Three days before the dinner, Vixen, riding Arion home through the shrubbery, after a long morning in the Forest, was startled by the vision of a dog-cart a few yards in front of her, a cart, which, at the first glance, she concluded must belong to Roderick Vawdrey. The wheels were red, the horse had a rakish air, the light vehicle swung from side to side as it spun around the curve. No, that slim figure, that neat waist, that military air did not belong to Roderick Vawdrey. "He here!" ejaculated Vixen inwardly, with infinite disgust. "I thought we had seen the last of him." She had been out for two hours and a half, and felt that Arion had done quite enough, or she would have turned her horse's head and gone back to the Forest, in order to avoid this unwelcome visitor. "I only hope mamma won't encourage him to come here," she thought; "but I'm afraid that smooth tongue of his has too much influence over her. And I haven't even poor Crokey to stand by me. I shall feel like a bird transfixed by the wicked green eyes of a velvet-pawed murdering cat." "And I have not a friend in the world," she thought. "Plenty of pleasant acquaintance, ready to simper at me and pay me compliments, because I am Miss Tempest of the Abbey House, but not one honest friend to stand by me, and turn that man out of doors. How dare he come here? I thought I spoke plainly enough that night at Brighton." She rode slowly up to the house, slipped lightly out of her saddle, and led her horse round to the stables, just as she had led the pony in her happy childish days. The bright thoroughbred bay was as fond of her as if he had been a dog, and as tame. She stood by his manger caressing him while he ate his corn, and feeling very safe from Captain Winstanley's society in the warm clover-scented stable. She dawdled away half-a-hour in this manner, before she went back to the house, and ran up to her dressing-room. "If mamma sends for me now, I shan't be able to go down," she thought. "He can hardly stay more than an hour. Oh, horror! he is a tea-drinker; mamma will persuade him to stop till five o'clock." Violet dawdled over her change of dress as she had dawdled in the stable. She had never been more particular about her hair. "I'll have it all taken down, Phoebe," she told her Abigail; "I'm in no hurry." "But really, miss, it's beautiful----" "Nonsense after a windy ride; don't be lazy, Phoebe. You may give my hair a good brushing while I read." A tap at the door came at this moment, and Phoebe ran to open it. "Mrs. Tempest wishes Miss Tempest to come down to the drawing-room directly," said a voice in the corridor. "There now, miss," cried Phoebe, "how lucky I didn't take your hair down. It never was nicer."