"I'm afraid you'll never like Briarwood as well as the Abbey House," said Rorie humbly. "I tried my best to patch it up for Lady Mabel; for, you see, as I felt I fell short in the matter of affection, I wanted to do the right thing in furniture and decorations. But the house is lamentably modern and commonplace. I'm afraid you'll never be happy there." "Rorie, I could be happy with you if our home were no better than the charcoal-burner's hut in Mark Ash," protested Vixen. "It's very good of you to say that. Do you like sage-green?" Rorie asked with a doubtful air. "Pretty well. It reminds me of mamma's dress-maker, Madame Theodore." "Because Mabel insisted upon having sage-green curtains, and chair-covers, and a sage-green wall with a chocolate dado--did you ever hear of a dado?--in the new morning-room I built for her. I'm rather afraid you won't like it; I should have preferred pink or blue myself, and no dado. It looks so much as if one had run short of wall-paper. But it can all be altered by-and-by, if you don't like it." They found Miss Skipwith pacing the weedy gravel walk in front of her parlour window, with a disturbed air, and a yellow envelope in her hand. "My dear, this has been an eventful day," she exclaimed. "I have been very anxious for your return. Here is a telegram for you; and as it is the first you have had since you have been staying here, I conclude it is of some importance." Vixen took the envelope eagerly from her hand. "If you were not standing by my side, a telegram would frighten me," she whispered to Roderick. "It might tell me you were dead." The telegram was from Captain Winstanley to Miss Tempest: "Come home by the next boat. Your mother is ill, and anxious to see you. The carriage will meet you at Southampton." Poor Vixen looked at her lover with a conscience-stricken countenance. "Oh, Rorie, and I have been so wickedly, wildly happy!" she cried, as if it were a crime to have so rejoiced. "And I made so light of mamma's last letter, in which she complained of being ill. I hardly gave it a thought." "I don't suppose there is anything very wrong," said Rorie, in a comforting tone, after he had studied those few bold words in the telegram, trying to squeeze the utmost meaning out of the brief sentence. "You see, Captain Winstanley does not say that your mother is dangerously ill, or even very ill; he only says ill. That might mean something quite insignificant--hay-fever or neuralgia, or a nervous headache." "But he tells me to go home--he who hates me, and was so glad to get me out of the house." "It is your mother who summons you home, no doubt. She is mistress in her own house, of course." "You would not say that if you knew Captain Winstanley."