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Nothing associated with the exiled heiress was left, except the rooms she had inhabited; and even they looked blank and empty and strange without her. It was almost as if a whole family had departed. Vixen's presence seemed to have filled the house with youth and freshness, and free joyous life. Without her all was silent as the grave. Mrs. Winstanley missed her daughter sorely.
She paused with her arm round her dog's neck, as he stood on end, looking over the parapet, with a deep interest in possible rats or rabbits lurking in some cavity of the craggy cliff below. If! Ah, what a big "if" that was! It meant love and dear familiar companionship. It meant all Vixen's little world. She lingered long. The scene was beautiful, and there was nothing to lure her home.
She went round the gardens and shrubberies in the early morning, looking sadly at everything, as if she were bidding the trees and flowers a long farewell. The rhododendron thickets were shining with dew, the grassy tracks in that wilderness of verdure were wet and cold under Vixen's feet.
Fred had been all over the farm; had been introduced to the whole live stock, including ferrets and the tame hedge-hog; visited the plantations, and assisted at the killing of a stoat; cut his name out on the bark of the old pollard; and, in short, had been supremely happy. He "was just going to see Dumpling and Vixen's puppies at Sutton Leigh, when "
Half a mile through the cool forest, the black dirt of the driveway flying from Vixen's hoofs, and there was the Colfax house on the edge of the gentle slope; and beyond it the orchard, and the blue grapes withering on the vines, and beyond that fields and fields of yellow stubble. The silver smoke of a steamboat hung in wisps above the water.
Then the two girls bowed and smiled: a constrained smile on Vixen's part, a prim and chilly smile from Lady Mabel. "I want you two to be awful good friends," said Rorie; "and when you come out, Vixen, Lady Mabel will take you under her wing. She knows everybody, and the right thing to be done on every occasion." Vixen turned from red to pale, and said nothing.
On the following day, at eleven A. M., a cloud of thick smoke was observed rising above the jungle, which we immediately decided to proceed from a steamer. Shortly afterwards two masts appeared above the trees, and at one of them the Vixen's number was flying: she soon hove in sight. We weighed, and with the Harlequin, were towed down the river at a rapid pace.
Half a mile through the cool forest, the black dirt of the driveway flying from Vixen's hoofs, and there was the Colfax house on the edge of the, gentle slope; and beyond it the orchard, and the blue grapes withering on the vines, and beyond that fields and fields of yellow stubble. The silver smoke of a steamboat hung in wisps above the water.
The tawny hair, black velvet frock, and careless amber sash, amber stockings, and broad-toed Cromwell shoes; the tawny mastiff curled in the opposite corner of the deep recess; the old armorial bearings, sending pale shafts of parti-coloured light across Vixen's young head; these things made a picture full framed of light and colour, in the dark brown oak.
"Since it's that vixen's trade to behave so with men I don't see that she has any right to refuse one more than another. I may as well tell you she took any lovers she could get at Rouen even coachmen! Yes, indeed, madame the coachman at the prefecture! I know it for a fact, for he buys his wine of us.
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