His meeting with Violet was of course pleasant enough. Now that she
had succumbed, and had told herself and had told him that she loved
him, she did not scruple to be as generous as a maiden should be who
has acknowledged herself to be conquered, and has rendered herself to
the conqueror. She would walk with him and ride with him, and take a
lively interest in the performances of all his horses, and listen to
hunting stories as long as he chose to tell them. In all this, she
was so good and so loving that Lady Laura was more than once tempted
to throw in her teeth her old, often-repeated assertions, that she
was not prone to be in love,--that it was not her nature to feel any
ardent affection for a man, and that, therefore, she would probably
remain unmarried. "You begrudge me my little bits of pleasure,"
Violet said, in answer to one such attack. "No;--but it is so odd to
see you, of all women, become so love-lorn," "I am not love-lorn,"
said Violet, "but I like the freedom of telling him everything and
of hearing everything from him, and of having him for my own best
friend. He might go away for twelve months, and I should not be
unhappy, believing, as I do, that he would be true to me." All of
which set Lady Laura thinking whether her friend had not been wiser
than she had been.
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