' My noble husband,' she ejaculated ' Who could help loving you ?'

It seem rscl to her only a little while ago that she had driven up to the Tudor porch for the first time after her happy honeymoon, when she was in the bloom of youth and beauty, and life was like a schoolgirl's happy dream.
' How short life is,' she sobbed ; 1 how cruelly short for those who are happy !' With Violet grief was no less passion ate ; but it did not find its sole vent in tears. The stronger soul was in re bollion against Providence. She kept aloof from her mother in the time of sorrow. What could they say to each other 1 They could only cry together. Violet shut herself in her room, and refused to see anyone, except patient Miss McOroke, who was always bring in «• her cups of tea, or basins of arrow root, trying to coax her to take some kind of nourishment, dabbing her hot forehead with eau-de-cologne — doing all those fussy little kindnesses which are so acutely aggravating in a great sorrow. < Let me lie on the ground alone, and think of him, and wail for him.'

That is what Violet Tempest would have said, if she could, have expressed her desire clearly.
