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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Cut him a slice of beef, dear Miss McCroke," said Vixen. "Not now, thanks; I can't eat now. I'm going to drink orange pekoe." Argus had taken up his position between Violet and her visitor.
Miss McCroke had gone to her room to write letters, or Vixen would have hardly been allowed to remain peacefully in such an inelegant position, her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms embracing her legs, her back against the stout oak shutter. Yet the girl and dog made rather a pretty picture, despite the inelegance of Vixen's attitude.
Vixen was in a peculiar temper during those three weeks, and poor Miss McCroke had hard work with her. "Der, die, das," cried Vixen, throwing down her German grammar in a rage one morning, when she had been making a muddle of the definite article in her exercise, and the patient governess had declared that they really must go back to the very beginning of things.
"Then if all is well, Miss McCroke," pursued Mrs. Tempest, "we will go back at the end of November. It would be a pity to lose the season here." Vixen yawned despondently. "What do we care about the season, mamma?" she exclaimed. "Can it matter to us whether there are two or three thousand extra people in the place? It only makes the King's Road a little more uncomfortable."
In the wide low windows there were two banks of bright autumn flowers, pompons and dwarf roses, mignonette and veronica. Miss McCroke drew up the blind, and stirred the fire. "I'll go and ask her to come," she said. "Do, like a dear," said Rorie. He paced the room while she was gone, full of sadness.
How can I help being vulgar when I associate with you? You should hear Miss McCroke preach at me sermons so long" here Vixen extended her arms to the utmost "and I'm afraid they'd make as much impression on Titmouse as they do upon me. But she's a dear old thing, and I love her immensely." This was Vixen's usual way, making up for all shortcomings with the abundance of her love.
She had kept up a regular correspondence with her old governess, since she had been in Jersey, and had developed to Miss McCroke the scheme of her future travels. They were to see everything strange and rare and beautiful, that was to be seen in the world. "I wonder if you would much mind going to Africa?" she wrote, in one of her frank girlish letters. "There must be something new in Africa.
The heart was always atoning for the errors of the head. "I wouldn't be Miss McCroke for anything. She must have a bad time of it with you." "She has," assented Vixen, with a remorseful sigh; "I fear I'm bringing her sandy hairs with sorrow to the grave. That hair of hers never could be gray, you know, it's too self-opinionated in its sandiness. Now come along, Rorie, do.
Miss McCroke was dreary, but she was not altogether uncompanionable. One could talk to her." "You had better have a companion, mamma. Someone who will be lively, and talk pleasantly about nothing particular all day long. No doubt a well-trained companion can do that. She has an inexhaustible well-spring of twaddle in her own mind. I feel as if I could never be cheerful again."
"I don't think there is much fear of any of us being perfect," said Miss McCroke severely. "Imperfection is more in the line of humanity." "Do you think so?" interrogated Rorie. "I find there is a great deal too much perfection in this world, too many faultless people I hate them." "Isn't that a confession of faultiness on your side?" suggested Miss McCroke. "It may be. But it's the truth."
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