He heard her with firmly-set lips and an angry sparkle in his dark eyes, but his tone was full of paternal indulgence presently, when Mrs. Tempest had poured out all her woes. "Is it not hard upon me, Conrad?" she asked in conclusion. "My dear Pamela, I hope you are too strong-minded to distress yourself seriously about a wilful girl's foolishness. Your daughter has a noble nature, but she has been spoiled by too much indulgence. Even a race-horse--the noblest thing in creation--has to be broken in; not always without severe punishment. Miss Tempest and I will come to understand each other perfectly by-and-by." "I know you will be a second father to her," said Mrs. Tempest tearfully. "I will do my duty to her, dearest, be assured." Still Mrs. Tempest went on harping upon the cruelty of her daughter's conduct. The consciousness of Violet's displeasure weighed heavily upon her. "I dare not even show her my _trousseau_," she complained, "all confidence is at an end between us. I should like to have had her opinion about my dresses--though she is sadly deficient in taste, poor child! and has never even learnt to put on her gloves perfectly." "And your own taste is faultless, love," replied the Captain soothingly. "What can you want with advice from an inexperienced girl, whose mind is in the stable?" "It is not her advice I want, Conrad; but her sympathy. Fanny Scobel is coming this afternoon. I can show her my things. I really feel quite nervous about talking to Violet of her own dress. She must have a new dress for the wedding, you know; though she cannot be a bridesmaid. I think that is really unfair. Don't you, Conrad?" "What is unfair, dearest?" asked the Captain, whose mind had scarcely followed the harmless meanderings of his lady's speech. "That a widow is not allowed to have bridesmaids or orange-blossoms. It seems like taking the poetry out of a wedding, does it not?" "Not to my mind, Pamela. The poetry of wedlock does not lie in these details--a sugared cake, and satin favours; a string of carriages, and a Brussels veil. The true poetry of marriage is in the devotion and fidelity of the two hearts it binds together." Mrs Tempest sighed gently, and was almost resigned to be married without bridesmaids or orange-blossoms. It was now within a month of the wedding, which was to be solemnised on the last day of August--a convenient season for a honeymoon tour in Scotland. Mrs. Tempest liked to travel when other people travelled. Mountain and flood would have had scarcely any charm for her "out of the season." The time had come when Violet's dress must be talked about, as Mrs. Tempest told the Vicar's wife solemnly. She had confided the secret of her daughter's unkindness to Mrs. Scobel, in the friendly hour of afternoon tea. "It is very hard upon me," she repeated--"very hard that the only drawback to my happiness should come from my own child." "Violet was so fond of her father," said Mrs. Scobel excusingly.