"But, dear Violet, you are not alone in the world. You have your poor mamma to think of."
"Mamma—yes. I am sorry for her, of course. But she is only like a lay-figure in my life. Papa was everything."
"Do you know where your mamma is going to take you?"
"No; I neither know nor care. It will be to a house with four walls and a roof, I suppose. It will be all the same to me wherever it is."
What could Roderick say? It was too soon to talk about hope or comfort. His heart was rent by this dull silent grief; but he could do nothing except sit there silently by Vixen's side with her cold unresponsive hands held in his.
Miss McCroke came back presently, followed by a maid carrying a pretty little Japanese tea-tray.
"I have just been giving your poor mamma a cup of tea, Violet," said the governess. "Mr. Clements has been telling her about the will, and it has been quite too much for her. She was almost hysterical. But she's better now, poor dear. And now we'll all have some tea. Bring the table to the fire, Mr. Vawdrey, please, and let us make ourselves comfortable," concluded Miss McCroke, with an assumption of mild cheerfulness.
Perhaps there is not in all nature so cheerful a thing as a good sea-coal fire, with a log of beechwood on the top of the coals. It will be cheerful in the face of affliction. It sends out its gushes of warmth and brightness, its gay little arrowy flames that appear and disappear like elves dancing their midnight waltzes on a barren moor. It seems to say: "Look at me and be comforted! Look at me and hope! So from the dull blackness of sorrow rise the many coloured lights of new-born joy."
Vixen suffered her chair to be brought near that cheery fire, and just then Argus crept into the room and nestled at her knee. Roderick seated himself at the other side of the hearth—a bright little fire-place with its border of high-art tiles, illuminated with the story of "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," after quaintly mediaeval designs, by Mr. Stacey Marks. Miss McCroke poured out the tea in the quaint old red and blue Worcester cups, and valiantly sustained that assumption of cheerfulness. She would not have permitted herself to smile yesterday; but now the funeral was over, the blinds were drawn up, and a mild cheerfulness was allowable.
"If you would condescend to tell me where you are going, Vixen, I might contrive to come there too, by-and-by. We could have some rides together. You'll take Arion, of course."