"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.