltzes in the hall at the Abbey House?" asked Rorie. Happily for Vixen her face was so turned that he could not see the quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain that paled her cheeks. "I am not likely to forget any part of my childhood," she answered gravely. "It was the one happy period of my life." "You don't expect me to believe that the last two years have been altogether unhappy." "You may believe what you like. You who knew my father, ought to know----" "The dear Squire! do you think I am likely to undervalue him, or to forget your loss? No, Violet, no. But there are compensations. I heard of you at Brighton. You were very happy there, were you not?" "I liked Brighton pretty well. And I had Arion there all the while. There are some capital rides on the Downs." "Yes, and you had agreeable friends there."