"Are they not nice?" asked Mrs. Winstanley gushingly, when she and Violet were alone.
"Trimmer's drop-cakes?" said Vixen, who was standing by the tea-table munching a dainty little biscuit. "Yes, they are always capital."
"Nonsense, Violet; I mean the Duchess and her daughter."
Vixen yawned audibly.
"I'm glad you do not find the Duchess insupportably dreary," she said. "Lady Mabel weighed me down like a nightmare."
"Oh Violet! when she behaved so sweetly—quite caressingly, I thought. You really ought to cultivate her friendship. It would be so nice for you to visit at Ashbourne. You would have such opportunities——"
"Of doing what, mamma? Heading polonaises and mazurkas in seven double flats; or seeing orchids with names as long as a German compound adjective."
"Opportunities of being seen and admired by young men of position, Violet. Sooner or later the time must come for you to think of marrying."
"That time will never come, mamma. I shall stay at home with you till you are tired of me, and when you turn me out I will have a cottage in the heart of the Forest—upon some wild ridge topped with a hat of firs—and good old McCroke to take care of me; and I will spend my days botanising and fern-hunting, riding and walking, and perhaps learn to paint my favourite trees, and live as happily and as remote from mankind as the herons in their nests at the top of the tall beeches on Vinny Ridge."
"I am very glad there is no one present to hear you talk like that, Violet," Mrs. Winstanley said gravely.