Immensely, Sir Hopkins said. Did not know
when he had liked a place so much. Though,
indeed, to a man who had roughed it a good
deal in the world, all places should be like all
beds—very much the same.

"Indeed," said the girl, half shyly, half
earnestly, and with an animation that became
her wonderfully, "our little ways and
manners must seem very trifling to you, who
have travelled so many, many miles, and have
managed those dreadfully savage people. I
would give the world to know how it is done,"
she added, the shyness being now all absorbed
in the earnestness, "and how even a beginning
is made." This was not the venial hypocrisy of
the drawing-room; for Fermor had indeed
invested his relation's achievements with an air of
adventure.

"Why, you don't tell me," Sir Hopkins said,
in great delight, "that you have been reading
up the Blue Books? Where did you pick up
about the Waipiti?"

Fermor and Sir Hopkins went away
together. Pretty much the same feeling was in
both minds. "My dear boy," said the latter,
detaining him gently, "we older fellows may
not have as fresh a taste, but I fancy I know
a girl about as well as you know a horse.
And, positively, if I had to choose between our
good little innocent rustic and that girl, I
declare—" And he finished the sentence in
an expressive squeeze of his lips. "To say
nothing," he added, in a lower voice, "of the
money-bags. Ha! ha! I suppose I am getting
old and exploded—though the F. O., I am
glad to say, does not think so. Where were your
eyes, to choose her in preference to the sister,
even?"

Fermor was bursting to say something
haughty, but restrained himself.

"If I had been at your elbow, Master Charles,
while you were choosing, I declare to you, upon
—my—sol—emn—word of honour," Sir Hopkins
put little jerks between each word, "if I were
ten years younger, I would go to Miss Manuel
within the next half-hour, and offer her the
vacancy in my house. What a governor's wife she
would be! We would rule the colonies. I think
you were a little in awe of her, eh? I remark
she has a quiet decisive manner about her, which
(naturally enough) you would not relish. Only
for her, how would it have turned out, I should
like to know? Clever, clever, woman that. I
admire her."

"I assure you, sir," said Fermor, hotly, "in
that view you are quite astray."

"Perhaps so," said Sir Hopkins, carelessly,
"perhaps so. But a word of advice, Charles.
Don't have the look of being directed by any
whole family. I say the look."

How Fermor fumed and glowed out of Sir
Hopkins's presence may be imagined by those
who know him even a little.

His visits to the Manuels became spasmodic
and intermittent. When he paid them, he sat
there gloomily, and as it were under a sense
of injury. And when he found them looking
at him mournfully and with wonder, he rose
impatiently, and went away almost abruptly.
They knew not what to make of him. At
last it came to this, that he actually stayed
away three whole days, and the night of
that third day was for Violet one of the most
wretched of her life. All her thoughts seemed to
be seething and boiling in that small head; her bed
seemed to be turned into a furnace. She suffered
a weight of agony, and when the steady daylight
of nine o'clock came, she rose exhausted and
trembling, with a worn face, but with eyes that
sparkled like some of the lamps of the night
before.

The anxious sister, Pauline, was in Violet's
room as soon as she heard her stirring. There
was a little wildness in her eyes.

"Darling Violet," said her sister, going up
to her, "this is dreadful. You will wear yourself
into a grave. Your health cannot bear it, I
know it cannot."

"I am better this morning," she said, "much
better, if I could only make myself sleep."

Pauline looked at her, irresolute as to how
she should begin. "We have been thinking
and talking it all over this morning; and now,
my dear darling Violet, this is to be
considered, and is worth considering. You were
very happy a short time ago, until certain things
took place, and you are not strong, and much
anxiety or sorrow would wear you out. Now,
dearest, is it not better, before it is too late, to
have courage to go back. I fear we have made a
mistake. We, I say, who ought to have been
more sensible, and to have known better. Now
what we have thought is this—and it is a cruel
thing, darling, to propose—would it not be
better, after all, to have done with this—
altogether?"

Violet's glistening eyes had been widening
and distending all this time. It was only at
the last word that she caught her sister's meaning.
She broke out in a fright.

"No, no! I can't. I could not. And to
come from me. No, I could not, indeed," she
added, piteously.

"Ah," said Pauline, in tones of the softest
compassion, "that is it, darling. Is it not better
that it should come from you, than that it should
come from—"

"What!" said the other, excitedly. "Do
you know anything? Do you believe it? Do
you—"

She was so excited that her sister said to her,
"No, no! It is only that I fear."

"Then you have heard something. He told
you," said Violet, distractedly. "O, I had a
presentiment that this was coming!" And she
lay back on the sofa and panted nervously, and
a look of scared terror came to her face that
quite alarmed Pauline. She ran to her.

"It is nothing," she said. "I am all wrong,
indeed I am. I know nothing, and have heard
nothing, upon my word and honour, as I stand
here. It is only some of my foolish sense and
caution. Won't you believe me when I tell you
so?"