“Poor fellow!” she thought blandly, “ supposes that anything would tempt me to marry again, he is egregiously mistaken.”

And then she looked round the lovely old room, brightened by a crowd of well-dressed people, and thought that next to being Edward Tempest’s wife, the best thing in life was to be Edward Tempest’s widow.

“Dear Edward!” she mused, “how strange that we should miss him so little to-night.”

It had been with everyone as if the squire had never lived. Politeness exacted this ignoring of the past, no doubt; but the thing had been so easily done. The noble presence, the jovial laugh, the friendly smile were gone, and no one seemed conscious of the void — no one but Violet, who looked round the room once when conversation was liveliest, with a pale indignant face, resenting this forgetfulness.

“I wish papa’s ghost would come in at that door and scare his hollow-hearted friends,” she said to herself; and she felt as if it would hardly have been a surprise to her to see the door open slowly and that familiar figure appear.

“Well, Violet,” Mrs. Temple said sweetly, when the guests were gone, “how do you think it all went off?”

“It,” of course, meant the dinner-party.