COUNTESS VIOLET. CHAPTER I. AT one side of the large fireplace sat a very old lady-firm and erect in figure; and as she steadily gazed at the coals which burned so redly in the grate, she sought no easy attitude in her arm-chair, but appeared quite independent of the high straight back that would have given her support if she had wished it. Opposite to her, and sitting in a very low chair, was a young girl of fourteen. She too watched the fire, as she had watched it many a time before in the gloaming, and wondered, as she had often wondered before, why grandmamma liked sitting in just that one place, and doing just that same thing every day. Violet could remember no other home than B this great silent house, where she now lived with her only relative, the Countess of Glenmore. Her life there had been strangely lonely and weird for so young a girl; for all thought of childhood seemed banished from a place where the servants were all old men and women-grown old in the service of the house -and where the only visitor who was welcomed was the vicar of the parish, a courtly old gentleman of nearly eighty years, whose vicarage was nearly as quiet as Glenmore Hall, for no wife or children dwelt there-only a quiet sister, who was at least seventy. Except in church, Violet Hastings never saw children, and there her grave young face and solemn eyes checked many a hasty smile or whisper amongst the red-cloaked school-girls, who watched the little lady from the Hall with wondering interest. This was not a natural life for a child; but its real sadness of detail was not fully known to Violet herself, for she had never realized what childhood's pleasures should be. She had lessons with her governess, an elderly widow lady, during the day; but at five o'clock she was always summoned to the drawing |