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+Project Gutenberg's About Peggy Saville, by Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: About Peggy Saville
+
+Author: Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
+
+Release Date: November 25, 2007 [EBook #23622]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+About Peggy Saville, by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+I have used part of the same introduction for this book, as I did for
+one of the books about Pixie O'Shaughnessy, not because the books are
+anything like the same, but because the observations are equally valid.
+
+This is another excellent book by Mrs de Horne Vaizey, dating from the
+end of the nineteenth century.  While of course it is dated in its
+references to the world around its actors, yet nevertheless their
+emotions are well-described, and no doubt are timeless.
+
+Some older children are being educated at a Vicarage near Brighton,
+along with the vicar's own three. Peggy Saville is a "new girl", having
+previously lived in India, where her parents still are. She has great
+talent in some directions, but still has to add up by counting on her
+fingers! She certainly gets up to some tricks, though.
+
+There is a fire at a dance given by the titled family of one of the
+pupils, from which Peggy rescues the daughter of the house. Both girls
+are injured, Peggy the more severely, but eventually they are both on
+the way to recovery.
+
+In some ways the world around the people in the book is recognisable
+today, in a way which a book written thirty or forty years before would
+not have been.  They have electricity, telephones, trains, buses, and
+many other things that we still use regularly today.  Of course one
+major difference is that few people today have servants, while
+middle-class and upper-class families of the eighteen nineties would
+certainly have had them.
+
+So it is not so very dated after all.  But I do think there is a real
+value in reading the book.  Oddly enough, I think that a boy would
+benefit from reading any of the author's books, more than a girl would,
+because it would give him an insight into the girlish mind which he
+could not so easily otherwise obtain.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE, BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+A NEW INMATE.
+
+The afternoon post had come in, and the Vicar of Renton stood in the bay
+window of his library reading his budget of letters.  He was a tall,
+thin man, with a close-shaven face, which had no beauty of feature, but
+which was wonderfully attractive all the same.  It was not an old face,
+but it was deeply lined, and those who knew and loved him best could
+tell the meaning of each of those eloquent tracings.  The deep vertical
+mark running up the forehead meant sorrow.  It had been stamped there
+for ever on the night when Hubert, his first-born, had been brought
+back, cold and lifeless, from the river to which he had hurried forth
+but an hour before, a picture of happy boyhood.  The vicar's brow had
+been smooth enough before that day.  The furrow was graven to the memory
+of Teddy, the golden-haired lad who had first taught him the joys of
+fatherhood.  The network of lines about the eyes were caused by the
+hundred and one little worries of everyday life, and the strain of
+working a delicate body to its fullest pitch; and the two long, deep
+streaks down the cheeks bore testimony to that happy sense of humour
+which showed the bright side of a question, and helped him out of many a
+slough of despair.  This afternoon, as he stood reading his letters one
+by one, the different lines deepened, or smoothed out, according to the
+nature of the missive.  Now he smiled, now he sighed, anon he crumpled
+up his face in puzzled thought, until the last letter of all was
+reached, when he did all three in succession, ending up with a low
+whistle of surprise--
+
+"Edith!  This is from Mrs Saville.  Just look at this!"
+
+Instantly there came a sound of hurried rising from the other end of the
+room; a work-basket swayed to and fro on a rickety gipsy-table, and the
+vicar's wife walked towards him, rolling half a dozen reels of thread in
+her wake with an air of fine indifference.
+
+"Mrs Saville!" she exclaimed eagerly.  "How is my boy?" and without
+waiting for an answer she seized the letter, and began to devour its
+contents, while her husband went stooping about over the floor picking
+up the contents of the scattered basket and putting them carefully back
+in their places.  He smiled to himself as he did so, and kept turning
+amused, tender glances at his wife as she stood in the uncarpeted space
+in the window, with the sunshine pouring in on her eager face.  Mrs
+Asplin had been married for twenty years, and was the mother of three
+big children; but such was the buoyancy of her Irish nature and the
+irrepressible cheeriness of her heart, that she was in good truth the
+youngest person in the house, so that her own daughters were sometimes
+quite shocked at her levity of behaviour, and treated her with gentle,
+motherly restraint.  She was tall and thin, like her husband, and he, at
+least, considered her every whit as beautiful as she had been a score of
+years before.  Her hair was dark and curly; she had deep-set grey eyes,
+and a pretty fresh complexion.  When she was well, and rushing about in
+her usual breathless fashion, she looked like the sister of her own tall
+girls; and when she was ill, and the dark lines showed under her eyes,
+she looked like a tired, wearied girl, but never for a moment as if she
+deserved such a title as an old, or elderly, woman.  Now, as she read,
+her eyes glowed, and she uttered ecstatic little exclamations of triumph
+from time to time; for Arthur Saville, the son of the lady who was the
+writer of the letter, had been the first pupil whom her husband had
+taken into his house to coach, and as such had a special claim on her
+affection.  For the first dozen years of their marriage all had gone
+smoothly with Mr and Mrs Asplin, and the vicar had had more work than
+he could manage in his busy city parish; then, alas, lung trouble had
+threatened; he had been obliged to take a year's rest, and to exchange
+his living for a sleepy little parish, where he could breathe fresh air,
+and take life at a slower pace.  Illness, the doctor's bills, the year's
+holiday, ran away with a large sum of money; the stipend of the country
+church was by no means generous, and the vicar was lamenting the fact
+that he was shortest of money just when his children were growing up and
+he needed it most, when an old college friend requested, as a favour,
+that he would undertake the education of his only son, for a year at
+least, so that the boy might be well grounded in his studies before
+going on to the military tutor who was to prepare him for Sandhurst.
+Handsome terms were quoted, the vicar looked upon the offer as a leading
+of Providence, and Arthur Saville's stay at the vicarage proved a
+success in every sense of the word.  He was a clever boy who was not
+afraid of work, and the vicar discovered in himself an unsuspected
+genius for teaching.  Arthur's progress not only filled him with
+delight, but brought the offer of other pupils, so that he was but the
+forerunner of a succession of bright, handsome boys, who came from far
+and wide to be prepared for college, and to make their home at the
+vicarage.  They were honest, healthy-minded lads, and Mrs Asplin loved
+them all, but no one had ever taken Arthur Saville's place.  During the
+year which he had spent under her roof he had broken his collar-bone,
+sprained his ankle, nearly chopped off the top of one of his fingers,
+scalded his foot, and fallen crash through a plate-glass window.  There
+had never been one moment's peace or quietness; she had gone about from
+morning to night in chronic fear of a disaster; and, as a matter of
+course, it followed that Arthur was her darling, ensconced in a little
+niche of his own, from which subsequent pupils tried in vain to oust
+him.
+
+Mrs Saville dwelt upon the latest successes of her clever son with a
+mother's pride, and his second mother beamed, and smiled, and cried, "I
+told you so!"
+
+"Dear boy!"
+
+"Of course he did!" in delighted echo.  But when she came to the second
+half of the letter her face changed, and she grew grave and anxious.
+"And now, dear Mr Asplin," Mrs Saville wrote, "I come to the real
+burden of my letter.  I return to India in autumn, and am most anxious
+to see Peggy happily settled before I leave.  She has been at this
+Brighton school for four years, and has done well with her lessons, but
+the poor child seems so unhappy at the thought of returning, that I am
+sorely troubled about her.  Like most Indian children, she has had very
+little home life, and after being with me for the last six months she
+dreads the prospect of school, and I cannot bear the thought of sending
+her back against her will.  I was puzzling over the question yesterday,
+when it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps you, dear Mr Asplin, could
+help me out of my difficulty.  Could you--would you, take her in hand
+for the next three years, letting her share the lessons of your own two
+girls?  I cannot tell you what a relief and joy it would be to feel that
+she was under your care.  Arthur always looks back on the year spent
+with you as one of the brightest of his life; and I am sure Peggy would
+be equally happy.  I write to you from force of habit, but really I
+think this letter should have been addressed to Mrs Asplin, for it is
+she who would be most concerned.  I know her heart is large enough to
+mother my dear girl during my absence; and if strength and time will
+allow her to undertake this fresh charge, I think she will be glad to
+help another mother by doing so.  Peggy is bright and clever, like her
+brother, and strong on the whole, though her throat needs care.  She is
+nearly fifteen--the age, I think, of your youngest girl--and we should
+be pleased to pay the same terms as we did for Arthur.  Now, please,
+dear Mr Asplin, talk the matter over with your wife, and let me know
+your decision as soon as possible."
+
+Mrs Asplin dropped the letter on the floor, and turned to confront her
+husband.
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It is your affair, dear, not mine.  You would have the trouble.  Could
+you do with an extra child in the house?"
+
+"Yes, yes, so far as that goes.  The more the merrier.  I should like to
+help Arthur's mother, but,"--Mrs Asplin leant her head on one side, and
+put on what her children described as her "Ways and Means" expression.
+She was saying to herself,--"Clear out the box-room over the study.
+Spare chest-of-drawers from dressing-room--cover a box with one of the
+old chintz curtains for an ottoman--enamel the old blue furniture--new
+carpet and bedstead, say five or six pounds outlay--yes!  I think I
+could make it pretty for five pounds!..."  The calculations lasted for
+about two minutes, at the end of which time her brow cleared, she nodded
+brightly, and said in a crisp, decisive tone, "Yes, we will take her!
+Arthur's throat was delicate too.  She must use my gargle."
+
+The vicar laughed softly.
+
+"Ah!  I thought that would decide it.  I knew your soft heart would not
+be able to resist the thought of the delicate throat!  Well, dear, if
+you are willing, so am I.  I am glad to make hay while the sun shines,
+and lay by a little provision for the children.  How will they take it,
+do you think?  They are accustomed to strange boys, but a girl will be a
+new experience.  She will come at once, I suppose, and settle down to
+work for the autumn.  Dear me! dear me!  It is the unexpected that
+happens.  I hope she is a nice child."
+
+"Of course she is.  She is Arthur's sister.  Come! the young folks are
+in the study.  Let us go and tell them the news.  I have always said it
+was my ambition to have half a dozen children, and now, at last, it is
+going to be gratified."
+
+Mrs Asplin thrust her hand through her husband's arm, and led him down
+the wide, flagged hall, towards the room whence the sound of merry young
+voices fell pleasantly upon the ear.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+MELLICENT'S PROPHECY.
+
+The schoolroom was a long, bare apartment running along one side of the
+house, and boasting three tall windows, through which the sun poured in
+on a shabby carpet and ink-stained tables.  Everything looked well worn
+and, to a certain extent, dilapidated, yet there was an air of cheerful
+comfort about the whole which is not often found in rooms of the kind.
+Mrs Asplin revelled in beautiful colours, and would tolerate no drab
+and saffron papers in her house; so the walls were covered with a rich
+soft blue; the cushions on the wicker chairs rang the changes from rose
+to yellow; a brilliant Japanese screen stood in one corner, and a wire
+stand before the open grate held a number of flowering plants.  A young
+fellow of seventeen or eighteen was seated at one end of the table
+employed in arranging a selection of foreign stamps.  This was Maxwell,
+the vicar's eldest surviving son, who was to go up to Oxford at the
+beginning of the year, and was at present reading under his father's
+supervision.  His sister Mellicent was perched on the table itself,
+watching his movements, and vouchsafing scraps of advice.  Her
+suggestions were received with sniffs of scornful superiority, but
+Mellicent prattled on unperturbed, being a plump, placid person, with
+flaxen hair, blue eyes, and somewhat obtuse sensibilities.  The elder
+girl was sitting reading by the window, leaning her head on her hand,
+and showing a long, thin face, comically like her father's, with the
+same deep lines running down her cheeks.  She was neither so pretty nor
+so even-tempered as her sister, but she had twice the character, and was
+a young person who made her individuality felt in the house; while
+Maxwell was the beauty of the family, with his mother's crisp, dark
+locks, grey eyes, and brunette colouring.
+
+These three young people were the vicar's only surviving children; but
+there were two more occupants of the room--the two lads who were being
+coached to enter the University at the same time as his own son.  Number
+one was a fair, dandified-looking youth, who sat astride a deck-chair,
+with his trousers hitched up so as to display long, narrow feet, shod in
+scarlet silk socks and patent-leather slippers.  He had fair hair,
+curling over his forehead; bold blue eyes, an aquiline nose, and an air
+of being very well satisfied with the world in general and himself in
+particular.  This was Oswald Elliston, the son of a country squire, who
+had heard of the successes of Mr Asplin's pupils, and was storing up
+disappointment for himself in expecting similar exploits from his own
+handsome, but by no means over-brilliant, son.  The second pupil had a
+small microscope in his hand, and was poring over a collection of
+"specimens," with his shoulders hitched up to his ears, in a position
+the reverse of elegant.  Every now and then he would bend his head to
+write down a few notes on the paper beside him, showing a square-chinned
+face, with heavy eyebrows and strong roughly-marked features.  His
+clothes were worn, his cuffs invisible, and his hair ruffled into wild
+confusion by the unconscious rubbings of his hands; and this was the
+Honourable Robert Darcy, third son of Lord Darcy, a member of the
+Cabinet, and a politician of world-wide reputation.
+
+The servants at the vicarage were fond of remarking, apropos of the
+Honourable Robert, that he "didn't look it"; which remark would have
+been a subject of sincere gratification to the lad himself, had it been
+overheard; for there was no surer way of annoying him than by referring
+to his position, or giving him the prefix to which he was entitled.
+
+The young folks looked up inquiringly as Mr and Mrs Asplin entered the
+room, for the hour after tea was set apart for recreation, and the
+elders were usually only too glad to remain in their own quiet little
+sanctum.  Oswald, the gallant, sprang to his feet and brought forward a
+chair for Mrs Asplin, but she waved him aside, and broke impetuously
+into words.
+
+"Children! we have news for you.  You are going to have a new companion.
+Father has had a letter this afternoon about another pupil--"
+
+Mellicent yawned, and Esther looked calmly uninterested, but the three
+lads were full of interest.  Their faces turned towards the vicar with
+expressions of eager curiosity.
+
+"A new fellow!  This term!  From what school, sir?"
+
+"A ladies' boarding-school at Brighton!"  Mrs Asplin spoke rapidly, so
+as to be beforehand with her husband, and her eyes danced with
+mischievous enjoyment, as she saw the dismay depicted on the three
+watching faces.  A ladies' school!  Maxwell, Oswald, and Robert, had a
+vision of a pampered pet in curls, and round jacket, and their backs
+stiffened in horrified indignation at the idea that grown men of
+seventeen and eighteen should be expected to associate with a "kid" from
+a ladies' school!
+
+The vicar could not restrain a smile, but he hastened to correct the
+mistake.  "It's not a `fellow' at all, this time.  It's a girl!  We have
+had a letter from Arthur Saville's mother, asking us to look after her
+daughter while she is in India.  She will come to us very soon, and
+stay, I suppose, for three or four years, sharing your lessons, my
+dears, and studying with you--"
+
+"A girl!  Good gracious!  Where will she sleep?" cried Mellicent, with
+characteristic matter-of-fact curiosity, while Esther chimed in with
+further inquiries.
+
+"What is her name?  How old is she?  What is she like?  When will she
+come?  Why is she leaving school?"
+
+"Not very happy.  Peggy.  In the little box-room over the study.  About
+fifteen, I believe.  Haven't the least idea.  In a few weeks from now,"
+said Mrs Asplin, answering all the questions at once in her impulsive
+fashion, the while she walked round the table, stroked Maxwell's curls,
+bent an interested glance at Robert's collection, and laid a hand on
+Esther's back, to straighten bowed shoulders.  "She is Arthur's sister,
+so she is sure to be nice, and both her parents will be in India, so you
+must all be kind to the poor little soul, and give her a hearty
+welcome."
+
+Silence!  Nobody had a word to say in response to this remark; but the
+eyes of the young people met furtively across the table, and Mr Asplin
+felt that they were only waiting until their seniors should withdraw
+before bursting into eager conversation.
+
+"Better leave them to have it out by themselves," he whispered
+significantly to his wife; then added aloud, "Well, we won't interrupt
+you any longer.  Don't turn the play-hour into work, Rob!  You will
+study all the better for a little relaxation.  You have proved the truth
+of that axiom, Oswald--eh?" and he went laughing out of the room, while
+Oswald held the door open for his wife, smiling assent in lazy fashion.
+
+"Another girl!" he exclaimed, as he reseated himself on his chair, and
+looked with satisfaction at his well-shod feet.  "This is an unexpected
+blow!  A sister of the redoubtable Saville!  From all I have heard of
+him, I should imagine a female edition would be rather a terror in a
+quiet household.  I never saw Saville,--what sort of a fellow was he to
+look at, don't you know?"
+
+Mellicent reflected.
+
+"He had a nose!" she said solemnly.  Then, as the others burst into
+hilarious laughter, "Oh, it's no use shrieking at me; I mean what I
+say," she insisted.  "A big nose--like Wellington's!  When people are
+very clever, they always have big noses.  I imagine Peggy small, with a
+little thin face, because she was born in India, and lived there until
+she was six years old, and a great big nose in the middle--"
+
+"Sounds appetising," said Maxwell shortly.  "I don't!  I imagine Peggy
+like her mother, with blue eyes and brown hair.  Mrs Saville is awfully
+pretty.  I have seen her often, and if her daughter is like her--"
+
+"I don't care in the least how she looks," said Esther severely.  "It's
+her character that matters.  Indian children are generally spoiled, and
+if she has been to a boarding-school she may give herself airs.  Then we
+shall quarrel.  I am not going to be patronised by a girl of fourteen.
+I expect she will be Mellicent's friend, not mine."
+
+"I wonder what sums she is in!" said Mellicent dreamily.  "Rob! what do
+you think about it?  Are you glad or sorry?  You haven't said anything
+yet."
+
+Robert raised his eyes from his microscope, and looked her up and down,
+very much as a big Newfoundland dog looks at the terrier which disturbs
+its slumber.
+
+"It's nothing to me," he said loftily.  "She may come if she likes."
+Then, with sudden recollection, "Does she learn the violin?  Because we
+have already _one_ girl in this house who is learning the violin, and
+life won't be worth living if there is a second."
+
+He tucked his big notebook under his chin as he spoke, and began sawing
+across it with a pencil, wagging his head and rolling his eyes, in
+imitation of Mellicent's own manner of practising, producing at the same
+time such long-drawn, catlike wails from between his closed lips as made
+the listeners shriek with laughter.  Mellicent, however, felt bound to
+expostulate.
+
+"It's not the tune at all," she cried loudly.  "Not like any of my
+pieces; and if I _do_ roll my eyes, I don't rumple up my hair and pull
+faces at the ceiling, as _some_ people do, and I know who they are, but
+I am too polite to say so!  I hope Peggy will be my friend, because then
+there will be two of us, and you won't dare to tease me any more.  When
+Arthur was here, a boy pulled my hair, and he carried him upstairs and
+held his head underneath the shower-bath."
+
+"I'll pull it again, and see if Peggy will do the same," said Rob
+pleasantly; and poor Mellicent stared from one smiling face to another,
+conscious that she was being laughed at, but unable to see the point of
+the joke.
+
+"When Peggy comes," she said, in an injured tone, "I hope she will be
+sympathetic.  I'm the youngest, and I think you ought all to do what I
+want; instead of which you make fun, and laugh among yourselves, and
+send me messages.  For instance, when Max wanted his stamps brought
+down--"
+
+Maxwell passed his big hand over her hair and face, then, reversing the
+direction, rubbed up the point of the little snub nose.
+
+"Never mind, chubby, your day is over!  We will make Peggy the
+message-boy now.  Peggy will be a nice, meek little girl, who will like
+to run messages for her betters!  She shall be my fag, and attend to me.
+I'll give her my stamps to sort."
+
+"I rather thought of having her for fag myself; we can't admit a girl to
+our study unless she makes herself useful," said Oswald languidly;
+whereupon Rob banged the notebook on the table with clanging decision.
+
+"Peggy belongs to me," he announced firmly.  "It's no use you two
+fellows quarrelling.  That matter is settled once for all.  Peggy will
+be my fag; I've barleyed her for myself, and you have nothing to say in
+the matter."
+
+But Esther tossed her head with an air of superior wisdom.
+
+"Wait till she comes," she said sagely.  "If Peggy is anything like her
+brother, you may spare yourself the trouble of planning as to what she
+must or must not do.  It is waste of time.  Peggy will be mistress over
+us all!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+ENTER MISS SAVILLE!
+
+A fortnight later Peggy Saville arrived at the vicarage.  Her mother
+brought her, stayed for a couple of hours, and then left for the time
+being; but as she was to pay some visits in the neighbourhood it was
+understood that this was not the final parting, and that she would spend
+several afternoons with her daughter before sailing for India.  On this
+occasion, however, none of the young people saw her, for they were out
+during the afternoon, and were just settling down to tea in the
+schoolroom when the wheels of the departing carriage crunched down the
+drive.
+
+"Now for it!" cried Maxwell, and they looked at one another in silence,
+knowing full well what would happen.  Mrs Asplin would think an
+introduction to her young friends the best distraction for the strange
+girl after her mother's departure, and the next item in the programme
+would be the appearance of Miss Peggy herself.  Esther rearranged the
+scattered tea-things; Oswald felt to see if his necktie was in position,
+and Robert hunched his shoulders and rolled his eyes at Mellicent in
+distracting fashion.  Each one sat with head cocked on one side, in an
+attitude of eager attention.  The front door banged, footsteps
+approached, and Mrs Asplin's high, cheerful tones were heard drawing
+nearer and nearer.
+
+"This way, dear," she was saying.  "They are longing to see you!"
+
+The listeners gave a simultaneous gulp of excitement, the door opened,
+and--Peggy entered!
+
+She was not in the least what they had expected!  This was neither the
+blonde beauty of Maxwell's foretelling, nor the black-haired elf
+described by Mellicent.  The first glance was unmitigated
+disappointment.
+
+"She is not a bit pretty," was the mental comment of the two girls.
+"What a funny little soul!" that of the three big boys, who had risen on
+Mrs Asplin's entrance, and now stood staring at the new-comer with
+curious eyes.
+
+Peggy was slight and pale, and at the first sight her face gave a
+comical impression of being made up of a succession of peaks.  Her hair
+hung in a pigtail down her back, and grew in a deep point on her
+forehead; her finely-marked eyebrows were shaped like eaves, and her
+chin was for all the world like that of a playful kitten.  Even the
+velvet trimming on her dress accentuated this peculiarity, as it
+zigzagged round the sleeves and neck.  The hazel eyes were light and
+bright, and flitted from one figure to another with a suspicious
+twinkling; but nothing could have been more composed, more demure, or
+patronisingly grown-up than the manner in which this strange girl bore
+the scrutiny which was bent upon her.
+
+"Here are your new friends, Peggy," cried Mrs Asplin cheerily.  "They
+always have tea by themselves in the schoolroom, and do what they please
+from four to five o'clock.  Now just sit down, dear, and take your place
+among them at once.  Esther will make room for you by her side, and
+introduce you to the others.  I will leave you to make friends.  I know
+young people get on better when they are left alone."
+
+She whisked out of the room in her impetuous fashion, and Peggy Saville
+seated herself in the midst of a ghastly silence.  The young people had
+been prepared to cheer and encourage a bashful stranger, but the
+self-possession of this thin, pale-faced girl took them by surprise, so
+that they sat round the table playing uncomfortably with teaspoons and
+knives, and irritably conscious that they, and not the new-comer, were
+the ones to be overcome with confusion.  The silence lasted for a good
+two minutes, and was broken at last by Miss Peggy herself.
+
+"Cream _and_ sugar!" she said, in a tone of sweet insinuation.  "Two
+lumps, if you please.  Not very strong, and as hot as possible.  Thank
+you!  So sorry to be a trouble."
+
+Esther fairly jumped with surprise, and seizing the teapot, filled the
+empty cup in haste.  Then she remembered the dreaded airs of the
+boarding-school miss, and her own vows of independence, and made a
+gallant effort to regain composure.
+
+"No trouble at all.  I hope that will be right.  Please help yourself.
+Bread--and--butter--scones--cake!  I must introduce you to the rest, and
+then you will feel more at home!  I am Esther, the eldest, a year older
+than you, I think.  This is Mellicent, my younger sister, fourteen last
+February.  I think you are about the same age."  She paused a moment,
+and Peggy looked across the table and said, "How do you do, dear?" in an
+affable, grandmotherly fashion, which left poor Mellicent speechless,
+and filled the others with delighted amusement.  But their own turn was
+coming.  Esther pulled herself together, and went on steadily with her
+introductions.  "This is Maxwell, my brother, and these are father's two
+pupils--Oswald Elliston, and Robert--the Honourable Robert Darcy."  She
+was not without hope that the imposing sound of the latter name would
+shake the self-possession of the stranger, but Peggy inclined her head
+with the air of a queen, drawled out a languid, "Pleased to see you!"
+and dropped her eyes with an air of indifference, which seemed to imply
+that an "Honourable" was an object of no interest whatever, and that she
+was really bored by the number of her titled acquaintances.  The boys
+looked at each other with furtive glances of astonishment.  Mellicent
+spread jam all over her plate, and Esther unconsciously turned on the
+handle of the urn and deluged the tray with water, but no one ventured a
+second remark, and once again it was Peggy's voice that opened the
+conversation.
+
+"And is this the room in which you pursue your avocations?  It has a
+warm and cheerful exposure."
+
+"Er--yes!  This is the schoolroom.  Mellicent and I have lessons here in
+the morning from our German governess, while the boys are in the study
+with father.  In the afternoon, from two to four, they use it for
+preparation, and we go out to classes.  We have music lessons on Monday,
+painting on Tuesday, calisthenics and wood-carving on Thursday and
+Friday.  Wednesday and Saturday are half-holidays.  Then from four to
+six the room is common property, and we have tea together and amuse
+ourselves as we choose."
+
+"A most desirable arrangement.  Thank you!  Yes,--I _will_ take a scone,
+as you are so kind!" said Peggy blandly; a remark which covered the five
+young people with confusion, since none of them had noticed that her
+plate was empty.  Each one made a grab in the direction of the plate of
+scones; the girls failed to reach it, while Oswald, twitching it from
+Robert's hands, jerked half the contents on the table, and had to pick
+them up, while Miss Saville looked on with a smile of indulgent
+superiority.
+
+"Accidents will happen, will they not?" she said sweetly, as she lifted
+a scone from the plate, with her little finger cocked well in the air,
+and nibbled it daintily between her small white teeth.  "A most
+delicious cake!  Home-made, I presume?  Perhaps of your own concoction?"
+
+Esther muttered an inarticulate assent, and once more the conversation
+languished.  She looked appealingly at Maxwell.  As the son of the
+house, the eldest of the boys, it was his place to take the lead, but
+Maxwell looked the picture of embarrassment.  He did not suffer from
+bashfulness as a rule, but since Peggy Saville had come into the room he
+had been seized with an appalling self-consciousness.  His feet felt in
+the way, his arms seemed too long for practical purposes, his elbows had
+a way of invading other people's precincts, and his hands looked red and
+clammy.  It occurred to him dimly that he was not a man after all, but
+only a big overgrown schoolboy, and that little Miss Saville knew as
+much, and was mildly pitiful of his shortcomings.  He was not at all
+anxious to attract the attention of the sharp little tongue, so he
+passed on the signal to Mellicent, kicking her foot under the table, and
+frowning vigorously in the direction of the stranger.
+
+"Er,"--began Mellicent, anxious to respond to the signal, but lamentably
+short of ideas,--"Er,--Peggy!  Are you fond of sums?  I'm in decimals.
+Do you like fractions?  I think they are hateful.  I could do vulgars
+pretty well, but decimals are fearful.  They never come right.  So
+awfully difficult."
+
+"Patience and perseverance overcome difficulties.  Keep up your courage.
+I'll help you with them, dear," said Peggy encouragingly, closing her
+eyes the while, and coughing in a faint and ladylike manner.
+
+She could not really be only fourteen, Mellicent reflected.  She talked
+as if she were quite grown-up,--older than Esther, seventeen or eighteen
+at the very least.  What a little white face she had! what a great thick
+plait of hair!  How erect she held herself!  Fraulein would never have
+to rebuke her new pupil for stooping shoulders.  It was kind of her to
+promise help with those troublesome decimals!  Quite too good an offer
+to refuse.
+
+"Thank you very much," she said heartily, "I'll show you some after tea.
+Perhaps you may be able to make me understand better than Fraulein.
+It's very good of you, P--" A quick change of expression warned her that
+something was wrong, and she checked herself to add hastily, "You want
+to be called `Peggy,' don't you?  No?  Then what must we call you?  What
+is your real name?"
+
+"Mariquita!" sighed the damsel pensively, "after my grandmother--
+Spanish.  A beautiful and unscrupulous woman at the court of Philip the
+Second."  She said "unscrupulous" with an air of pride, as though it had
+been "virtuous," or some other word of a similar meaning, and pronounced
+the name of the king with a confidence that made Robert gasp.
+
+"Philip the Second?  Surely not?  He was the husband of our Mary in
+1572.  That would make it just a trifle too far back for your
+grandmother, wouldn't it?" he inquired sceptically; but Mariquita
+remained absolutely unperturbed.
+
+"It must have been someone else, then, I suppose.  How clever of you to
+remember!  I see you know something about history," she said suavely; a
+remark which caused an amused glance to pass between the young people,
+for Robert had a craze for history of all description, and had serious
+thought of becoming a second Carlyle so soon as his college course was
+over.
+
+Maxwell put his handkerchief to his mouth to stifle a laugh, and kicked
+out vigorously beneath the table, with the intention of sharing his
+amusement with his friend Oswald.  It seemed, however, that he had aimed
+amiss, for Mariquita fell back in her chair, and laid her hand on her
+heart.
+
+"I think there must be some slight misunderstanding.  That's my foot
+that you are kicking!  I cut it very badly on the ice last winter, and
+the least touch causes acute suffering.  Please don't apologise; it
+doesn't matter in the least," and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling,
+like one in mortal agony.
+
+It was the last straw.  Maxwell's embarrassment had reached such a pitch
+that he could bear no more.  He murmured some unintelligible words, and
+bolted from the room, and the other two boys lost no time in following
+his example.
+
+In subsequent conversations, Mellicent always referred to this occasion
+as "the night when Robert had _one cup_," it being, in truth, the only
+occasion since this young gentleman entered the vicarage when he had
+neglected to patronise the teapot three or four times in succession.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+GOOD-BYE, MARIQUITA!
+
+For four long days had Mariquita Saville dwelt beneath Mr Asplin's
+roof, and her companions still gazed upon her with fear and trembling,
+as a mysterious and extraordinary creature whom they altogether failed
+to understand.  She talked like a book; she behaved like a
+well-conducted old lady of seventy, and she sat with folded hands gazing
+around, with a curious, dancing light in her hazel eyes, which seemed to
+imply that there was some tremendous joke on hand, the secret of which
+was known only to herself.  Esther and Mellicent had confided their
+impressions to their mother; but in Mrs Asplin's presence Peggy was
+just a quiet, modest girl, a trifle shy, as was natural under the
+circumstances, but with no marked peculiarity of any kind.  She answered
+to the name of "Peggy," to which address she was at other times
+persistently deaf, and sat with neat little feet crossed before her, the
+picture of a demure, well-behaved young schoolgirl.  The sisters assured
+their mother that Mariquita was a very different person in the
+schoolroom, but when she inquired as to the nature of the difference, it
+was not easy to explain.
+
+She talked so grandly, and used such great big words!--"A good thing,
+too," Mrs Asplin averred.  She wished the rest would follow her
+example, and not use so much foolish, meaningless slang.--Her eyes
+looked so bright and mocking, as if she were laughing at something all
+the time.--Poor, dear child! could she not talk as she liked?  It was a
+great blessing she _could_ be bright, poor lamb, with such a parting
+before her!--She was so grown-up, and patronising, and superior!--Tut!
+tut!  Nonsense!  Peggy had come from a boarding-school, and her ways
+were different from theirs--that was all.  They must not take stupid
+notions, but be kind and friendly, and make the poor girl feel at home.
+
+Fraulein on her side reported that her new pupil was docile and
+obedient, and anxious to get on with her studies, though not so far
+advanced as might have been expected.  Esther was far ahead of her in
+most subjects, and Mellicent learned with pained surprise that she knew
+nothing whatever about decimal fractions.
+
+"Circumstances, dear," she explained, "circumstances over which I had no
+control prevented an acquaintance, but no doubt I shall soon know all
+about them, and then I shall be pleased to give you the promised help;"
+and Mellicent found herself saying, "Thank you," in a meek and
+submissive manner, instead of indulging in a well-merited rebuke.
+
+No amount of ignorance seemed to daunt Mariquita, or to shake her belief
+in herself.  When Maxwell came to grief in a Latin essay, she looked up
+and said, "Can I assist you?" and when Robert read aloud a passage from
+Carlyle, she laid her head on one side and said, "Now, do you know, I am
+not altogether sure that I am with him on that point!" with an assurance
+which paralysed the hearers.
+
+Esther and Mellicent discussed seriously together as to whether they
+liked, or disliked, this extraordinary creature, and had great
+difficulty in coming to a conclusion.  She teased, puzzled, aggravated,
+and provoked them; therefore, if they had any claim to be logical, they
+should dislike her cordially, yet somehow or other they could not bring
+themselves to say that they disliked Mariquita.  There were moments when
+they came perilously near loving the aggravating creature.  Already it
+gave them quite a shock to look back upon the time when there was no
+Peggy Saville to occupy their thoughts, and life without the interest of
+her presence would have seemed unspeakably flat and uninteresting.  She
+was a bundle of mystery.  Even her looks seemed to exercise an uncanny
+fascination.  On the evening of her arrival the unanimous opinion had
+been that she was decidedly plain, but there was something about the
+pale little face which always seemed to invite a second glance, and the
+more closely you gazed, the more complete was the feeling of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Her face is so _neat_," Mellicent said to herself; and the adjective
+was not inappropriate, for Peggy's small features looked as though they
+had been modelled by the hand of a fastidious artist, and the air of
+dainty finish extended to her hands and feet and slight, graceful
+figure.
+
+The subject came up for discussion on the third evening after Peggy's
+arrival, when she had been called out of the room to speak to Mrs
+Asplin for a few minutes.  Esther gazed after her as she walked across
+the floor with her dignified tread, and when the door was closed she
+said slowly--
+
+"I don't think Mariquita is as plain now as I did at first; do you,
+Oswald?"
+
+"N-no!  I don't think I do.  I should not call her exactly plain.  She
+is a funny little thing, but there's something nice about her face."
+
+"Very nice!"
+
+"Last night in the pink dress she looked almost pretty."
+
+"Y-es!"
+
+"Quite pretty!"
+
+"Y-es! really quite pretty."
+
+"We shall think her lovely in another week," said Mellicent tragically.
+"Those awful Savilles!  They are all alike--there is something Indian
+about them.  Indian people have a lot of secrets that we know nothing
+about; they use spells, and poisons, and incantations that no English
+person can understand, and they can charm snakes.  I've read about it in
+books.  Arthur and Peggy were born in India, and it's my opinion that
+they are bewitched.  Perhaps the ayahs did it when they were in their
+cradles.  I don't say it is their own fault, but they are not like other
+people, and they use their charms on us, as there are no snakes in
+England.  Look at Arthur!  He was the naughtiest boy--always hurting
+himself, and spilling things, and getting into trouble, and yet everyone
+in the house bowed down before him, and did what he wanted.--Now mark my
+words, Peggy will be the same!"
+
+Mellicent's companions were not in the habit of "marking her words," but
+on this occasion they looked thoughtful, for there was no denying that
+they were already more or less under the spell of the remorseless
+stranger.
+
+On the afternoon of the fourth day Miss Peggy came down to tea with her
+pigtail smoother and more glossy than ever, and the light of war shining
+in her eyes.  She drew her chair to the table, and looked blandly at
+each of her companions in turn.
+
+"I have been thinking," she said sweetly, and the listeners quaked at
+the thought of what was coming.  "The thought has been weighing on my
+mind that we neglect many valuable and precious opportunities.  This
+hour, which is given to us for our own use, might be turned to profit
+and advantage, instead of being idly frittered away--
+
+  "`In work, in work, in work alway,
+  Let my young days be spent.'
+
+"It was the estimable Dr Watts, I think, who wrote those immortal
+lines!  I think it would be a desirable thing to carry on all
+conversation at this table in the French language for the future.
+_Passez-moi le beurre, s'il vous plait_, Mellicent, _ma tres chere.
+J'aime beaucoup le beurre, quand il est frais.  Est-ce que vous aimez le
+beurre plus de la_,--I forget at the moment how you translate _jam, il
+fait tres beau, ce apres-midi, n'est pas_?"
+
+She was so absolutely, imperturbably grave that no one dared to laugh.
+Mellicent, who took everything in deadly earnest, summoned up courage to
+give a mild little squeak of a reply.  "_Wee_--_mais hier soir, il
+pleut_;" and in the silence that followed Robert was visited with a
+mischievous inspiration.  He had had French nursery governesses in his
+childhood, and had, moreover, spent two years abroad, so that French
+came as naturally to him as his own mother-tongue.  The temptation to
+discompose Miss Peggy was too strong to be resisted.  He raised his
+dark, square-chinned face, looked straight into her eyes, and rattled
+off a breathless sentence to the effect that there was nothing so
+necessary as conversation, if one wished to master a foreign language;
+that he had talked French in the nursery; and that the same Marie who
+had nursed him as a baby was still in his father's service, acting as
+maid to his sister.  She was getting old now, but was a most faithful
+creature, devoted to the family, though she had never overcome her
+prejudices against England and English ways.  He rattled on until he was
+fairly out of breath, and Peggy leant her little chin on her hand, and
+stared at him with an expression of absorbing attention.  Esther felt
+convinced that she did not understand a word of what was being said, but
+the moment that Robert stopped, she threw back her head, clasped her
+hands together, and exclaimed--
+
+"_Mais certainement, avec_ pleasure!" with such vivacity and Frenchiness
+of manner that she was forced into unwilling admiration.
+
+"Has no one else a remark to make?" continued this terrible girl,
+collapsing suddenly into English, and looking inquiringly round the
+table.  "Perhaps there is some other language which you would prefer to
+French.  It is all the same to me.  We ought to strive to become
+proficient in foreign tongues.  At the school where I was at Brighton
+there was a little girl in the fourth form who could write, and even
+speak, Greek with admirable fluency.  It impressed me very much, for I
+myself knew so little of the language.  And she was only six--"
+
+"Six!"  The boys straightened themselves at that, roused into eager
+protest.  "Six years old!  And spoke Greek!  And wrote Greek!
+Impossible!"
+
+"I have heard her talking for half an hour at a time.  I have known the
+girls in the first form ask her to help them with their exercises.  She
+knew more than anyone in the school."
+
+"Then she is a human prodigy.  She ought to be exhibited.  Six years
+old!  Oh, I say--that child ought to turn out something great when she
+grows up.  What did you say her name was, by the bye?"
+
+Peggy lowered her eyelids, and pursed up her lips.  "Andromeda
+Michaelides," she said slowly.  "She was six last Christmas.  Her father
+is Greek Consul in Manchester."
+
+There was a pause of stunned surprise; and then, suddenly, an
+extraordinary thing happened.  Mariquita bounded from her seat, and
+began flying wildly round and round the table.  Her pigtail flew out
+behind her; her arms waved like the sails of a windmill, and as she
+raced along she seized upon every loose article which she could reach,
+and tossed it upon the floor.  Cushions from chairs and sofa went flying
+into the window; books were knocked off the table with one rapid sweep
+of the hand; magazines went tossing up in the air, and were kicked about
+like so many footballs.  Round and round she went, faster and faster,
+while the five beholders gasped and stared, with visions of madhouses,
+strait-jackets, and padded rooms, rushing through their bewildered
+brains.  Her pale cheeks glowed with colour; her eyes shone; she gave a
+wild shriek of laughter, and threw herself, panting, into a chair by the
+fireside.
+
+"Three cheers for Mariquita!  Ho! ho! he!  Didn't I do it well?  If you
+could have _seen_ your faces!"
+
+"P-P-P-eggy!  Do you mean to say you have been pretending all this time?
+What do you mean?  Have you been putting on all those airs and graces
+for a joke?" asked Esther severely; and Peggy gave a feeble splutter of
+laughter.
+
+"W-wanted to see what you were like!  Oh, my heart!  Ho! ho! ho! wasn't
+it lovely?  Can't keep it up any longer!  Good-bye, Mariquita!  I'm
+Peggy now, my dears.--Give me some more tea!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+EXPLANATIONS.
+
+In the explanations that followed, no one showed a livelier interest
+than Peggy herself.  She was in her element answering the questions
+which were showered upon her, and took an artistic pleasure in the
+success of her plot.
+
+"You see," she explained, "I knew you would all be talking about me, and
+wondering what I was like, just as I was thinking about you.  As I was
+Arthur's sister, I knew you would be sure to imagine me a mischievous
+tom-boy, so I came to the conclusion that the best way to shock you
+would be to be quite too awfully proper and well-behaved.  I never
+enjoyed anything so much in my life as that first tea-time, when you all
+looked dumb with astonishment.  I had made up my mind to go on for a
+week, but mother is coming to-morrow, and I couldn't keep it up before
+her, so I was obliged to explode to-night.  Besides, I'm really quite
+fatigued with being good--"
+
+"And are you--are you--really not proper, after all?" gasped Mellicent
+blankly; whereat Peggy clasped her hands in emphatic protest.
+
+"Proper!  Oh, my dear, I am the most awful person.  I am always getting
+into trouble.  You know what Arthur was?  Well, I tell you truly, he is
+nothing to me.  It's an extraordinary thing.  I have excellent
+intentions, but I seem bound to get into scrapes.  There was a teacher
+at Brighton, Miss Baker,--a dear old thing.  I called her `Buns.'--She
+vowed and declared that I shortened her life by bringing on palpitation
+of the heart.  I set the dressing-table on fire by spilling matches and
+crunching them beneath my heels.  It was not a proper dressing-table,
+you know--just a wooden thing frilled round with muslin.  We had two
+blazes in the last term.  And a dreadful thing occurred!  Would you
+believe that I was actually careless enough to sit down on the top of
+her best Sunday hat, and squash it as flat as a pancake!"
+
+Despite her protestations of remorse, Peggy's voice had an exultant ring
+as she detailed the history of her escapades, and Esther shrewdly
+suspected that she was by no means so penitent as she declared.  She put
+on her most severe expression, and said sternly--
+
+"You must be dreadfully careless.  It is to be hoped you will be more
+careful here, for your room is far-away from ours, and you might be
+burned to death before anyone discovered you.  Mother never allows
+anyone to read in bed in this house, and she is most particular about
+matches.  You wouldn't like to be burned to a cinder all by yourself
+some fine night, I should say?"
+
+"No, I shouldn't--or on a wet one either.  It would be so lonely," said
+Peggy calmly.  "No; I am a reformed character about matches.  I support
+home industries, and go in for safeties, which `strike only on the box.'
+But the boys would rescue me."  She turned with a smile, and beamed
+upon the three tall lads.  "Wouldn't you, boys?  If you hear me
+squealing any night, don't stop to think.  Just catch up your ewers of
+water, and rush to my bedroom.  We might get up an amateur fire-brigade,
+to be in readiness.  You three would be the brigade, and I would be the
+captain and train you.  It would be capital fun.  At any moment I could
+give the signal, and then, whatever you were doing--playing,--working,--
+eating,--or on cold frosty nights, just when you were going to bed, off
+you would have to rush, and get out your fire-buckets.  Sometimes you
+might have to break the ice, but there's nothing like being prepared.
+We might have the first rehearsal to-night--"
+
+"It's rather funny to hear you talking of being captain over the boys,
+because the day we heard that you were coming, they all said that if
+they were to be bothered with a third girl in the house, you would have
+to make yourself useful, and that you should be their fag.  Max said so,
+and so did Oswald, and then Robert said they shouldn't have you.  He had
+lots of little odd things he wanted done, and he could make you very
+useful.  He said the other boys shouldn't have you; you were his
+property."
+
+"Tut, tut!" said Peggy pleasantly.  She looked at the three scowling,
+embarrassed faces, and the mocking light danced back into her eyes.  "So
+they were all anxious to have me, were they?  How nice!  I'm gratified
+to hear it.  Is there any little thing I can do for your honourable self
+now, Mr Darcy, before I dress for dinner?"
+
+Robert looked across the room at Mellicent with an expression which made
+that young person tremble in her shoes.
+
+"All right, young lady, I'll remember you!" he said quietly.  "I've
+warned you before about repeating conversations.  Now you'll see what
+happens.  I'll cure you of that little habit, my dear, as sure as my
+name is Robert Darcy--"
+
+"The Honourable Robert Darcy!" murmured a silvery voice from the other
+side of the fireplace.  Robert turned his head sharply, but Peggy was
+gazing into the coals with an air of lamb-like innocence, and he
+subsided into himself with a grunt of displeasure.
+
+The next day Mrs Saville came to lunch, and spent the afternoon at the
+vicarage.  As Maxwell had said, she was a beautiful woman; tall, fair,
+and elegant, and looking a very fashionable lady when contrasted with
+Mrs Asplin in her well-worn serge, but her face was sad and anxious in
+expression.  Esther noticed that her eyes filled with tears more than
+once as she looked round the table at the husband and wife and the three
+tall, well-grown children; and when the two ladies were alone in the
+drawing-room she broke into helpless sobbings.
+
+"Oh, how happy you are!  How I envy you!  Husband, children,--all beside
+you.  Oh, never, never let one of your girls marry a man who lives
+abroad.  My heart is torn in two; I have no rest.  I am always longing
+for the one who is not there.  I must go back,--the major needs me; but
+my Peggy,--my own little girl!  It is like death to leave her behind!"
+
+Mrs Asplin put her arms round the tall figure, and rocked her gently to
+and fro.
+
+"I know!  I know!" she said brokenly.  "I _ache_ for you, dear; but I
+understand!  I have parted with a child of my own--not for a few years,
+but for ever, till we meet again in God's heaven.  I'll help you every
+way I can.  I'll watch her night and day; I'll coddle her when she's
+ill; I'll try to make her a good woman.  I'll _love_ her, dear, and she
+shall be my own special charge.  I'll be a second mother to her."
+
+"You dear, good woman!  God bless your kind heart!" said Mrs Saville
+brokenly.  "I can't help breaking down, but indeed I have much to be
+thankful for.  I can't tell you what a relief it is to feel that she is
+in this house.  The principals of that school at Brighton were all that
+is good and excellent, but they did not understand my Peggy."  The tears
+were still in her eyes, but she broke into a flickering smile at the
+last word.  "My children have such spirits!  I am afraid they really do
+give more trouble than other boys and girls, but they are not really
+naughty.  They are truthful and generous, and wonderfully warm-hearted.
+I never needed to punish Peg when she was a little girl; it was enough
+to show that she had grieved me.  She never did the same thing again
+after that; but--oh, dear me!--the ingenuity of that child in finding
+fresh fields for mischief!  Dear Mrs Asplin, I am afraid she will try
+your patience.  You must be sure to keep a list of all the breakages and
+accidents, and charge them to our account.  Peggy is an expensive little
+person.  You know what Arthur was."
+
+"Bless him--yes!  I had hardly a tumbler left in the house," said Mrs
+Asplin, with gusto.  "But I don't grieve myself about a few breakages.
+I have had too much to do with schoolboys for that!--And now give me all
+the directions you can about this precious little maid, while we have
+the room to ourselves."
+
+For the next hour there the two ladies sat in conclave about Miss
+Peggy's mental, moral, and physical welfare.  Mrs Asplin had a book in
+her hand, in which from time to time she jotted down notes of a curious
+and inconsequent character.  "Pay attention to private reading.
+Gas-fire in her bedroom for chilly weather.  See dentist in Christmas
+holidays.  Query: gold plate over eye-tooth?  Boots to order, Beavan and
+Company, Oxford Street.  Cod-liver oil in winter.  Careless about
+changing shoes.  Damp brings on throat.  Aconite and belladonna."  So
+on, and so on.  There seemed no end to the warnings and instructions of
+this anxious mother; but when all was settled as far as possible, the
+ladies adjourned into the schoolroom to join the young people at their
+tea, so that Mrs Saville might be able to picture her daughter's
+surroundings when separated from her by those weary thousands of miles.
+
+"What a bright, cheery room!" she said smilingly, as she took her seat
+at the table, and her eyes wandered round as if striving to print the
+scene in her memory.  How many times, as she lay panting beneath the
+swing of the punkah, she would recall that cool English room, with its
+vista of garden through the windows, the long table in the centre, the
+little figure with the pale face and plaited hair, seated midway between
+the top and bottom!  Oh! the moments of longing--of wild, unbearable
+longing--when she would feel that she must break loose from her
+prison-house and fly away,--that not the length of the earth itself
+could keep her back, that she would be willing to give up life itself
+just to hold Peggy in her arms for five minutes, to kiss the sweet lips,
+to meet the glance of the loving eyes--
+
+But this would never do!  Had she not vowed to be cheerful?  The young
+folks were looking at her with troubled glances.  She roused herself,
+and said briskly--
+
+"I see you make this a playroom as well as a study.  Somebody has been
+wood-carving over there, and you have one of those dwarf
+billiard-tables.  I want to give a present to this room--something that
+will be a pleasure and occupation to you all; but I can't make up my
+mind what would be best.  Can you give me a few suggestions?  Is there
+anything that you need, or that you have fancied you might like?"
+
+"It's very kind of you," said Esther warmly; and echoes of "Very kind!"
+came from every side of the table, while boys and girls stared at each
+other in puzzled consideration.  Maxwell longed to suggest a joiner's
+bench, but refrained out of consideration for the girls' feelings.
+Mellicent's eager face, however, was too eloquent to escape attention,
+and Mrs Saville smiled at her in an encouraging manner.
+
+"Well, dear, what is it?  Don't be afraid.  I mean something really nice
+and handsome; not just a little thing.  Tell me what you thought?"
+
+"A--a new violin!" cried Mellicent eagerly.  "Mine is so old and
+squeaky, and my teacher said I needed a new one badly.  A new violin
+would be nicest of all."
+
+Mrs Saville looked round the table, caught an expressive grimace going
+the round of three boyish faces, and raised her eyebrows inquiringly.
+
+"Yes?  Whatever you like best, of course.  It is all the same to me.
+But would the violin be a pleasure to all?  What about the boys?"
+
+"They would hear me play!  The pieces would sound nicer.  They would
+like to hear them."
+
+"Ahem!" coughed Maxwell loudly; and at that there was a universal shriek
+of merriment.  Peggy's clear "Ho! ho!" rang out above the rest, and her
+mother looked at her with sparkling eyes.  Yes, yes, yes; the child was
+happy!  She had settled down already into the cheery, wholesome life of
+the vicarage, and was in her element among these merry boys and girls!
+She hugged the thought to her heart, finding in it her truest comfort.
+The laughter lasted several minutes, and broke out intermittently from
+time to time as that eloquent cough recurred to memory, but after all it
+was Mellicent who was the one to give the best suggestion.
+
+"Well then, a--a what-do-you-call-it!" she cried.  "A thing-um-me-bob!
+One of those three-legged things for taking photographs!  The boys look
+so silly sometimes, rolling about together in the garden, and we have
+often and often said, `Don't you wish we could take their photographs?
+They _would_ look such frights!'  We could have ever so much fun with a
+what-do-you-call-it?"
+
+"Ah, that's something like!"  "Good business."  "Oh, wouldn't it be
+sweet!" came the quick exclamations; and Mrs Saville looked most
+pleased and excited of all.
+
+"A camera!" she cried.  "What a charming idea!  Then you would be able
+to take photographs of Peggy and the whole household, and send them out
+for me to see.  How delightful!  That is a happy thought, Mellicent.  I
+am so grateful to you for thinking of it, dear.  I'll buy a really good
+large one, and all the necessary materials, and send them down at once.
+Do any of you know how to set to work?"
+
+"I do, Mrs Saville," Oswald said.  "I had a small camera of my own, but
+it got smashed some years ago.  I can show them how to begin, and we
+will take lots of photographs of Peggy for you, in groups and by
+herself.  They mayn't be very good at first, but you will be interested
+to see her in different positions.  We will take her walking, and
+bicycling, and sitting in the garden, and every way we can think of--"
+
+"And whenever she has a new dress or hat, so that you may know what they
+are like," added Mellicent anxiously.  "Are her hats going to be the
+same as ours, or is she to choose them for herself?"
+
+"She may choose them for herself, subject, of course, to your mother's
+refraining influence.  If she were to develop a fondness for scarlet
+feathers, for instance, I think Mrs Asplin should interfere; but Peggy
+has good taste.  I don't think she will go far wrong," said the girl's
+mother, looking at her fondly; and the little white face quivered before
+it broke into its sunny, answering smile.
+
+Three times that evening, after Mrs Saville had left, did her
+companions surprise the glitter of tears in Peggy's eyes; but there was
+a dignified reserve about her manner which forbade outspoken sympathy.
+Even when she was discovered to be quietly crying behind her book, when
+Maxwell flipped it mischievously out of her hands,--even then did Peggy
+preserve her wonderful self-possession.  The tears were trickling down
+her cheeks, and her poor little nose was red and swollen, but she looked
+up at Maxwell without a quiver, and it was he who stood gaping before
+her, aghast and miserable.
+
+"Oh, I say!  I'm fearfully sorry!"
+
+"So am I," said Peggy severely.  "It was rude, and not at all funny.
+And it injures the book.  I have always been taught to reverence books,
+and treat them as dear and valued companions.  Pick it up, please.
+Thank you.  Don't do it again."  She hitched herself round in her chair,
+and settled down once more to her reading, while Maxwell slunk back to
+his seat.  When Peggy was offended she invariably fell back upon
+Mariquita's grandiose manner, and the sting of her sharp little tongue
+left her victims dumb and smarting.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+A NEW FRIENDSHIP.
+
+A week after this, Mrs Saville came to pay her farewell visit before
+sailing for India.  Mother and daughter went out for a walk in the
+morning, and retired to the drawing-room together for the afternoon.
+There was much that they wanted to say to each other, yet for the most
+part they were silent, Peggy sitting with her head on her mother's
+shoulder, and Mrs Saville's arms clasped tightly round her.  Every now
+and then she stroked the smooth brown head, and sometimes Peggy raised
+her lips and kissed the cheek which leant against her own, but the
+sentences came at long intervals.
+
+"If I were ill, mother--a long illness--would you come?"
+
+"On wings, darling!  As fast as boat and train could bring me."
+
+"And if you were ill?"
+
+"I should send for you, if it were within the bounds of possibility--I
+promise that!  You must write often, Peggy--long, long letters.  Tell me
+all you do, and feel, and think.  You will be almost a woman when we
+meet again.  Don't grow up a stranger to me, darling."
+
+"Every week, mother!  I'll write something each day, and then it will be
+like a diary.  I'll tell you every bit of my life..."
+
+"Be a good girl, Peggy.  Do all you can for Mrs Asplin, who is so kind
+to you.  She will give you what money you need, and if at any time you
+should want more than your ordinary allowance, for presents or any
+special purpose, just tell her about it, and she will understand.  You
+can have anything in reason; I want you to be happy.  Don't fret,
+dearie.  I shall be with father, and the time will pass.  In three years
+I shall be back again, and then, Peg, then, how happy we shall be!  Only
+three years."
+
+Peggy shivered, and was silent.  Three years seem an endless space when
+one is young.  She shut her eyes, and pondered drearily upon all that
+would happen before the time of separation was passed.  She would be
+seventeen, nearly eighteen--a young lady who wore dresses down at her
+ankles, and did up her hair.  This was the last time, the very, very
+last time when she would be a child in her mother's arms.  The new
+relationship might be nearer, sweeter, but it could never be the same,
+and the very sound of the words "the last time" sends a pang to the
+heart.
+
+Half an hour later the carriage drove up to the door.  Mr and Mrs
+Asplin came into the room to say a few words of farewell, and then left
+Peggy to see her mother off.  There were no words spoken on the way, and
+so quietly did they move that Robert had no suspicion that anyone was
+near, as he took off his shoes in the cloak-room opening off the hall.
+He tossed his cap on to a nail, picked up his book, and was just about
+to sally forth, when the sound of a woman's voice sent a chill through
+his veins.  The tone of the voice was low, almost a whisper, yet he had
+never in his life heard anything so thrilling as its intense and
+yearning tenderness.  "Oh, my Peggy!" it said.  "My little Peggy!"  And
+then, as in reply, came a low moaning sound, a feeble bleat like that of
+a little lamb torn from its mother's side.  Robert charged back into the
+cloak-room, and kicked savagely at the boots and shoes which were
+scattered about the floor, his lips pressed together, and his brows
+meeting in a straight black line across his forehead.  Another minute,
+and the carriage rolled away.  He peeped out of the door in time to see
+a little figure fly out into the rain, and walking slowly towards the
+schoolroom came face to face with Mrs Asplin.
+
+"Gone?" she inquired sadly.  "Well, I'm thankful it is over.  Poor
+little dear, where is she?  Flown up to her room, I suppose.  We'll
+leave her alone until tea-time.  It will be the truest kindness."
+
+"Yes," said Robert vaguely.  He was afraid that the good lady would not
+be so willing to leave Peggy undisturbed if she knew her real
+whereabouts, and was determined to say nothing to undeceive her.  He
+felt sure that the girl had hidden herself in the summer-house at the
+bottom of the garden, and a nice, damp, mouldy retreat it would be this
+afternoon, with the rain driving in through the open window, and the
+creepers dripping on the walls.  Just the place in which to sit and
+break your heart, and catch rheumatic fever with the greatest possible
+ease.  And yet Robert said no word of warning to Mrs Asplin.  He had an
+inward conviction that if anyone were to go to the rescue, that person
+should be himself, and that he, more than anyone else, would be able to
+comfort Peggy in her affliction.  He sauntered up and down the hall
+until the coast was clear, then dashed once more into the cloak-room,
+took an Inverness coat from a nail, a pair of goloshes from the floor,
+and sped rapidly down the garden-path.  In less than two minutes he had
+reached the summer-house, and was peeping cautiously in at the door.
+Yes; he was right.  There sat Peggy, with her arms stretched out before
+her on the rickety table, her shoulders heaving with long, gasping sobs.
+Her fingers clenched and unclenched themselves spasmodically, and the
+smooth little head rolled to and fro in an abandonment of grief.  Robert
+stood looking on in silent misery.  He had a boy's natural hatred of
+tears, and his first impulse was to turn tail, go back to the house, and
+send someone to take his place; but even as he hesitated he shivered in
+the chilly damp, and remembered the principal reason of his coming.  He
+stepped forward and dropped the cloak over the bent shoulders, whereupon
+Peggy started up and turned a scared white face upon him.
+
+"Who, who--Oh! it is you!  What do you want?"
+
+"Nothing.  I saw you come out, and thought you would be cold.  I brought
+you out my coat."
+
+"I don't want it; I am quite warm.  I came here to be alone."
+
+"I know; I'm not going to bother.  Mrs Asplin thinks you are in your
+room, and I didn't tell her that I'd seen you go out.  But it's damp.
+If you catch cold, your mother will be sorry."
+
+Peggy looked at him thoughtfully, and there was a glimmer of gratitude
+in her poor tear-stained eyes.
+
+"Yes; I p-p-romised to be careful.  You are very kind, but I can't think
+of anything to-night.  I am too miserably wretched."
+
+"I know; I've been through it.  I was sent away to a boarding-school
+when I was a little kid of eight, and I howled myself to sleep every
+night for weeks.  It is worse for you, because you are older, but you
+will be happy enough in this place when you get settled.  Mrs Asplin is
+a brick, and we have no end of fun.  It is ever so much better than
+being at school; and, I say, you mustn't mind what Mellicent said the
+other night.  She's a little muff, always saying the wrong thing.  We
+were only chaffing when we said you were to be our fag.  We never really
+meant to bully you."
+
+"You c-couldn't if you t-tried," stammered Peggy brokenly, but with a
+flash of her old spirit which delighted her hearer.
+
+"No; of course not.  You can stand up for yourself; I know that very
+well.  But look here: I'll make a compact, if you will.  Let us be
+friends.  I'll stick to you and help you when you need it, and you stick
+to me.  The other girls have their brother to look after them, but if
+you want anything done, if anyone is cheeky to you, and you want him
+kicked, for instance, just come to me, and I'll do it for you.  It's all
+nonsense about being a fag, but there are lots of things you could do
+for me if you would, and I'd be awfully grateful.  We might be partners,
+and help one another--"
+
+Robert stopped in some embarrassment, and Peggy stared fixedly at him,
+her pale face peeping out from the folds of the Inverness coat.  She had
+stopped crying, though the tears still trembled on her eyelashes, and
+her chin quivered in uncertain fashion.  Her eyes dwelt on the broad
+forehead, the overhanging brows, the square, massive chin, and
+brightened with a flash of approval.
+
+"You are a nice boy," she said slowly.  "I like you!  You don't really
+need my help, but you thought it would cheer me to feel that I was
+wanted.  Yes; I'll be your partner, and I'll be of real use to you yet.
+You'll find that out, Robert Darcy, before you have done with me."
+
+"All right, so much the better.  I hope you will; but you know you can't
+expect to have your own way all the time.  I'm the senior partner, and
+you will have to do what I tell you.  Now I say it's damp in this hole,
+and you ought to come back to the house at once.  It's enough to kill
+you to sit in this draught."
+
+"I'd rather like to be killed.  I'm tired of life.  I shouldn't mind
+dying a bit."
+
+"Humph!" said Robert shortly.  "Jolly cheerful news that would be for
+your poor mother when she arrived at the end of her journey!  Don't be
+so selfish.  Now then, up you get!  Come along to the house."
+
+"I wo--" Peggy began, then suddenly softened, and glanced apologetically
+into his face.  "Yes, I will, because you ask me.  Smuggle me up to my
+room, Robert, and don't, don't, if you love me, let Mellicent come near
+me!  I couldn't stand her chatter to-night!"
+
+"She will have to fight her way over my dead body," said Robert firmly;
+and Peggy's sweet little laugh quavered out on the air.
+
+"Nice boy!" she repeated heartily.  "Nice boy; I do like you!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS.
+
+Peggy looked very sad and wan after her mother's departure, but her
+companions soon discovered that anything like outspoken sympathy was
+unwelcome.  The redder her eyes, the more erect and dignified was her
+demeanour; if her lips trembled when she spoke, the more grandiose and
+formidable became her conversation, for Peggy's love of long words and
+high-sounding expressions was fully recognised by this time, and caused
+much amusement in the family.
+
+A few days after Mrs Saville sailed, a welcome diversion arrived in the
+shape of the promised camera.  The Parcels Delivery van drove up to the
+door, and two large cases were delivered, one of which was found to
+contain the camera itself, the tripod and a portable dark room, while
+the other held such a collection of plates, printing-frames, and
+chemicals as delighted the eyes of the beholders.  It was the gift of
+one who possessed not only a deep purse, but a most true and thoughtful
+kindness, for, when young people are concerned, two-thirds of the
+enjoyment of any present is derived from the possibility of being able
+to put it to immediate use.  As it was a holiday afternoon, it was
+unanimously agreed to take two groups and develop them straightway.
+
+"Professional photographers are so dilatory," said Peggy severely; "and
+indeed I have noticed that amateurs are even worse.  I have twice been
+photographed by friends, and they have solemnly promised to send me a
+copy within a few days.  I have waited, consumed by curiosity, and, my
+dears, it has been months before it has arrived!  Now we will make a
+rule to finish off our groups at once, and not keep people waiting until
+all the interest has died away.  There's no excuse for such dilatory
+behaviour!"
+
+"There is some work to do, remember, Peggy.  You can't get a photograph
+by simply taking off and putting on the cap; you must have a certain
+amount of time and fine weather.  I haven't had much experience, but I
+remember thinking that photographs were jolly cheap, considering all the
+trouble they cost, and wondering how the fellows could do them at the
+price.  There's the developing, and washing, and printing, and toning,--
+half a dozen processes before you are finished."
+
+Peggy smiled in a patient, forbearing manner.
+
+"They don't get any less, do they, by putting them off?  Procrastination
+will never lighten labour.  Come, put the camera up for us, like a good
+boy, and we'll show you how to do it."  She waved her hand towards the
+brown canvas bag, and the six young people immediately seized different
+portions of the tripod and camera, and set to work to put them together.
+The girls tugged and pulled at the sliding legs, which were too new and
+stiff to work with ease; Maxwell turned the screws which moved the
+bellows, and tried in vain to understand their working; Robert peered
+through the lenses, and Oswald alternately raved, chided, and jeered at
+their efforts.  With so many cooks at work, it took an unconscionable
+time to get ready, and even when the camera was perched securely on its
+spidery legs, it still remained to choose the site of the picture, and
+to pose the victims.  After much wandering about the garden, it was
+finally decided that the schoolroom window would be an appropriate
+background for a first effort; but a heated argument followed before the
+second question could be decided.
+
+"I vote that we stand in couples, arm-on-arm,--like this!" said
+Mellicent, sidling up to her beloved brother, and gazing into his face
+in a sentimental manner, which had the effect of making him stride away
+as fast as he could walk, muttering indignant protests beneath his
+breath.
+
+Then Esther came forward with her suggestion.
+
+"I'll hold a book as if I were reading aloud, and you can all sit round
+in easy, natural positions, and look as if you were listening.  I think
+that would make a charming picture."
+
+"Idiotic, I call it!  `Scene from the Goodchild family; mamma reading
+aloud to the little ones.'  Couldn't possibly look easy and natural
+under the circumstances; should feel too miserable.  Try again, my dear.
+You must think of something better than that."
+
+It was impossible to please those three fastidious boys.  One suggestion
+after another was made, only to be waved aside with lordly contempt,
+until at last the girls gave up any say in the matter, and left Oswald
+to arrange the group in a manner highly satisfactory to himself and his
+two friends, however displeasing to the more artistic members of the
+party.  Three girls in front, two boys behind, all standing stiff as
+pokers; with solemn faces, and hair ruffled by constant peepings beneath
+the black cloth.  Peggy in the middle, with her eyebrows more peaked
+than ever, and an expression of resigned martyrdom on her small, pale
+face; Mellicent, large and placid, on the left; Esther on the right,
+scowling at nothing, and, over their shoulders, the two boys' heads,
+handsome Max and frowning Robert.
+
+"There," cried Oswald, "that's what I call a sensible arrangement!  If
+you take a photograph, _take_ a photograph, and don't try to do a
+pastoral play at the same time.  Keep still a moment, and I will see if
+it is focused all right.  I can see you pulling faces, Peggy!  It's not
+at all becoming.  Now then, I'll put in the plate--that's the way!--
+one--two--three--and I shall take you.  Stea-dy?"
+
+Instantly Mellicent burst into giggles of laughter, and threw up her
+hands to her face, to be roughly seized from behind and shaken into
+order.
+
+"Be quiet, you silly thing!  Didn't you hear him say steady?  What are
+you trying to do?"
+
+"She has spoiled this plate, anyhow," said Oswald icily.  "I'll try the
+other, and if she can't keep still this time she had better run away and
+laugh by herself at the other end of the garden.  Baby!"
+
+"Not a ba--" began Mellicent indignantly; but she was immediately
+punched into order, and stood with her mouth wide open, waiting to
+finish her protest so soon as the ordeal was over.
+
+Peggy forestalled her, however, with an eager plea to be allowed to take
+the third picture herself.
+
+"I want to have one of Oswald to send to mother, for we are not complete
+without him, and I know it would please her to think I had taken it
+myself," she urged; and permission was readily granted, as everyone felt
+that she had a special claim in the matter.  Oswald therefore put in new
+plates, gave instructions as to how the shutters were to be worked, and
+retired to take up an elegant position in the centre of the group.
+
+"Are you read-ee?" cried Peggy, in professional sing-song; then she put
+her head on one side and stared at the group with twinkling eyes.  "Hee,
+hee!  How silly you look!  Everyone has a new expression for the
+occasion!  Your own mothers would not recognise you!  That's better.
+Keep that smile going for another moment, and--how long must I keep off
+the cap, did you say?"
+
+Oswald hesitated.
+
+"Well, it varies.  You have to use your own judgment.  It depends upon--
+lots of things!  You might try one second for the first, and two for the
+next, then one of them is bound to be right."
+
+"And one a failure!  If I were going to depend on my judgment, I'd have
+a better one than that!" cried Peggy scornfully.  "Ready!  A little more
+cheerful, if you please--Christmas is coming!  That's _one_.  Be so good
+as to remain in your positions, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll try
+another."  The second shutter was pulled out, the cap removed, and the
+group broke up with sighs of relief, exhausted with the strain of
+cultivating company smiles for a whole two minutes on end.  Max stayed
+to help the girls to fold up the camera, while Oswald darted into the
+house to prepare the dark room for the development of the plates.
+
+When he came out, ten minutes later on, it was a pleasant surprise to
+discover Miss Mellicent holding a plate in her hand and taking sly peeps
+inside the shutter, just "to see how it looked."  He stormed and raved,
+while Mellicent looked like a martyr, wished to know how a teeny little
+light like that could possibly hurt anything, and seemed incapable of
+understanding that if one flash of sunlight could make a picture, it
+could also destroy it with equal swiftness.  Oswald was forced to
+comfort himself with the reflection that there were still three plates
+uninjured; and, when all was ready, the six operators squeezed
+themselves in the dark room, to watch the process of development,
+indulging the while in the most flowery expectations.
+
+"If it is very good, let me send it to an illustrated paper.  Oh, do!"
+said Mellicent, with a gush.  "I have often seen groups of people in
+them.  `The thing-a-me-bob touring company,' and stupid old cricketers,
+and things like that.  We should be far more interesting."
+
+"It will make a nice present for mother, enlarged and mounted," said
+Peggy thoughtfully.  "I shall keep an album of my own, and mount every
+single picture we take.  If there are any failures, I shall put them in
+too, for they will make it all the more amusing.  Photograph albums are
+horribly uninteresting as a rule, but mine shall be quite different.
+There shall be nothing stiff and prim about it; the photographs shall be
+dotted about in all sorts of positions, and underneath each I shall put
+in--ah--conversational annotations."  Her tongue lingered over the words
+with triumphant enjoyment.  "Conversational annotations, describing the
+circumstances under which it was taken, and anything about it which is
+worth remembering...  What are you going to do with those bottles?"
+
+Oswald ruffled his hair in embarrassment.  To pose as an instructor in
+an art, when one is in doubt about its very rudiments, is a position
+which has its drawbacks.
+
+"I don't--quite--know.  The stupid fellow has written instructions on
+all the other labels, and none on these except simply `Developer Number
+1' and `Developer Number 2'; I think the only difference is that one is
+rather stronger than the other.  I'll put some of the Number 2 in a
+dish, and see what happens; I believe that's the right way--in fact, I'm
+sure it is.  You pour it over the plate and jog it about, and in two or
+three minutes the picture ought to begin to appear.  Like this!"
+
+Five eager faces peered over his shoulders, rosy red in the light of the
+lamp; five pairs of lips uttered a simultaneous "Oh!" of surprise; five
+cries of dismay followed in instant echo.  It was the tragedy of a
+second.  Even as Oswald poured the fluid over the plate, a picture
+flashed before their eyes, each one saw and recognised some fleeting
+feature; and, in the very moment of triumph, lo, darkness, as of night,
+a sheet of useless, blackened glass!
+
+"What about the conversational annotations?" asked Robert slily; but he
+was interrupted by a storm of indignant queries, levied at the head of
+the poor operator, who tried in vain to carry off his mistake with a
+jaunty air.  Now that he came to think of it, he believed you _did_ mix
+the two developers together!  Just at the moment he had forgotten the
+proportions, but he would go outside and look it up in the book; and he
+beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape from the scene of his failure.  It
+was rather a disconcerting beginning; but hope revived once more when
+Oswald returned, primed with information from the _Photographic Manual_,
+and Peggy's plates were taken from their case and put into the bath.
+This time the result was slow in coming.  Five minutes went by, and no
+signs of a picture--ten minutes, a quarter of an hour.
+
+"It's a good thing to develop slowly; you get the details better," said
+Oswald, in so professional a manner that he was instantly reinstated in
+public confidence; but when twenty minutes had passed, he looked
+perturbed, and thought he would use a little more of the hastener.  The
+bath was strengthened and strengthened, but still no signs of a picture.
+The plate was put away in disgust, and the second one tried with a like
+result.  So far as it was possible to judge, there was nothing to be
+developed on the plate.
+
+"A nice photographer you are, I must say!  What are you playing at now?"
+asked Max, in scornful impatience; and Oswald turned severely to Peggy--
+
+"Which shutter did you draw out?  The one nearest to yourself?"
+
+"Yes, I did--of course I did!"
+
+"You drew out the nearest to you, and the farthest away from the lens?"
+
+"Precisely--I told you so!" and Peggy bridled with an air of virtue.
+
+"Then no wonder nothing has come out!  You have drawn out the wrong
+shutter each time, and the plates have never been exposed.  They are
+wasted!  That's fivepence simply _thrown_ away, to say nothing of the
+chemicals!"
+
+His air of aggrieved virtue; Peggy's little face staring at him, aghast
+with horror; the thought of four plates being used and leaving not a
+vestige of a result, were all too funny to be resisted.  Mellicent went
+off into irrepressible giggles; Max gave a loud "Ha, ha!" and once again
+a mischievous whisper sounded in Peggy's ear--
+
+"Good for you, Mariquita!  What about the `conversational annotations'?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+PEGGY SHOWS HERSELF IN HER TRUE COLOURS.
+
+The photographic fever burnt fiercely for the next few weeks.  Every
+spare hour was devoted to the camera, and there was not a person in the
+house, from the vicar himself to the boy who came in to clean boots and
+knives, who had not been pressed to repeated sittings.  There were no
+more blank plates, but there were some double ones which had been twice
+exposed, and showed such a kaleidoscopic jumble of heads and legs as was
+as good as any professional puzzle; but, besides these, there were a
+number of groups where the likenesses were quite recognisable, though
+scarcely flattering enough to be pleasant to the originals.  There was
+quite a scene in the dining-room on the evening when Oswald came down in
+triumph and handed round the proofs of the first presentable group, over
+which he had been busy all the afternoon.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!  I'm an old woman, and I never knew it!" cried Mrs Asplin,
+staring in dismay at the haggard-looking female who sat in the middle of
+the group, with heavy, black shadows on cheeks and temple.  The vicar
+cast a surreptitious glance in the glass above the sideboard, and tried
+to straighten his bent shoulders, while Mellicent's cheeks grew scarlet
+with agitation, and the tears were in her voice, as she cried--
+
+"I look like a p-p-pig!  It's not a bit like!  A nasty, horrid, fat,
+puffy pig!"
+
+"I don't care about appearances; but mine is not in the least like,"
+Esther said severely.  "I am sure no one could recognise it; I look
+seventy-eight at the very least."
+
+Robert flicked the paper across the table with a contemptuous "Bah!" and
+Max laughed in his easy, jolly manner, and said--
+
+"Now I know how I shall look when my brain softens!  I'm glad I've seen
+it; it will be a lesson to me to take things easily, and not
+over-study."
+
+"But look at the leaves of the ivy," protested Oswald, in aggrieved
+self-vindication, "each one quite clear and distinct from the others;
+it's really an uncommonly good plate.  The detail is perfect.  Look at
+that little bunch of flowers at the corner of the bed!"  All in vain,
+however, did he point out the excellences of his work.  The victims
+refused to look at the little bunch of flowers.  Each one was occupied
+with staring at his own portrait; the Asplin family sighing and
+protesting, and Peggy placidly poking a pin through the eyes of the
+various sitters, and holding the paper to the light to view the effect.
+It was a little trying to the feelings of one who had taken immense
+pains over his work, and had given up a bicycle ride to sit for a whole
+afternoon in a chilly pantry, dabbling in cold water, and watching over
+the various processes.  Oswald was ruffled, and showed it more plainly
+than was altogether courteous.
+
+"I'm sorry you're not pleased," he said coldly.  "I aim at truthfulness,
+you see, and that is what you don't get from a professional photograph.
+It's no good wasting time, simply to get oneself disliked.  I'll go in
+for Nature, and leave the portrait business to somebody else.  The girls
+can try!  They think they can do everything!"
+
+Peggy looked at Esther, and Esther looked at Peggy.  They did not say a
+word, but a flash of understanding passed from the brown eyes to the
+grey, which meant that they were on their mettle.  They were not going
+to defend themselves, but henceforth it was a case of die or produce a
+good photograph, and so oblige Oswald to alter his tone of scornful
+incredulity.
+
+For the next week the camera was the one engrossing thought.  Every
+minute that could be spared was devoted to experiments, so that Fraulein
+complained that lessons were suffering in consequence.  The hearts of
+her pupils were not in their work, she declared; it would be a good
+thing if a rule could be made that no more photographs were to be taken
+until the Christmas holidays.  She looked very fierce and formidable as
+she spoke, but soft-hearted Mrs Asplin put in a plea for forgiveness.
+
+"Ah, well, then, have patience for a few days longer," she begged.
+"They are just children with a new toy; let them have as much of it as
+they will at first, and they will tire of their own accord, and settle
+down to work as well as ever.  We can control their actions, but not
+their thoughts; and I'm afraid if I forbade photography at present, you
+would find them no more interested in lessons.  I fancy there is
+something especially engrossing on hand this week, and we might as well
+let them have it out."
+
+Even Mrs Asplin, however, hardly realised the thoroughness with which
+the girls were setting to work to achieve their end.  They held a
+committee meeting on Esther's bed, sitting perched together in attitudes
+of inelegant comfort, with arms encircling their knees, and chins
+resting on the clasped hands, wherein it was proposed and seconded that
+Peggy, the artistic, should pose and take the sitters, while Esther, the
+accurate, should undertake the after-processes.
+
+"And what am I to do?" cried Mellicent plaintively; and her elders
+smiled upon her with patronising encouragement.
+
+"You shall wash up all the trays and glasses, and put them neatly away."
+
+"You shall carry the heavy things, dear, and stand to me for your back
+hair.  I think I could make a really good effect with your back hair."
+Peggy put her head on one side and stared at the flaxen mane in
+speculative fashion.  "A long muslin gown--a wreath of flowers--a bunch
+of lilies in your hands!  If you weren't so fat, you would do
+splendiforously for Ophelia.  I might manage it, perhaps, if I took you
+from the back, with your head turned over your shoulder, so as to show
+only the profile.  Like that!  Don't move now, but let me see how you
+look."  She took Mellicent's head between her hands as she spoke, wagged
+it to and fro, as if it belonged to a marionette, and then gave a
+frog-like leap to a farther corner of the bed to study the effect.  "A
+little more to the right.  Chin higher!  Look at the ceiling.  Yes-es--I
+can do it.  I see how it can be done."
+
+It turned out, indeed, that Peggy had a genius for designing and posing
+pretty, graceful pictures.  With a few yards of muslin and a basket, or
+such odds and ends of rubbish as horrified Esther's tidy soul to behold,
+she achieved marvels in the way of fancy costumes, and transformed the
+placid Mellicent into a dozen different characters: Ophelia, crowned
+with flowers; Marguerite, pulling the petals of a daisy; Hebe, bearing a
+basket of fruit on her head, and many other fanciful impersonations,
+were improvised and taken before the week was over.  She went about the
+work in her usual eager, engrossed, happy-go-lucky fashion, sticking
+pins by the dozen into Mellicent's flesh in the ardour of arrangement,
+and often making a really charming picture, only to spoil it at the last
+moment by a careless movement, which altered the position of the camera,
+and so omitted such important details as the head of the sitter, or left
+her squeezed into one corner of the picture, like a sparrow on the
+house-top.
+
+Out of a dozen photographs, three, however, were really remarkable
+successes; as pretty pictures as one could wish to see, and, moreover,
+exceedingly good likenesses of the bonnie little subject.  Esther's part
+of the work was performed with her usual conscientious care; and when
+the last prints were mounted, the partners gazed at them with rapture
+and pride.  They were exhibited at the dinner-table the same evening
+amid a scene of riotous excitement.  The vicar glowed with pleasure;
+Mrs Asplin called out, "Oh, my baby!  Bless her heart!" and whisked
+away two tears of motherly pride.  Oswald was silent and subdued; and
+even Robert said, "Humph--it's not so bad," a concession which turned
+the girls' heads by its wonderful magnanimity.
+
+Their triumph was almost sweeter than they had expected; but, truth to
+tell, they had had too much of photography during the last week, and
+Mrs Asplin's prophecy came true, inasmuch as it now ceased to become an
+occupation of absorbing interest, and assumed its rightful place as an
+amusement to be enjoyed now and then, as opportunity afforded.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE HONOURABLE ROSALIND.
+
+By the beginning of October Peggy had quite settled down in her new
+home, and had established her right to be Arthur Saville's sister by
+convulsing the quiet household with her tricks and capers.  She was
+affectionate, obedient, and strictly truthful; her prim little face,
+grandiose expressions, and merry ways, made her a favourite with
+everyone in the house, from the vicar, who loved to converse with her in
+language even more high-flown than her own, to the old North-country
+cook, who confided in the housemaid that she "fair-ly did love that
+little thing," and manoeuvred to have apple charlotte for dinner as
+often as possible, because the "little thing" had praised her prowess in
+that direction, and commended the charlotte as a "delicious confection."
+Mrs Asplin was specially tender over the girl who had been left in her
+charge, and, in return, Peggy was all that was sweet and affectionate,
+vowed that she could never do enough to repay such kindness, and
+immediately fell into a fresh pickle, and half frightened the life out
+of her companions by her hairbreadth escapes.  Her careless,
+happy-go-lucky ways seemed all the more curious because of the almost
+Quaker-like neatness of her appearance.  Mellicent was often untidy, and
+even Esther had moments of dishevelment, but Peggy was a dainty little
+person, whose hair was always smooth, whose dress well brushed and
+natty.  Her artistic sense was too keen to allow of any shortcoming in
+this respect; but she seemed blessed with a capacity of acting before
+she thought, which had many disastrous consequences.  She was by no
+means a robust girl, and Mrs Asplin fussed over her little ailments
+like an old mother-hen with a delicate nursling.  One prescription after
+another was unearthed for her benefit, until the washstand in her room
+looked like a small chemist's shop.  An array of doctor's tinctures,
+gargles, and tonics, stood on one side, while on the other were a number
+of home-made concoctions in disused wine-bottles, such as a paregoric
+cough-mixture, and a cooling draught to be taken the first thing in the
+morning, which last pretended to be lemonade, but in reality contained a
+number of medicinal powders.  "Take it up tenderly, treat it with care!"
+was Peggy's motto with respect to this last-named medicine, for she had
+discovered that by judicious handling it was possible to enjoy a really
+tasty beverage, and to leave the sediment untouched at the bottom of the
+bottle!
+
+Esther and Mellicent were almost equally well supplied by their anxious
+mother, but their bottles behaved in a well-regulated fashion, and never
+took upon themselves to play tricks, while those in Peggy's room seemed
+infected by the spirit of the owner, and amused themselves with seeing
+how much mischief they could accomplish.  A bottle of ammonia had been
+provided as a cure for bites of gnats and flies; Peggy flicked a towel
+more hastily than usual, and down it fell, the contents streaming over
+the wood, and splashing on to the wardrobe near at hand, with the
+consequence that every sign of polish was removed, and replaced by white
+unsightly stains.  The glass stopper of a smelling-salts bottle became
+fixed in its socket, and, being anointed with oil and placed before the
+fire to melt, popped out suddenly with a noise as of a cannon shot,
+aimed accurately for the centre of the mirror, and smashed it into a
+dozen pieces.  The "safety ink-pot," out of which she indited her
+letters to her mother, came unfastened of its own accord and rolled up
+and down the clean white toilet cover.  This, at least, was the
+impression left by Peggy's innocent protestations, while the gas and
+soap seemed equally obstinate--the one refusing to be lowered when she
+left the room, and the other insisting upon melting itself to pieces in
+her morning bath!
+
+"Mrs Saville was right--Peggy is a most expensive person!" cried Mrs
+Asplin in dismay, when the bills for repairs came in; but when the vicar
+suggested the advisability of a reproof, she said, "Oh, poor child; she
+is so lonely--I haven't the heart to scold her;" and Peggy continued to
+detail accounts of her latest misfortune with an air of exaggerated
+melancholy, which barely concealed the underlying satisfaction.  It
+required a philosophic mind to be able to take damages to personal
+property in so amiable a fashion; but occasionally Peggy's pickles took
+an irresistibly comical character.  The story was preserved in the
+archives of the family of one evening when the three girls had been sent
+upstairs to wash their abundant locks and dry them thoroughly before
+retiring to bed.  A fire was kindled in the old nursery, which was now
+used as a sewing-room, and Mrs Asplin, who understood nothing if it was
+not the art of making young folks happy, had promised a supper of roast
+apples and cream when the drying process was finished.
+
+Esther and Mellicent were squatted on the hearth, in their blue
+dressing-gowns, when in tripped Peggy, fresh as a rose, in a long robe
+of furry white, tied round the waist with a pink cord.  One bath-towel
+was round her shoulders, and a smaller one extended in her hands, with
+the aid of which she proceeded to perform a fancy dance, calling out
+instructions to herself the while, in imitation of the dancing-school
+mistress.  "To the right--two--three!  To the left--two--three!  Spring!
+Pirouette!  Atti-tude!"  She stood poised on one foot, towel waving
+above her head, damp hair dripping down her back, while Esther and
+Mellicent shrieked with laughter, and drummed applause with heel and
+toe.  Then she flopped down on the centre of the hearth, and there was
+an instantaneous exclamation of dismay.
+
+"Phew!  What a funny smell!  Phew!  Phew!  Whatever can it be?"
+
+"I smelt it too.  Peggy, what have you been doing?  It's simply awful!"
+
+"Hair-wash, I suppose, or the soap--I noticed it myself.  It will pass
+off," said Peggy easily; but at that moment Mrs Asplin entered the
+room, sniffed the air, and cried loudly--
+
+"Bless me, what's this?  A regular Apothecaries' Hall!  Paregoric!  It
+smells as if someone had been drinking quarts of paregoric!  Peggy,
+child, your throat is not sore again?"
+
+"Not at all, thank you.  Quite well.  I have taken no medicine to-day."
+
+"But it is you, Peggy--it really is!"  Mellicent declared.  "There was
+no smell at all before you came into the room.  I noticed it as soon as
+the door was opened, and when you came and sat down beside us--whew!
+simply fearful!"
+
+"I have taken _no_ medicine to-day," repeated Peggy firmly.  Then she
+started, as if with a sudden thought, lifted a lock of hair, sniffed at
+it daintily, and dropped it again with an air of conviction.  "Ah, I
+comprehend!  There seems to have been a slight misunderstanding.  I have
+mistaken the bottles.  I imagined that I was using the mixture you gave
+me, but--"
+
+"She has washed her hair in cough-mixture!  Oh, oh, oh!  She has mixed
+paregoric and treacle with the water!  Oh, what will I do! what will I
+do!  This child will be the death of me!"  Mrs Asplin put her hand to
+her side, and laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks, while
+Mellicent rolled about on the floor, and Esther's quiet "He, he, he!"
+filled up the intervals between the bursts of merriment.
+
+Peggy was marched off to have her hair re-washed and rinsed, and came
+back ten minutes later, proudly complacent, to seat herself in the most
+comfortable stool and eat roast apple with elegant enjoyment.  She was
+evidently quite ready to enlarge upon her latest feat, but the sisters
+had exhausted the subject during her absence, and had, moreover, a piece
+of news to communicate which was of even greater interest.
+
+"Oh, Peggy, what y'think?" cried Mellicent, running her words into each
+other in breathless fashion, as her habit was when excited; "I've got
+something beautiful to tell you.  S'afternoon Bob got a letter from his
+mother to say that they were all coming down next week to stay at the
+Larches for the winter.  They come almost every year, and have
+shooting-parties, and come to church and sit in the big square pew,
+where you can just see their heads over the side.  They look so funny,
+sitting in a row without their bodies.  Last year there was a young lady
+with them who wore a big grey hat--the loveliest hat you ever saw--with
+roses under the brim, and stick-up things all glittering with jewels,
+and she got married at Christmas.  I saw her photograph in a magazine,
+and knew her again in a moment.  I used to stare at her, and once she
+smiled back at me.  She looked sweet when she smiled.  Lady Darcy always
+comes to call on mother, and she and father go there to dinner ever so
+many times, and we are asked to play with Rosalind--the Honourable
+Rosalind.  I expect they will ask you to go too.  Isn't it exciting?"
+
+"I can bear it," said Peggy coldly.  "If I try very hard, I think I can
+support the strain."
+
+The Larches, the country house of Lord Darcy, had already been pointed
+out to her notice; but the information that the family was coming down
+for the yearly visit was unwelcome to her, for a double reason.  She
+feared, in the first place, lest it should mean a separation from Bob,
+who was her faithful companion, and fulfilled his promise of friendship
+in a silent, undemonstrative fashion, much to her fancy.  In the second
+place, she was conscious of a rankling feeling of jealousy towards the
+young lady who was distinguished by the name of the Honourable Rosalind,
+and who seemed to occupy an exalted position in the estimation of the
+vicar's daughters.  Her name was frequently introduced into
+conversation, and always in the most laudatory fashion.  When a heroine
+was of a superlatively fascinating description, she was "Just like
+Rosalind"; when an article of dress was unusually fine and dainty, it
+would "do for Rosalind."  Rosalind was spoken of with bated breath, as
+if she were a princess in a fairy tale, rather than an ordinary
+flesh-and-blood damsel.  And Peggy did not like it; she did not like it
+at all, for, in her own quiet way, she was accustomed to queen it among
+her associates, and could ill brook the idea of a rival.  She had not
+been happy at school, but she had been complacently conscious that of
+all the thirty girls she was the most discussed, the most observed, and
+also, among the pupils themselves, the most beloved.  At the vicarage
+she was an easy first.  When the three girls went out walking, she was
+always in the middle, with Esther and Mellicent hanging on an arm at
+either side.  Robert was her sworn vassal, and Max and Oswald her
+respectful and, on the whole, obedient servants.  Altogether, the
+prospect of playing second fiddle to this strange girl was by no means
+pleasant.  Peggy tilted her chin, and spoke in a cool, cynical tone.
+
+"What is she like, this wonderful Rosalind?  Bob does not seem to think
+her extraordinary.  I cannot imagine a `Miss Robert' being very
+beautiful, and as she is his sister, I suppose they are alike."
+
+Instantly there arose a duet of protests.
+
+"Not in the least.  Not a single bit.  Rosalind is lovely!  Blue eyes,
+golden hair--"
+
+"Down past her waist--"
+
+"The sweetest little hands--"
+
+"A real diamond ring--"
+
+"Pink cheeks--"
+
+"Drives a pony-carriage, with long-tailed ponies--"
+
+"Speaks French all day long with her governess--jabber, jabber, jabber,
+as quick as that--just like a native--"
+
+"Plays the violin--"
+
+"Has a lovely little sitting-room of her own, simply crammed with the
+most exquisite presents and books, and goes travelling abroad to France
+and Italy and hot places in winter.  Lord and Lady Darcy simply worship
+her, and so does everyone, for she is as beautiful as a picture.  Don't
+you think it would be lovely to have a lord and lady for your father and
+mother?"
+
+Peggy sniffed the air in scornful superiority.
+
+"I am very glad I've not!  Titles are so ostentatious!  Vulgar, I call
+them!  The very best families will have nothing to do with them.  My
+father's people were all at the Crusades, and the Wars of the Roses, and
+the Field of the Cloth of Gold.  There is no older family in England,
+and they are called `Fighting Savilles,' because they are always in the
+front of every battle, winning honours and distinctions.  I expect they
+have been offered titles over and over again, but they would not have
+them.  They refused them with scorn, and so would I if one were offered
+to me.  Nothing would induce me to accept it!"
+
+Esther rolled her eyes in a comical, sideway fashion, and gave a little
+chuckle of unbelief; but Mellicent looked quite depressed by this
+reception of her grand news, and said anxiously--
+
+"But, Peggy, think of it!  The Honourable Mariquita!  It would be too
+lovely!  Wouldn't you feel proud writing it in visitors' books, and
+seeing it printed in newspapers when you grow up?  `The Honourable
+Mariquita wore a robe of white satin, trimmed with gold!'"
+
+"Peggy Saville is good enough for me, thank you," said that young lady,
+with a sudden access of humility.  "I have no wish to have my clothes
+discussed in the public prints.  But if you are invited to the Larches
+to play with your Rosalind, pray don't consider me!  I can stay at home
+alone.  I don't mind being dull.  I can turn my time to good account.
+Not for the world would I interfere with your pleasure?"
+
+"But P-P-Peggy, dar-ling Peggy, we would not leave you alone!"
+Mellicent's eyes were wide with horror, she stretched out entreating
+hands towards the unresponsive figure.  To see Peggy cross and snappish
+like--any other ordinary mortal was an extraordinary event, and quite
+alarming to her placid mind.  "They will ask you, too, dear!  I am sure
+they will--we will all be asked together!" she cried; but Peggy tossed
+her head, refusing to be conciliated.
+
+"I shall have a previous engagement.  I am not at all sure that they are
+the sort of people I ought to know," she said.  "My parents are so
+exclusive!  They might not approve of the acquaintance!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+AMBITIONS!
+
+Although Fraulein had charge over the girls' education, Mr Asplin
+reserved to himself the right of superintending their studies and
+dictating their particular direction.  He was so accustomed to training
+boys for a definite end that he had no patience with the ordinary
+aimless routine of a girl's school course, and in the case of his
+daughters had carefully provided for their different abilities and
+tastes.  Esther was a born student, a clear-headed, hard-thinking girl,
+who took a delight in wrestling with Latin verbs and in solving problems
+in Euclid, while she had little or no artistic faculty.  He put her
+through much the same course as his own boys, gave her half an hour's
+private lesson on unoccupied afternoons, and cut down the two hours'
+practising on the piano to a bare thirty minutes.  Esther had pleaded to
+give up music altogether, on the ground that she had neither love nor
+skill for this accomplishment, but to this the vicar would not agree.
+
+"You have already spent much time over it, and have passed the worst of
+the drudgery; it would be folly to lose all you have learnt," he said.
+"You may not wish to perform in public, but there are many other ways in
+which your music may be useful.  In time to come you would be sorry if
+you could not read an accompaniment to a song, play bright airs to amuse
+children, or hymn tunes to help in a service.  Half an hour a day will
+keep up what you have learned, and so much time you must manage to
+spare."
+
+With Mellicent the case was almost exactly opposite.  It was a waste of
+time trying to teach her mathematics, she had not sufficient brain power
+to grasp them, and if she succeeded in learning a proposition by heart
+like a parrot, it was only to collapse into helpless tears and
+protestations when the letters were altered, and, as it seemed to her,
+the whole argument changed thereby.
+
+Fraulein protested that it was impossible to teach Mellicent to reason;
+but the vicar was loath to give up his pet theory that girls should
+receive the same hard mental training as their brothers.  He declared
+that if the girl were weak in this direction, it was all the more
+necessary that she should be trained, and volunteered to take her in
+hand for half an hour daily, to see what could be done.  Fraulein
+accepted this offer with a chuckle of satisfaction, and the vicar went
+on with the lessons several weeks, patiently plodding over the same
+ground without making the least impression on poor Mellicent's brain,
+until there came one happy never-to-be-forgotten morning when Algebra
+and Euclid went spinning up to the ceiling, and he jumped from the table
+with a roar of helpless laughter.
+
+"Oh, baby! baby! this is past all bearing!  We might try for a century,
+and never get any further.  I cannot waste any more time."  Then, seeing
+the large tears gathering, he framed the pretty face in his hands, and
+looked at it with a tender smile.  "Never mind, darling! there are
+better things in this world than being clever and learned.  You will be
+our little house-daughter; help mother with her work, and play and sing
+to father when he is tired in the evening.  Work hard at your music,
+learn how to manage a house, to sew and mend and cook, and you will have
+nothing to regret.  A woman who can make a home, has done more than many
+scholars."
+
+So it came to pass that Mellicent added the violin to her
+accomplishments, and was despatched to her own room to practise
+exercises, while her elder sister wrestled with problems and equations.
+
+When Peggy Saville arrived, here was a fresh problem, for Fraulein
+reported that the good child could not add five and six together without
+tapping them over on her finger; was as ignorant of geography as a
+little heathen, and had so little ear for music that she could not sing
+"Rule Britannia" without branching off into "God save the Queen."  But
+when it came to poetry!--Fraulein held up her hands in admiration.  It
+was absolutely no effort to that child to remember, her eyes seemed to
+flash down the page, and the lines were her own, and as she repeated
+them her face shone, and her voice thrilled with such passionate delight
+that Esther and Mellicent had been known to shed tears at the sound of
+words which had fallen dead and lifeless from their own lips.  And at
+composition, how original she was!  What a relief it was to find so
+great a contrast to other children!  When it was the life of a great man
+which should be written, Esther and Mellicent began their essays as
+ninety-nine out of a hundred schoolgirls would do, with a flat and
+obvious statement of birth, birthplace, and parentage; but Peggy
+disdained such commonplace methods, and dashed headlong into the heart
+of her subject with a high-flown sentiment, or a stirring assertion
+which at once arrested the reader's interest.  And it was the same with
+whatever she wrote; she had the power of investing the dullest subject
+with charm and brightness.  Fraulein could not say too much of Peggy's
+powers in this direction, and the vicar's eye brightened as he listened.
+He asked eagerly to be allowed to see the girl's manuscript book, and
+summoned his wife from pastry-making in the kitchen to hear the three or
+four essays which it contained.
+
+"What do you think of those for a girl of fourteen?  There's a pupil for
+you!  If she were only a boy!  Such dash--such spirit--such a gift of
+words!  Do you notice her adjectives?  Exaggerated, no doubt, and
+over-abundant, but so apt, so true, so strong!  That child can write:
+she has the gift.  She ought to turn out an author of no mean rank."
+
+"Oh, dear me!  I hope not.  I hope she will marry a nice, kind man who
+will be good to her, and have too much to do looking after her children
+to waste her time writing stories," cried Mrs Asplin, who adored a good
+novel when she could get hold of one, but harboured a prejudice against
+all women-authors as strong-minded creatures, who lived in lodgings, and
+sported short hair, inky fingers, and a pen behind the ear.  Mariquita
+Saville was surely destined for a happier fate.  "When a woman can live
+her _own_ romance, why need she trouble her head about inventing
+others?"
+
+Her husband looked at her with a quizzical smile.
+
+"Even the happiest life is not all romance, dear.  It sometimes seems
+unbearably prosaic, and then it is a relief to lose oneself in fiction.
+You can't deny that!  I seem to have a remembrance of seeing someone I
+know seated in a big chair before this very fire devouring a novel and a
+Newton pippin together on more Saturday afternoons than I could number."
+
+"Tuts!" said his wife, and blushed a rosy red, which made her look
+ridiculously young and pretty.  Saturday afternoon was her holiday-time
+of the week, and she had not yet outgrown her schoolgirl love of eating
+apples as an accompaniment to an interesting book; but how aggravating
+to be reminded of her weakness just at this moment of all others!  "What
+an inconvenient memory you have!" she said complainingly.  "Can't a poor
+body indulge in a little innocent recreation without having it brought
+up against her in argument ever afterwards?  And I thought we were
+talking about Peggy!  What is at the bottom of this excitement?  I know
+you have some plan in your head."
+
+"I mean to see that she reads good books, and only books that will help,
+and not hinder, her progress.  The rest will come in time.  She must
+learn before she can teach, have some experience of her own before she
+can imagine the experiences of others; but writing is Peggy's gift, and
+she has been put in my charge.  I must try to give her the right
+training."
+
+From that time forward Mr Asplin studied Peggy with a special interest,
+and a few evenings later a conversation took place among the young
+people which confirmed him in his conclusion as to her possibilities.
+Lessons were over for the day, and girls and boys were amusing
+themselves in the drawing-room, while Mr Asplin read the _Spectator_,
+and his wife knitted stockings by the fire.  Mellicent was embroidering
+a prospective Christmas present, an occupation which engaged her leisure
+hours from March to December; Esther was reading, and Peggy was supposed
+to be writing a letter, but was, in reality, talking incessantly, with
+her elbows planted on the table, and her face supported on her clasped
+hands.  She wore a bright pink frock, which gave a tinge of colour to
+the pale face, her hair was unbound from the tight pigtail and tied with
+a ribbon on the nape of her neck, from which it fell in smooth heavy
+waves to her waist.  It was one of the moments when her companions
+realised with surprise that Peggy could look astonishingly pretty upon
+occasion; and Oswald, from the sofa, and Max and Bob, from the opposite
+side of the table, listened to her words with all the more attention on
+that account.
+
+She was discussing the heroine of a book which they had been reading in
+turns, pointing out the inconsistencies in her behaviour, and
+expatiating on the superior manner in which she--Mariquita--would have
+behaved, had positions been reversed.  Then the boys had described their
+own imaginary conduct under the trying circumstances, drawing forth
+peals of derisive laughter from the feminine audience; and the question
+had finally drifted from "What would you do?" to "What would you be?"
+with the result that each one was eager to expatiate on his own pet
+schemes and ambitions.
+
+"I should like to come out first in all England in the Local
+Examinations, get my degree of M.A., and be a teacher in a large High
+School," said Esther solemnly.  "At Christmas and Easter I would come
+home and see my friends, and in summer-time I'd go abroad and travel,
+and rub up my languages.  Of course, what I should like best would be to
+be headmistress of Girton, but I could not expect that to come for a
+good many years.  I must be content to work my way up, and I shall be
+quite happy wherever I am, so long as I am teaching."
+
+"Poor old Esther! and she will wear spectacles, and black alpaca
+dresses, and woollen mittens on her hands!  Can't I see her!" cried Max,
+throwing back his head with one of the cheery bursts of laughter which
+brought his mother's eyes upon him with a flash of adoring pride.  "Now
+there's none of that overweening ambition about me.  I could bear up if
+I never saw an improving book again.  What _I_ would like would be for
+some benevolent old millionaire to take a fancy to me, and adopt me as
+his heir.  I feel cut out to be a country gentleman, and march about in
+gaiters and knickerbockers, looking after the property, don't you know,
+and interviewing my tenants.  I'd be strict with them, but kind at the
+same time; look into all their grievances, and put them right whenever I
+could.  I'd make it a model place before I'd done with it, and all the
+people would adore me.  That's my ambition, and a very good one it is
+too; I defy anyone to have a better."
+
+"I should like to marry a very rich man with a big moustache, and a
+beautiful house in London with a fireplace in the hall," cried Mellicent
+fervently.  "I should have carriages and horses, and a diamond necklace
+and three children: Valentine Roy--that should be the boy--and
+Hildegarde and Ermyntrude, the girls, and they should have golden hair
+like Rosalind, and blue eyes, and never wear anything but white, and big
+silk sashes.  I'd have a housekeeper to look after the dinners and
+things, and a governess for the children, and never do anything myself
+except give orders and go out to parties.  I'd be the happiest woman
+that ever lived."
+
+Lazy Oswald smiled in complacent fashion.
+
+"And the fattest!  Dearie me, wouldn't you be a tub!  I don't know that
+I have any special ambition.  I mean to get my degree if I can, and then
+persuade the governor to send me a tour round the world.  I like moving
+about, and change and excitement, and travelling is good fun if you
+avoid the fag, and provide yourself with introductions to the right
+people.  I know a fellow who went off for a year, and had no end of a
+time; people put him up at their houses, and got up balls and dinners
+for his benefit, and he never had to rough it a bit.  I could put in a
+year or two in that way uncommonly well."
+
+Rob had been wriggling on his chair and scowling in his wild-bear
+fashion all the while Oswald was speaking, and at the conclusion he
+relieved his feelings by kicking out recklessly beneath the table, with
+the result that Peggy sat up suddenly with a "My foot, my friend!  Curb
+your enthusiasm!" which made him laugh, despite his annoyance.
+
+"But it's such bosh!" he cried scornfully.  "It makes me sick to hear a
+fellow talk such nonsense.  Balls and dinners--faugh!  If that's your
+idea of happiness, why not settle down in London and be done with it!
+That's the place for you!  I'd give my ears to go round the world, but I
+wouldn't thank you to go with a dress suit and a valet; I'd want to
+rough it, to get right out of the track of civilisation and taste a new
+life; to live with the Bedouin in their tents as some of those artist
+fellows have done, or make friends with a tribe of savages.
+Magnificent!  I'd keep a notebook with an account of all I did, and all
+the strange plants and flowers and insects I came across, and write a
+book when I came home.  I'd a lot rather rough it in Africa than lounge
+about Piccadilly in a frock coat and tall hat."  Robert sighed at the
+hard prospect which lay before him as the son of a noble house, then
+looked across the table with a smile: "And what says the fair Mariquita?
+What _role_ in life is she going to patronise when she comes to years
+of discretion?"
+
+Peggy nibbled the end of her pen and stared into space.
+
+"I've not quite decided," she said slowly.  "I should like to be either
+an author or an orator, but I'm not sure which.  I think, on the whole,
+an orator, because then you could watch the effect of your words.  It is
+not possible, of course, but what I should like best would be to be the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, or some great dignitary of the Church.  Oh,
+just imagine it!  To stand up in the pulpit and see the dim cathedral
+before one, and the faces of the people looking up, white and solemn.--
+I'd stand waiting until the roll of the organ died away, and there was a
+great silence; then I would look at them, and say to myself--`A thousand
+people, two thousand people, and for half an hour they are in my power.
+I can make them think as I will, see as I will, feel as I will.  They
+are mine!  I am their leader.'--I cannot imagine anything in the world
+more splendid than that!  I should choose to be the most wonderful
+orator that was ever known, and people would come from all over the
+world to hear me, and I would say beautiful things in beautiful words,
+and see the answer in their faces, and meet the flash in the eyes
+looking up into mine.  Oh-h! if it could only--only be true; but it
+can't, you see.  I am a girl, and if I try to do anything in public I am
+as nervous as a rabbit, and can only squeak, squeak, squeak in a tiny
+little voice that would not reach across the room.  I had to recite at a
+prize-giving at school once, and, my dears, it was a lamentable failure!
+I was only audible to the first three rows, and when it was over I
+simply sat down and howled, and my knees shook.  Oh dear, the very
+recollection unpowers me!  So I think, on the whole, I shall be an
+authoress, and let my pen be my sceptre.  From my quiet fireside," cried
+Peggy, with a sudden assumption of the Mariquita manner, and a swing of
+the arms which upset a vase of chrysanthemums, and sent a stream of
+water flowing over the table--"from my quiet fireside I will sway the
+hearts of men--"
+
+"My plush cloth!  Oh, bad girl--my new plush cloth!  You dreadful Peggy,
+what will I do with you?"  Mrs Asplin rushed forward to mop with her
+handkerchief and lift the dripping flowers to a place of safety, while
+Peggy rolled up her eyes with an expression of roguish impenitence.
+
+"Dear Mrs Asplin, it was not I, it was that authoress.  She was
+evolving her plots...  Pity the eccentricities of the great!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A SHAKESPEARE READING.
+
+Esther was preparing for the Cambridge Local Examination at Christmas,
+and making a special study of _The Merchant of Venice_, as the play
+chosen for the year.
+
+Fraulein explained the notes, and expatiated on the Venice of the past
+and the manners and customs of its inhabitants; but it was Mr Asplin
+who had the brilliant idea of holding a Shakespeare reading which should
+make the play live in the imagination of the young people, as no amount
+of study could do.  The suggestion was made one day at dinner, and was
+received with acclamation by everyone present.
+
+"Oh, how lovely, father!  It will help me ever so much!" said Esther.
+"And Peggy must be Portia."
+
+"I'd like to be that funny little man Launcelot--what do you call it?--
+only I know I couldn't do it," said Mellicent humbly.  "I'll be the
+servants and people who come in and give messages.  But, of course,
+Peggy must be Portia."
+
+"Peggy shall be Portia, and I'll be the Jew, and snarl at her across the
+court," said Rob, with an assurance which was not at all appreciated by
+his companions.
+
+"I've rather a fancy to try Shylock myself," Max declared.  "Oswald
+would make a capital Bassanio, and you could manage Antonio all right if
+you tried, for he has not so much to do.  Let me see: Peggy--Portia;
+Esther--Nerissa; Mellicent--Jessica (she's so like a Jewess, you see!);
+you and Oswald--Bassanio and Antonio; Shylock--my noble self.  Father
+and mother to help out with the smaller characters.  There you are!  A
+capital cast, and everyone satisfied.  I'm game to be Shylock, but I
+can't do the sentimental business.  You two fellows will have to take
+them, and we'll divide the smaller fry among us."
+
+"Indeed we will do nothing of the kind.  I'm not going to take Bassanio;
+I couldn't do it, and I won't try.  I'll have a shot at Shylock if you
+like, but I can't do anything else.  The cast is all wrong, except so
+far as Peggy is concerned.  Of course she is Portia."
+
+"Proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously that Peggy is Portia!" said
+Mr Asplin, smiling across the table at that young lady, who tried to
+look modest and unconcerned, but was plainly aglow with satisfaction.
+"For Shylock, as the character seems so much in demand, we had better
+draw lots.  I will write the names on slips of paper, and you must all
+agree to take what comes, and make the best of it.  I will fill in the
+gaps, and I am sure mother will help all she can--"
+
+"Lemonade in the intervals, and coffee for those who prefer it, with
+some of my very best company cake," said Mrs Asplin briskly.  "It will
+be quite an excitement.  I should rather like to be Shylock myself, and
+defy Peggy and her decree; but I'll give it up to the boys, and make
+myself generally useful.  Why couldn't we begin to-night?"
+
+"Oh, Mrs Asplin, no!  It will take me days to get up my part!  And the
+costumes--consider the costumes!" cried Peggy anxiously.  And her
+hostess raised her hands in surprise.
+
+"The costumes!  Are you going to dress up?  I never thought of that!"
+
+"Surely that is unnecessary, Peggy!  You can read the play without
+changing your clothes!" echoed the vicar; but, from the chorus of
+disclaimer which greeted his words, it appeared that the young people
+could do nothing of the sort.
+
+Max wanted to know how a fellow could possibly "talk Shylock" in a white
+tie and an evening jacket.  Oswald thought it equally ridiculous to pose
+as an Italian lover in English clothing; and Peggy turned up her eyes
+and said she could not really abandon herself to her part if her costume
+were inappropriate.  Even Esther, the sober-minded, sided with the rest,
+so the vicar laughed and gave way, only too pleased to sanction anything
+which helped the object which he had at heart.
+
+"Dress up by all means, if it pleases you.  It will be interesting to
+see the result.  But, of course, I must be absolved from any experiments
+of the kind."
+
+"Oh, of course!  And mother, too, if she likes, though I should love to
+see her made-up as Shylock!  You must not see or ask about our dresses
+until the night arrives.  They must be a secret.  You will lend us all
+your fineries, mother--won't you?"
+
+"Bless your heart, yes!  But I haven't got any!" said Mrs Asplin, in
+her funny Irish way.  "They were all worn out long, long ago."  She gave
+a little sigh for the memory of the days when she had a wardrobe full of
+pretty things and a dozen shimmery silk dresses hanging on the pegs, and
+then flashed a loving smile at her husband, in case he might think that
+she regretted their loss.  "If there is anything about the rooms that
+would do, you are welcome to use it," she added, glancing vaguely at the
+sideboard and dumb waiter, while the boys laughed loudly at the idea of
+finding any "properties" in the shabby old dining-room.
+
+Peggy, however, returned thanks in the most gracious manner, and sat
+wrapt in thought for the rest of the evening, gazing darkly around from
+time to time, and scribbling notes on sheets of note-paper.
+
+Short of playing Shylock, which in the end fell to Maxwell's share, it
+seemed as if all the responsibility of the performance fell on Peggy's
+shoulders.  She was stage manager, selecting appropriate pieces of
+furniture from the different rooms and piling them together behind the
+screen in the study, whence they could be produced at a moment's notice,
+to give some idea of the different scenes.  She coached Esther and
+Mellicent in their parts, designed and superintended the making of the
+costumes, and gave the finishing touches to each actor in turn when the
+night of the "Dramatic Reading" arrived.
+
+"Taking one consideration with another," as Max remarked, "the costumes
+were really masterpieces of art."
+
+To attire two young gentlemen as Italian cavaliers, and a third as a
+bearded Jew, with no materials at hand beyond the ordinary furnishings
+of a house, is a task which calls for no small amount of ingenuity, yet
+this is exactly what Peggy had done.
+
+Antonio and Bassanio looked really uncommonly fine specimens, with
+cycling knickerbockers, opera cloaks slung over their shoulders, and
+flannel shirts pouched loosely over silk sashes, and ornamented with
+frills of lace at wrists and neck.  Darkened eyebrows gave them a
+handsome and distinguished air, and old straw hats and feathers sat
+jauntily on their tow wigs.
+
+The vicar sat in the arm-chair by the fire, Shakespeare in hand, waiting
+to fill in the odd parts with his wife's help, and simultaneous cries of
+astonishment and admiration greeted the appearance of the two actors at
+the beginning of the first scene.
+
+"It's wonderful!  Did I ever see such children?  What in the world have
+they got on their heads?  Milly's old leghorn, I declare, and my pink
+feathers.  My old pink feathers!  Deary me!  I'd forgotten all about
+them.  I've never worn them since the year that--"
+
+"`In sooth, I know not why I am so sad,'" quoth the wearer of the
+feathers, scowling darkly at the frivolous prattler, who straightway hid
+her head behind her book, and read Salanio's first speech in a tone of
+meek apology.
+
+There was a great deal of confusion about the first scene, for four
+people had to read the parts of six, and one of the number was so much
+occupied with gazing at the costumes of the actors that she invariably
+lost her place, and had to be called to order by significant coughs and
+glances.  By this time it generally happened that the vicar had made up
+his mind to come to the rescue, and both husband and wife would begin to
+read at the same moment, to their own amusement, and to the disgust of
+the two lads, who felt uncomfortable in their borrowed plumes, and
+keenly sensitive about their precious dignity.  Antonio mumbled his last
+speech in undignified haste, and followed Bassanio out of the room,
+prepared to echo his statement that this sort of thing was "tomfoolery,"
+and that he wasn't going to make an idiot of himself any longer to
+please Peggy Saville, or any other girl in the world.  But the words
+died on his lips, for outside, in the hall, stood Peggy herself, or
+rather Portia, and such a Portia as made him fairly blink with
+amazement!  Amidst the bustle of the last few days Portia's own costume
+had been kept a secret, so that the details came as a surprise to the
+other members of the party.  Nerissa stood by her side, clad in a
+flowing costume, the component parts of which included a dressing-gown,
+an antimacassar, and a flowered chintz curtain; but, despite the nature
+of the materials, the colouring was charming, and frizzled hair, flushed
+cheeks, and sparkling eyes, transformed the sober Esther into a very
+personable attendant on the lady of Belmont.  There was nothing of the
+dressing-gown character about Portia's own attire, however.  Its
+magnificence took away the breath of the beholders.  The little witch
+had combed her hair to the top of her head, and arranged it in a coil,
+which gave height and dignity to her figure.  A string of pearls was
+twisted in and out among the dark tresses; her white silk frock was
+mysteriously lengthened and ornamented by two large diamond-shaped
+pieces of satin encrusted with gold, one placed at the bottom of the
+skirt, and the other hanging loosely from the square-cut neck of the
+bodice.  Long yellow silk sleeves fell over the bare arms and reached
+the ground; and from the shoulders hung a train of golden-hued plush,
+lined with a paler shade of yellow.  Bassanio and Gratiano stood aghast,
+and Portia simpered at them sweetly in the intervals between dispensing
+stage directions to the boot boy, who was clad in his best suit for the
+occasion, and sent to and fro to change the arrangement of the scenery.
+He wheeled the sofa into the centre of the room, piled it up with blue
+cushions, and retired to make way for the two ladies, who were already
+edging in at the door.
+
+A gasp of astonishment greeted their appearance, but when Peggy dragged
+her heavy train across the room, threw herself against the cushions in
+an attitude calculated to show off all the splendour of her attire, when
+she leant her pearl-decked head upon her hand, turned her eyes to the
+ceiling, and said, with a sigh as natural and easy as if they were her
+own words which she was using, and not those of the immortal Shakespeare
+himself, "`By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great
+world!'"--then the vicar broke into a loud "Hear! hear!" of delight, and
+Mrs Asplin seized the poker and banged uproarious applause upon the
+fender.  For the first few minutes amazement and admiration held her
+dumb; but as the girls moved to and fro, and the details of their
+costumes became more apparent, she began to utter spasmodic cries of
+recognition, somewhat trying to the composure of the actors.
+
+Portia's description of her lovers was interrupted by a cry of, "My
+table centres!  The Turkish squares I bought at the Exhibition, and have
+never used!  Wherever did they find them?" while a little later came
+another cry, as the identity of the plush train made itself known, "My
+_portiere_ from the drawing-room door!  My beautiful _portiere_--with
+the nice new lining!  Oh dear, dear! it's dragging about all over the
+dirty carpet!  Don't sit on it, dear!  For pity's sake, don't git on
+it!"
+
+"Mother!" cried Esther, in a deep tone of remonstrance; but Portia was
+unconscious of interruption.  The other actors held their books in their
+hands, and, for the most part, read their speeches; but Peggy trusted
+entirely to memory, and sighed and yawned over the denunciation of her
+lovers, with evident satisfaction to herself as well as to the
+beholders.  Nerissa read her part "conscientiously," as the newspapers
+would say, punctuating her sentences in exemplary fashion, and laying
+the emphasis upon the right words as directed by the stage manageress;
+but, such is the contrariness of things, that, with all her efforts, the
+effect was stiff and stifled, while Peggy drawled through her sentences,
+or gabbled them over at break-neck speed, used no emphasis at all, or
+half a dozen running, at her own sweet will, and was so truly Portia
+that the vicar wondered dreamily if he should have to interview the Duke
+of Morocco in his study, and Mrs Asplin sighed unconsciously, and told
+herself that the child was too young to be troubled with lovers.  She
+must not dream of accepting any one of them for years to come!
+
+At the end of the scene, however, anxiety about her beloved _portiere_
+overpowered everything else in the mind of the vicar's wife, and she
+rushed after the actors to call out eager instructions.  "Hang it up at
+once--there's good children.  If you put it down on a chair, Peggy will
+sit on it as sure as fate!  And oh! my table centres!  Put them back in
+the drawer if you love me!  Wrap them up in the tissue paper as you
+found them!"
+
+"Mother, you are a terrible person!  Go back, there's a dear, and do
+keep quiet!" cried a muffled voice from behind the dining-room door, as
+Shylock dodged back to escape observation; and Mrs Asplin retreated
+hastily, aghast at the sight of a hairy monster, in whom she failed to
+recognise a trace of her beloved son and heir.  Shylock's make-up was,
+in truth, the triumph of the evening.  The handsome lad had been
+transformed into a bent, misshapen old man, and anything more ugly,
+frowsy, and generally unattractive than he now appeared it would be
+impossible to imagine.  A cushion gave a hump to his shoulders, and over
+this he wore an aged purple dressing-gown, which had once belonged to
+the vicar.  The dressing-gown was an obvious refuge; but who but Peggy
+Saville would have thought of the trimming, which was the making of the
+shaggy, unkempt look so much desired?  Peggy had sat with her hands
+clasped on her lap, and her head on one side, staring at the gown when
+it was held out for her approval two days before, then had suddenly
+risen, and rushed two steps at a time upstairs to the topmost landing, a
+wide, scantily furnished space which served for a playground on wet
+afternoons.  An oilcloth covered the floor, a table stood in a corner,
+and before each of the six doors was an aged wool rug, maroon as to
+colouring, with piebald patches here and there where the skin of the
+lining showed through the scanty tufts.  Peggy gave a whoop of triumph,
+tucked one after the other beneath her arm, and went flying down again,
+dropping a mat here and there, tripping over it, and nearly falling from
+top to bottom of the stairs.  Hairbreadth escapes were, however, so much
+a part of her daily existence that she went on her way unperturbed, and
+carried her bundle into the study, where the girls sniffed derisively,
+and the boys begged to know what she intended to do with all that
+rubbish.
+
+"`They that have no invention should be hanged,'" quoted Peggy,
+unperturbed.  "Give me a packet of pins, and I'll soon show you what I
+am going to do.  Dear, dear, dear, I don't know what you would do
+without me!  You are singularly bereft of imagination."
+
+She tossed her pigtail over her shoulder, armed herself with the largest
+pins she could find, and set to work to fasten the mats down the front
+of the gown, and round the hem at the bottom, so that the wool hung in
+shaggy ends over the feet.  The skins were thick, the heads of the pins
+pressed painfully into her fingers, but she groaned and worked away
+until the border was arranged for stitching, and could be tried on to
+show the effect.
+
+"Perfectly splendid!" was the verdict of the beholders.  And so the
+matter of Shylock's gown was settled; but his beard still remained to be
+provided, and was by no means an easy problem to solve.
+
+"Tow!" suggested Mellicent; but the idea was hooted by all the others.
+The idea of Shylock as a blonde was too ridiculous to be tolerated.
+False hair was not to be bought in a small village, and Maxwell's
+youthful face boasted as yet only the faintest shadow of a moustache.
+
+The question was left over for consideration, and an inspiration came
+the same afternoon, when Robert hurled one of the roller-like cushions
+of the sofa at Oswald's head, and Oswald, in catching it, tore loose a
+portion of the covering.
+
+"Now you've done it!" he cried.  "The room will be covered with
+feathers, and then you will say it was my fault!  We shall have to
+fasten the stupid thing up somehow or other!"  He peered through the
+opening as he spoke, and his face changed.  "It's not feathers--it's
+horsehair!  Here's a find!  What about that wig for Shylock?"
+
+Esther was dubious.
+
+"It would take a great deal of horsehair to make a wig.  It would spoil
+the cushion if the horsehair were taken away; it would spoil the sofa if
+the cushion were small; it would spoil the room if the sofa--"
+
+Peggy interrupted with a shriek of laughter.  "Oh, oh, oh!  It's like
+the `House that Jack built'!  How long do you intend to go on like that?
+Nonsense, my dear!  It would be perfectly easy to take out what we
+want, and put it back afterwards.  I'll promise to do it myself and sew
+it up tightly, though, if you desire my opinion, I think the cushion
+would be improved by letting in a little air.  You might as well lean
+your head on a brick.  Max, you are a made man!  You shall have a
+beautiful, crinkly black wig, and a beard to match!  We will sew them to
+your turban, and fasten them with black elastic.  It will never show,
+and I'll finish off the joins after you are dressed.  You'll see?"
+
+"You can do as you like!  I'm in your hands!" said Max easily; and when
+the night of the reading arrived, and he was attired in wig and gown,
+Peggy seated him in a chair and tucked a towel under his chin with an
+air of business.  She had a number of small accessories on a table near
+at hand, and Max was first instructed to stick pieces of black plaster
+over alternate teeth, so that he might appear to possess only a few
+isolated fangs, and then made to lie back in his chair, while his
+dresser stood over him with a glue-brush in one hand and a bunch of
+loose horsehair in the other.
+
+"Shut your eyes!" she cried loudly.  And before he could say "Jack
+Robinson" a tuft of the wiry stuff covered his eyebrow.  "Keep your face
+still!"  And, to his horror, the gum was daubed from the borders of the
+beard, halfway up to his eyes, and little prickly ends of hair were held
+in Peggy's palm and pressed against his cheeks until they were firmly
+attached.
+
+This, indeed, was more than he had bargained for!  He jerked back his
+head, and began a loud-voiced protest, only to be interrupted by shrieks
+of excitement.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!  It's beautiful--beautiful!  What a fright!  What a
+delicious fright!  No one would know you!  You look an old hairy monster
+who would gobble up half a dozen Christians.  Do look at yourself!"
+
+Peggy felt the pride of an artist in the result of her efforts, and Max
+was hardly less delighted than herself as he stood before the glass,
+gazing at his hairy cheeks and leering horribly, to admire his toothless
+gums.  If the result were so hideous as to astonish even those who had
+watched the process of his make-up, what wonder that the effect upon
+Shylock's fond parents was of a stupefying nature!
+
+Horror kept Mrs Asplin silent until the middle of the scene between
+Shylock and Antonio when the bond is signed, and then her agitation
+could no longer be controlled, and Shylock's little speeches were
+interrupted by entreaties to take that horrid stuff off his teeth, to
+use plenty of hot water in washing his face, and to be sure to anoint it
+plentifully with cold cream after doing so.
+
+An ordinary lad would have lost his temper at these interruptions; but
+Max adored his mother, and could never take anything she did in a wrong
+spirit.  Anger being therefore impossible, the only other resource was
+to laugh, which, in Peggy's opinion, was even worse than the former.  A
+Shylock who chuckled between his speeches, and gave a good-humoured "Ha!
+ha!" just before uttering his bitterest invective, was a ridiculous
+parody of the character, with whom it would be impossible to act.  It
+would be hard indeed if all her carefully rehearsed speeches lost their
+effect, and the famous trial scene were made into a farce through these
+untimely interruptions!
+
+The second part of the play went more smoothly, however, as the audience
+settled down to a more attentive hearing, and the actors became less
+self-conscious and embarrassed.  If four out of the six were sticks, who
+never for a moment approached the verge of the natural, Portia and
+Shylock did nobly, and, when the reading was over and the young people
+gathered round the fire in the drawing-room, it was unanimously agreed
+that they had acquired a more intimate knowledge of the play by this one
+evening's representation than by weeks of ordinary study.
+
+"I feel so much more intimate with it!" said Esther.  "It seems to have
+made it alive, instead of just something I have read in a book.  It was
+a delightful thought, father, and I am grateful to you for proposing it.
+I wish I could do all my lessons in the same way."
+
+"I've not enjoyed myself so much for ages.  You just did beautifully,
+all of you, and the dresses were a sight to behold.  As for Peggy, she's
+a witch, and could make up costumes on a desert island, if she were put
+to it!  But I don't know what is going to happen to my poor, dear boy's
+face.  Oswald, what is he doing?  Isn't he coming to have some lemonade
+and cake?" asked Mrs Asplin anxiously.  And Oswald chuckled in a
+heartless fashion.
+
+"Pride must abide.  He would be Shylock, whether we liked it or not, so
+let him take the consequences.  He is fighting it out with cold cream in
+the bathroom, and some of the horsehair sticks like fun.  I'll go up and
+tell him we have eaten all the cake.  He was getting savage when I came
+down, and it will sweeten his temper!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+PEGGY IN TROUBLE.
+
+As Peggy sat writing in the study one afternoon, a shaggy head came
+peering round the door, and Robert's voice said eagerly--"Mariquita!  A
+word in your ear!  Could you come out and take a turn round the garden
+for half an hour before tea, or are you too busy?"
+
+"Not at all.  I am entirely at your disposal," said Peggy elegantly; and
+the young people made their way to the cloak-room, swung on coats and
+sailor hats, and sallied out into the fresh autumn air.
+
+"Mariquita," said Robert then, using once more the name by which he
+chose to address Peggy in their confidential confabs, "Mariquita, I am
+in difficulties!  There is a microscope advertised in _Science_ this
+week, that is the very thing I have been pining for for the last six
+years.  I must _get_ it, or die; but the question is--_how_?  You see
+before you a penniless man."  He looked at Peggy as he spoke, and met
+her small, demure smile.
+
+"My dear and honourable sir--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; drop that, Mariquita!  Don't take for granted, like
+Mellicent, that because a man has a title he must necessarily be a
+millionaire.  Everything is comparative!  My father is rich compared to
+the vicar, but he is really hard-up for a man in his position.  He gets
+almost no rent for his land nowadays, and I am the third son.  I haven't
+as much pocket-money in a month as Oswald gets through in a week.  Now
+that microscope costs twenty pounds, and if I were to ask the governor
+for it, he wouldn't give it to me, but he would sigh and look wretched
+at being obliged to refuse.  He's a kind-hearted fellow, you know, who
+doesn't like to say `No,' and I hate to worry him.  Still--that
+microscope!  I must have it.  By hook or by crook, I must have it.  I've
+set my mind on that."
+
+"I'm sure I hope you will, though for my part you must not expect me to
+look through it.  I like things to be pretty, and when you see them
+through a microscope they generally look hideous.  I saw my own hand
+once--ugh!"  Peggy shuddered.  "Twenty pounds!  Well, I can only say
+that my whole worldly wealth is at your disposal.  Draw on me for
+anything you like--up to seven-and-six!  That's all the money I have
+till the beginning of the month."
+
+"Thanks!--I didn't intend to borrow; I have a better idea than that.  I
+was reading a magazine the other day, and came upon a list of prize
+competitions.  The first prize offered was thirty pounds, and I'm going
+to win that prize!  The microscope costs only twenty pounds, but the
+extra ten would come in usefully for--I'll tell you about that later on!
+The _Piccadilly Magazine_ is very respectable and all that sort of
+thing; but the governor is one of the good, old-fashioned, conservative
+fellows, who would be horrified if he saw my name figuring in it.  I'm
+bound to consider his feelings, but all the same I'm going to win that
+prize.  It says in the rules--I've read them through carefully--that you
+can ask your friends to help you, so that there would be nothing unfair
+about going into partnership with someone else.  What I was going to
+suggest was that you and I should collaborate.  I'd rather work with you
+than with any of the others, and I think we could manage it rather well
+between us.  Our contribution should be sent in in your name; that is to
+say, if you wouldn't object to seeing yourself in print."
+
+"I should love it.  I'm proud of my name; and it would be a new
+sensation."  But Peggy spoke in absent-minded fashion, as if her
+thoughts were running on another subject.  Rob had used a word which was
+unfamiliar in her ears, a big word, a word with a delightful
+intellectual roll, and she had not the remotest idea of its meaning.
+Collaborate!  Beautiful!  Not for worlds would she confess her
+ignorance, yet the opportunity could not be thrown away.  She must
+secure the treasure, and add it to her mental store.  She put her head
+on one side, and said pensively--
+
+"I shall be most happy to er--er--In what other words can I express
+`collaborate,' Rob?  I object to repetition?"
+
+"Go shags!" returned Robert briefly.  "I would do the biggest part of
+the work, of course--that's only fair, because I want two-thirds of the
+money--but you could do what you liked, and have ten pounds for your
+share.  Ten pounds would come in very usefully for Christmas."
+
+"Rather!  I'd get mother and father lovely presents, and Mrs Asplin
+too; and buy books for Esther, and a little gold ring for Mellicent--
+it's her idea of happiness to have a gold ring.  I'll help you with
+pleasure, Rob, and I'm sure we shall get the prize.  What have we to do?
+Compose some poetry?"
+
+"Goodness, no!  Fancy me making up poetry!  It's to make up a calendar.
+There are subjects given for each month--sorrow, love, obedience,
+resignation--that sort of thing, and you have to give a quotation for
+each day.  It will take some time, but we ought to stand a good chance.
+You are fond of reading, and know no end of poetry, and where I have a
+pull is in knowing French and German _so_ well.  I can give them some
+fine translations from the Latin and Greek too, for the matter of that,
+and put the authors' names underneath.  That will impress the judges,
+and make 'em decide in our favour.  I've been working at it only three
+days, and I've got over fifty quotations already.  We must keep
+note-books in our pockets, and jot down any ideas that occur to us
+during the day, and go over them together at night.  You will know a
+lot, I'm sure."
+
+  "`Sorrow and silence are strong,
+  and patient endurance is godlike,
+  Therefore accomplish thy labour of love,
+  till the heart is made godlike.'"
+
+quoted Peggy with an air; and Rob nodded approval.
+
+"That's it!  That's the style!  Something with a bit of a sermon in it
+to keep 'em up to the mark for the day.  Bravo, Mariquita! you'll do it
+splendidly.  That's settled, then.  We shall have to work hard, for
+there is only a month before it must be sent off, and we must finish in
+good time.  When you leave things to the last, something is bound to
+come in the way.  It will take an age to write out three hundred and
+sixty-five extracts."
+
+"It will indeed, for they must be very nicely done," said Peggy
+fastidiously.  "Of course it is most important that the extracts
+themselves should be good, but it matters almost as much that they
+should look neat and attractive.  Appearances go such a long way."  And
+when Robert demurred, and stated his opinion that the judges would not
+trouble their heads about looks, she stuck firmly to her point.
+
+"Oh, won't they, though!  Just imagine how you would feel if you were in
+their position, and had to look over scores of ugly, uninteresting
+manuscripts.  You would be bored to death, and, after plodding
+conscientiously through a few dozen, you would get so mixed up that you
+would hardly be able to distinguish one from another.  Then suddenly--
+suddenly,"--Peggy clasped her hands with one of her favourite dramatic
+gestures--"you would see before you a dainty little volume, prettily
+written, easy to read, easy to hold, nice to look at, and do you mean to
+say that your heart wouldn't give a jump, and that you would not take a
+fancy to the writer from that very moment?  Of course you would; and so,
+if you please, I am going to look after the decorative department, and
+see what can be done.  I must give my mind to it--Oh!  I'll tell you
+what would be just the thing.  When I was in the library one day lately
+I saw some sweet little note-books with pale green leaves and gilt
+edges.  I'll count the pages, and buy enough to make up three hundred
+and sixty-five, and twelve extra, so as to put one plain sheet between
+each month.  Then we must have a cover.  Two pieces of cardboard would
+do, with gilt edges, and a motto in Old English letters--`_The months in
+circling-orbit fly_.'  Have I read that somewhere, or did I make it up?
+It sounds very well.  Well, what next?"  Peggy was growing quite
+excited, and the restless hands were waving about at a great rate.  "Oh,
+the pages!  We shall have to put the date at the top of each.  I could
+do that in gold ink, and make a pretty little skriggle--
+er--`_arabesque_' I should say, underneath, to give it a finish.  Then
+I'd hand them on to you to write the extracts in your tiny little
+writing.  Rob, it will be splendid!  Do you really think we shall get
+the prize?"
+
+"I _mean_ to get it!  We have a good library here, and plenty of time,
+if we like to use it.  I'm going to get up at six every morning.  I
+shan't fail for want of trying, and if I miss this I'll win something
+else.  My mind is made up!  I'm going to buy that microscope!"  Robert
+tossed his head and looked ferocious, while Peggy peered in his rugged
+face, and, womanlike, admired him the more for his determination.
+
+They lingered in the garden discussing details, planning out the work,
+and arranging as to the different books to be overlooked until the tea
+hour was passed, and Mrs Asplin came to the door and called to them to
+come in.
+
+"And nothing on your feet but your thin slippers?  Oh, you Peggy!" she
+exclaimed in despair.  "Now you will have a cold, and ten to one it will
+fly to your throat.  I shall have to line you a penny every time you
+cross the doorstep without changing your shoes.  Summer is over,
+remember.  You can't be too careful in these raw, damp days.  Run
+upstairs this minute and change your stockings."
+
+Peggy looked meek, and went to her room at once to obey orders; but the
+mischief was done--she shivered, and could not get warm, her head ached,
+and her eyes felt heavy.  Mrs Asplin looked anxiously at her in the
+drawing-room after dinner, and finally called her to her side.
+
+"Peggy, come here!  Aren't you well?  Let me feel your hand.  Child,
+it's like a coal!  You are in a fever.  Why didn't you tell me at once?"
+
+"Because I--really, it's nothing, Mrs Asplin!  Don't be worried.  I
+don't know why I feel so hot.  I was shivering only a minute ago."
+
+"Go straight upstairs and take a dose of ammoniated quinine.  Turn on
+the fire in your room.  Max!  Robert!  Oswald!  Esther!  Mellicent! will
+everyone please look after Peggy in the future, and see that she does
+not run out in her slippers!" cried Mrs Asplin in a despairing voice;
+and Peggy bolted out of the door, in haste to escape before more
+reproaches could be hurled at her head.
+
+But an alarm of a more serious nature than a threatened cold was to take
+place before the evening was over.  The young people answered briefly,
+Mrs Asplin turned back to her book, and silence settled down upon the
+occupants of the drawing-room.  It was half-past eight, the servants had
+carried away the dinner things, and were enjoying their evening's rest
+in the kitchen.  The vicar was nodding in his easy-chair, the house was
+so quiet that the tick of the old grandfather clock in the hall could be
+heard through the half-opened door.  Then suddenly came the sound of
+flying footsteps, the door burst open, and in rushed Peggy once more,--
+but such a Peggy, such an apparition of fear, suffering, and terror as
+brought a cry of consternation from every lip.  Her eyes were starting
+from her head, her face was contorted in spasmodic gaspings for breath,
+her arms sawed the air like the sails of a windmill, and she flew round
+and round the room in a wild, unheeding rush.
+
+"Peggy, my child! my child! what is the matter?  Oh, Austin--oh!  What
+shall we do?" cried Mrs Asplin, trying to catch hold of the flying
+arms, only to be waved off with frenzied energy.  Mellicent dissolved
+into tears and retreated behind the sofa, under the impression that
+Peggy had suddenly taken leave of her senses, and practical Esther
+rushed upstairs to search for a clue to the mystery among the medicine
+bellies on Peggy's table.  She was absent only for a few minutes; but it
+seemed like an hour to the watchers, for Peggy's face grew more and more
+agonised, she seemed on the verge of suffocation, and could neither
+speak nor endure anyone to approach within yards of her mad career.
+Presently, however, she began to falter, to draw her breath in longer
+gasps, and as she did so there emerged from her lips a series of loud
+whooping sounds, like the crowing of a cock, or the noise made by a
+child in the convulsions of whooping-cough.  The air was making its way
+to the lungs after the temporary stoppage, and the result would have
+been comical if any of the hearers had been in a mood for jesting,
+which, in good truth, they were not.
+
+"Thank Heaven!  She will be better now.  Open the window and leave her
+alone.  Don't try to make her speak.  What in the world has the child
+been doing?" cried the vicar wonderingly; and at that moment Esther
+entered, bearing in her hand the explanation of the mystery--a bottle
+labelled "Spirits of Ammonia," and a tumbler about an eighth full of a
+white milky-looking fluid.
+
+"They were in the front of the table.  The other things had not been
+moved.  I believe she has never looked at the labels, but seized the
+first bottle that came to her hand--this dreadfully strong ammonia which
+you gave her for the gnat bites when she first came."
+
+A groan of assent came from the sofa on which Peggy lay, choking no
+longer, but ghastly white, and drawing her breath in painful gasps.
+Mrs Asplin sniffed at the contents of the tumbler, only to jerk back
+her head with watery eyes and reddened lips.
+
+"No wonder that the child was nearly choked!  The marvel is that she had
+ever regained her breath after such a mistake.  Her throat must be raw!"
+She hurried out of the room to concoct a soothing draught, at which
+Peggy supped at intervals during the evening, croaking out a hoarse,
+"Better, thank you!" in reply to inquiries, and looking so small and
+pathetic in her nest of cushions that the hearts of the beholders
+softened at the sight.  Before bedtime, however, she revived
+considerably, and, her elastic spirits coming to her aid, entertained
+the listeners with a husky but dramatic account of her proceedings.  How
+she had not troubled to turn the gas full up, and had just seized the
+bottle, tilted some of the contents into a tumbler in which there was a
+small portion of water, without troubling to measure it out, and gulped
+it down without delay.  Her description of the feelings which ensued was
+a really clever piece of word-painting, but behind the pretence of
+horror at her own carelessness there rang a hardly concealed note of
+pride, as though, in thus risking her life, she had done something quite
+clever and distinguished.
+
+Mrs Asplin exhausted herself in "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of sympathy, and had
+nothing harsher to say than--
+
+"Well now, dearie, you'll be more careful another time, won't you?"  But
+the vicar's long face grew longer than ever as he listened, and the
+lines deepened in his forehead.  Peggy was inexperienced in
+danger-signals, but Esther and Mellicent recognised the well-known
+signs, and were at no loss to understand the meaning of that quiet, "A
+word with you in the study, Mariquita, if you please!" with which he
+rose from the breakfast-table next morning.
+
+Peggy's throat was still sore, and she fondly imagined that anxiety on
+its behalf was the cause of the summons, but she was speedily
+undeceived, for the vicar motioned towards a chair, and said, in short
+grave sentences, as his manner was when annoyed--
+
+"I wish to speak to you about the event of last night; I am afraid that
+you hardly realise the matter in its true light.  I was not at all
+pleased with the manner in which you gave your explanation.  You
+appeared to imagine that you had done something clever and amusing.  I
+take a very different view.  You showed a reprehensible carelessness in
+trifling with medicines in the dark; it might have caused you your life,
+or, at best, a serious injury.  As it was, you brought pain upon
+yourself, and gave us all a serious alarm.  I see nothing amusing in
+such behaviour, but consider it stupid, and careless to an almost
+criminal extent."
+
+Peggy stood motionless, eyes cast down, hands clasped before her--a
+picture of injured innocence.  She did not say a word in self-defence,
+but her feelings were so plainly written on her face that the vicar's
+eyes flashed with impatience.
+
+"Well, what have you to say?"
+
+Peggy sighed in dolorous fashion.
+
+"I am sorry; I know it was careless.  I am always doing things like
+that.  So is Arthur.  So was father when he was a boy.  It's in the
+family.  It's unfortunate, but--"
+
+"Mariquita," said the vicar sternly, "you are _not_ sorry!  If I had
+seen that you were penitent, I should not have spoken, for you would
+have been sufficiently punished by your own sufferings, but you are not
+sorry; you are, on the whole, rather proud of the escapade!  Look into
+your own heart and see if it is not so?"
+
+He paused, looking at her with grave, expectant eyes, but there was no
+sign of conviction upon the set face.  The eyes were still lowered, the
+lips drooped with an expression of patient endurance.  There was silence
+in the room while Peggy studied the carpet, and the vicar gazed at her
+downcast face.  A moment before he had been on the verge of anger, but
+the sternness melted away in that silence, and gave place to an anxious
+tenderness.  Here was a little human soul committed to his care--how
+could he help? how best guide and train?  The long, grave face grew
+beautiful in that moment with the expression which it wore every Sunday
+as he gazed around the church at the beginning of the sermon, noting
+this one and that, having a swift realisation of their needs and
+failings, and breathing a prayer to God that He would give to his lips
+the right word, to his heart the right thought, to meet the needs of his
+people.  Evidently, sternness and outspoken blame was not the best way
+to touch the girl before him.  He must try another mode.
+
+"Peggy," he said quietly, "do you think you realise what a heavy
+responsibility we laid upon ourselves when we undertook the care of you
+for these three years?  If any accident happened to you beneath our
+roof, have you ever imagined what would be our misery and remorse at
+sending the news to your parents?  About their feelings I do not speak;
+you can realise them for yourself.  We safeguard you with every
+precaution in our power; we pray morning and night that you may be
+preserved in safety; is it too much to ask that you will do your part by
+showing more forethought, and by exercising some little care in the
+daily duties of life?  I ask it for our sakes as well as your own."
+
+A pink flush spread over Peggy's cheeks; she gulped nervously and raised
+her eyes to the vicar's face.  Twice her lips opened as if to speak, but
+the natural reserve, which made it agony to her to express her deepest
+feelings, closed them again before a word had been spoken.  The question
+was not answered, but a little hand shot out and nestled in Mr Asplin's
+with a spasmodic grip which was full of eloquence.
+
+"Yes, dear, I know you will!  I know you will!" he said, answering the
+unspoken promise, and looking down at her with one of his sweet, kindly
+smiles.  "It will be a comfort to my wife as well as myself.  She is
+very nervous about you.  She was upstairs three times in the night, to
+satisfy herself that you were well after your fright, and is too tired
+herself to come downstairs this morning.  She is always bright and
+cheery, but she is not very strong.  You would be sorry to make her
+ill."
+
+No answer, only another grip of the hand, and a sudden straightening of
+the lips, as if they were pressed together to avoid an involuntary
+trembling.  There is something especially touching in the sight of
+restrained emotion; and as the vicar thought of his own two daughters,
+his heart was very tender over the girl whose parents were separated
+from her by six thousand miles of land and sea.
+
+"Well now, dear, I have said my say, and that is an end of it.  I don't
+like finding fault, but my dear wife has thrown that duty on my
+shoulders by being too tender-hearted to say a word of blame even when
+it is needed.  Her method works very well, as a rule, but there are
+occasions when it would be criminal to withhold a just reprimand."  The
+vicar stopped short, and a spasm of laughter crossed his face.  Peggy's
+fingers had twitched within his own as he spoke those last two words,
+and her eyes had dilated with interest.  He knew as well as if he had
+been told that she was gloating over the new expression, and mentally
+noting it for future use.  Nothing, however, could have been sweeter or
+more natural than the manner in which she sidled against him, and
+murmured--
+
+"Thank you so much.  I am sorry!  I will truly try;" and he watched her
+out of the room with a smile of tender amusement.
+
+"A nice child--a good child--feels deeply.  I can rely upon her to do
+her best."
+
+Robert was hanging about in the passage, ready, as usual, to fulfil his
+vows of support, and Peggy slid her hand through his arm and sauntered
+slowly with him towards the schoolroom.  Like the two girls, he had been
+at no loss to understand the reason of the call to the study, and would
+fain have expressed his sympathy, but Peggy stopped him with uplifted
+finger.
+
+"No, no--he was perfectly right.  You must not blame him.  I have been
+guilty of reprehensible carelessness, and merited a reprimand!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+JEALOUS THOUGHTS.
+
+Peggy felt weak and shaken for some days after her fright, and was
+thankful to stay quietly indoors and busy herself with her new task.
+The gas-fire could be turned on in her room whenever she desired, and at
+every spare moment she ran upstairs, locked her door behind her, and
+began to write.  Robert insisted that the work should be kept secret,
+and that not a word should be said about the competition downstairs, for
+he was sensitive about the remarks of his companions, and anxious to
+keep a possible failure to himself.  All the work had to be done
+upstairs, therefore, and the frequent absence of the partners from the
+schoolroom, though much regretted, did not seem at all inexplicable to
+the others.  It was understood that Peggy and Robert had some interest
+in common; but as winter advanced this was no unusual occurrence in a
+house where Christmas was a carnival, and surprises of an elaborate
+nature were planned by every member of the household.  It was taken for
+granted that the work had some connection with Christmas, and inquiries
+were discreetly avoided.
+
+With an old calendar before her as a model for the lettering, Peggy did
+her work neatly and well, and the gilt "arabesques" had an artistic
+flourish which was quite professional.  When Robert was shown the first
+half-dozen sheets he whistled with surprise, and exclaimed, "Good old
+Mariquita!" a burst of approval before which Peggy glowed with delight.
+It had been agreed that, after printing the first ten days of January,
+Peggy should go on to the first ten of February, and so on throughout
+the year, so that Rob should be able to use what quotations had already
+been found under each heading, and should not be detained until the
+whole thirty or thirty-one had been chosen.
+
+The partners were most fastidious in their selection at the beginning of
+their work; but when half the time had passed, and not one-third of the
+necessary number of quotations had been found, alarm seized upon the
+camp, and it was realised that a little more latitude must be shown.
+
+"We shall have to use up all the old ones which we struck off the list,"
+said Rob disconsolately.  "I'm sorry; but I never realised before that
+three hundred and sixty-five was such an outrageously large number.  And
+we shall have to get books of extracts, and read them through from
+beginning to end.  Nearly two hundred more to find; a hundred and fifty,
+say, when we have used up those old ones!  It will take us all our
+time!"
+
+"I'll get up at six every morning and read by my fire," said Peggy
+firmly.  "If it's necessary, I'll get up at five, and if I can't find
+bits to suit all the stupid old things, I'll--I'll write some myself!
+There!  Why shouldn't I?  I often make up things in my head, and you
+wouldn't believe how fine they are.  I think of them days afterwards,
+and ask myself, `Now where did I read that?' and then it comes back to
+me.  `Dear me; I made it up myself!'  If we get very short, Rob, there
+wouldn't be any harm in writing a few sentences and signing them
+`Saville,' would there?"
+
+"Not if they were good enough," said Rob, trying to suppress the laugh
+which would have hurt Peggy's feelings, and looking with twinkling eyes
+at the little figure by his side, so comically unprofessional, with her
+lace collar, dainty little feet, and pigtail of dark brown hair.
+
+"You mustn't get up too early in the morning and overtire yourself.  I
+can't allow that!" he added firmly.  "You have looked like a little
+white ghost the last few days, and your face is about the size of my
+hand.  You must get some colour into your cheeks before the holidays, or
+that beloved Arthur will think we have been ill-treating you when he
+comes down."
+
+Peggy gave a sharp sigh, and relapsed into silence.  It was the rarest
+thing in the world to hear her allude to any of her own people.  When a
+letter arrived, and Mrs Asplin asked questions concerning father,
+mother, or brother, she answered readily enough, but she never offered
+information, or voluntarily carried on the conversation.  Friends less
+sympathetic might have imagined that she was so happy in her new home
+that she had no care beyond it, but no one in the vicarage made that
+mistake.  When the Indian letter was handed to her across the
+breakfast-table, the flush of delight on the pale cheeks brought a
+reflected smile to every face, and more than one pair of eyes watched
+her tenderly as she sat hugging the precious letter, waiting until the
+moment should come when she could rush upstairs and devour its contents
+in her own room.  Once it had happened that mail day had arrived and
+brought no letter, and that had been a melancholy occasion.  Mrs Asplin
+had looked at one envelope after another, had read the addresses twice,
+thrice, even four times over, before she summoned courage to tell of its
+absence.
+
+"There is no letter for you to-day, Peggy!"  Her voice was full of
+commiseration as she spoke, but Peggy sat in silence, her face
+stiffened, her head thrown back with an assumption of calm indifference.
+"There must have been some delay in the mail.  You will have two
+letters next week, dearie, instead of one."
+
+"Probably," said Peggy.  Mellicent was staring at her with big, round
+eyes; the vicar peered over the rim of his spectacles; Esther passed the
+marmalade with eager solicitude; her friends were all full of sympathy,
+but there was a "Touch-me-if-you-dare!" atmosphere about Peggy that day
+which silenced the words on their lips.  It was evident that she
+preferred to be left alone, and though her eyes were red when she came
+down to lunch, she held her chin so high, and joined in the conversation
+with such an elegant flow of language, that no one dare comment on the
+fact.  Two days later the letter arrived, and all was sunshine again;
+but, in spite of her cheery spirits, her friends realised that Peggy's
+heart was not in the vicarage, and that there were moments when the
+loneliness of her position pressed on her, and when she longed intensely
+for someone of her very own, whose place could not be taken by even the
+kindest of friends.
+
+Like most undemonstrative people, Peggy dearly loved to be appreciated,
+and to receive marks of favour from those around.  Half the zest with
+which she entered into her new labour was owing to the fact that Robert
+had chosen her from all the rest to be his partner.  She was aglow with
+satisfaction in this fact, and with pleasure in the work itself, and the
+only cloud which darkened her horizon at the present moment was caused
+by those incidental references to the fair Rosalind which fell so often
+from her companions' lips.
+
+"Everything," said Peggy impatiently to herself, "everything ends in
+Rosalind!  Whatever we are talking about, that stupid girl's name is
+bound to be introduced!  I asked Mellicent if she would have a scone at
+tea this afternoon, and she said something about Rosalind in reply--
+Rosalind liked scones, or she didn't like scones, or some ridiculous
+nonsense of the sort!  Who wants to know what Rosalind likes?  I don't!
+I'm sick of the name!  And Mrs Asplin is as silly as the rest!  The
+girls must have new dresses because Rosalind is coming, and they will be
+asked to tea at the Larches!  If their green dresses are good enough for
+us, why won't they do for Rosalind, I should like to know?  Rob is the
+only sensible one.  I asked him if she were really such a marvellous
+creature, and he said she was an affected goose!  He ought to know
+better than anyone else!  Curls indeed!  One would think it was
+something extraordinary to have curls!  My hair would curl too, if I
+chose to make it, but I don't; I prefer to have it straight!  If she is
+the `Honourable Rosalind,' I am Mariquita Saville, and I'm not going to
+be patronised by anybody--so there!" and Peggy tossed her head, and
+glared at the reflection in the glass in a lofty and scornful manner, as
+though it were the offending party who had had the audacity to assume
+superiority.
+
+Robert was one with Peggy in hoping that his people would not leave town
+until such time as the calendar should be despatched on its travels, for
+when they were installed at the Larches he was expected to be at home
+each week from Saturday until Monday, and the loss of that long holiday
+afternoon would interfere seriously with the work on hand.  He had seen
+so little of his people for the last few years, that he would be
+expected to be sociable during the short time that he was with them, and
+could hardly shut himself up in his room for hours at a time.  Despair
+then settled down upon both partners, when a letter arrived to say that
+the Darcy family were coming down even earlier than had been expected,
+and summoning Robert to join them at the earliest possible moment.
+
+"This is awful!" cried the lad, ruffling his hair with a big, restless
+hand.  "I know what it means--not only Saturdays off, but two or three
+nights during the week into the bargain!  Between you and me, Mariquita,
+the governor is coming down here to economise, and intends to stay much
+longer than usual.  Hector has been getting into debt again; he's the
+eldest, you know--the one in the Life Guards.  It's a lot too bad, for
+he has had it all his own way so far, and when he runs up bills like
+this, everyone has to suffer for it.  Mother hates the country for more
+than a few weeks at a time, and will be wretched if she is kept here all
+through the winter.  I know how it will be: she will keep asking people
+down, and getting up all sorts of entertainments to relieve the dulness.
+It's all very well in its way, but just now when I need every minute--"
+
+"Shall you give up trying for the prize?" asked Peggy faintly, and Rob
+threw back his head with emphatic disclaimer.
+
+"I never give up a thing when I have made up my mind to do it!  There
+are ten days still, and a great deal can be done in ten days.  I'll take
+a couple of books upstairs with me every night, and see if I can find
+something fresh.  There is one good thing about it, I shall have a fresh
+stock of books to choose from at the Larches.  It is the last step that
+costs in this case.  It was easy enough to fix off the first hundred,
+but the last is a teaser!"
+
+On Saturday morning a dogcart came over to convey Robert to the Larches,
+and the atmosphere of the vicarage seemed charged with expectation and
+excitement.  The Darcys had arrived; to-morrow they would appear at
+church; on Monday they would probably drive over with Rob and pay a
+call.  These were all important facts in a quiet country life, and
+seemed to afford unlimited satisfaction to every member of the
+household.  Peggy grew so tired of the name of Darcy that she retired to
+her room at eight o'clock, and was busy at work over the September batch
+of cards, when a knock came to the door, and she had to cover them over
+with the blotting-paper to admit Mellicent in her dressing-gown, with
+her hair arranged for the night in an extraordinary number of little
+plaited pigtails.
+
+"Will you fasten the ends for me, Peggy, please?" she requested.  "When
+I do it, the threads fall off, and the ends come loose.  I want it to be
+specially nice for to-morrow!"
+
+"But it will look simply awful, Mellicent, if you leave it like this.
+It will be frizzed out almost on a level with your head.  Let me do it
+up in just two tight plaits; it will be far, far nicer," urged Peggy,
+lifting one little tail after another, and counting their number in
+dismay.  But no, Mellicent would not be persuaded.  The extra plaits
+were a tribute to Rosalind, a mark of attention to her on her arrival
+with which she would suffer no interference; and as a consequence of her
+stubbornness she marched to church next morning disfigured by a mop of
+untidy, tangled hair, instead of the usual glossy locks.
+
+Peggy preserved a demeanour of stately calm, as she waited for the
+arrival of the Darcy family, but even she felt a tremor of excitement
+when the verger hobbled up to the square pew and stood holding the door
+open in his hand.  The heads of the villagers turned with one consent to
+the doorway; only one person in the church disdained to move her
+position, but she heard the clatter of horses' hoofs from without, and
+presently the little procession passed the vicarage pew, and she could
+indulge her curiosity without sacrifice to pride.  First of all came
+Lord Darcy, a thin, oldish man, with a face that looked tired and kind,
+and faintly amused by the amount of attention which his entrance had
+attracted.  Then his wife, a tall, fair woman, with a beautiful profile,
+and an air of languid discontent, who floated past with rustling silken
+skirts, leaving an impression of elegance and luxury, which made Mrs
+Asplin sigh and Mellicent draw in her breath with a gasp of rapture.
+Then followed Robert with his shaggy head, scowling more fiercely than
+ever in his disgust at finding himself an object of attention, and last
+of all a girlish figure in a grey dress, with a collar of soft, fluffy
+chinchilla, and a velvet hat with drooping brim, beneath which could be
+seen a glimpse of a face pink and white as the blossoms of spring, and a
+mass of shining, golden hair.  Peggy shut her lips with a snap, and the
+iron entered into her soul.  It was no use pretending any longer!  This
+was Rosalind, and she was fairer, sweeter, a hundred times more
+beautiful than she had ever imagined!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+ROSALIND'S VISIT.
+
+Robert did not make his appearance next morning, and his absence seemed
+to give fresh ground for the expectation that Lady Darcy would drive
+over with him in the afternoon and pay a call at the vicarage.
+
+Mrs Asplin gathered what branches of russet leaves still remained in
+the garden and placed them in bowls in the drawing-room, with a few
+precious chrysanthemums peeping out here and there; laid out her very
+best tea-cloth and d'oyleys, and sent the girls upstairs to change their
+well-worn school dresses for something fresher and smarter.
+
+"And you, Peggy dear--you will put on your pretty red, of course!" she
+said, standing still, with a bundle of branches in her arms, and looking
+with a kindly glance at the pale face, which had somehow lost its sunny
+expression during the last two days.
+
+Peggy hesitated and pursed up her lips.
+
+"Why `of course,' Mrs Asplin?  I never change my dress until evening.
+Why need I do it to-day, just because some strangers may call whom I
+have never seen before?"
+
+It was the first time that the girl had objected to do what she was
+told, and Mrs Asplin was both surprised and hurt by the tone in which
+she spoke--a good deal puzzled too, for Peggy was by no means
+indifferent to pretty frocks, and as a rule fond of inventing excuses to
+wear her best clothes.  Why, then, should she choose this afternoon of
+all others to refuse so simple a request?  Just for a moment she felt
+tempted to make a sharp reply, and then tenderness for the girl whose
+mother was so far-away took the place of the passing irritation, and she
+determined to try a gentler method.
+
+"There is not the slightest necessity, dear," she said quietly.  "I
+asked only because the red dress suits you so well, and it would have
+been a pleasure to me to see you looking your best.  But you are very
+nice and neat as you are.  You need not change unless you like."
+
+She turned to leave the room as she finished speaking; but before she
+had reached the door Peggy was by her side, holding out her hands to
+take possession of twigs and branches.
+
+"Let me take them to the kitchen, please!  Let me help you!" she said
+quickly, and just for a moment a little hand rested on her arm with a
+spasmodic pressure.  That was all; but it was enough.  There was no need
+of a formal apology.  Mrs Asplin understood all the unspoken love and
+penitence which was expressed in that simple action, and beamed with her
+brightest smile.
+
+"Thank you, my lassie, please do!  I'm glad to avoid going near the
+kitchen again, for when cook once gets hold of me I can never get away.
+She tells me the family history of all her relatives, and indeed it's
+very depressing, it is," (with a relapse into her merry Irish accent),
+"for they are subject to the most terrible afflictions!  I've had one
+dose of it to-day, and I don't want another!"
+
+Peggy laughed, and carried off her bundle, lingered in the kitchen just
+long enough to remind the cook that "apple charlotte served with cream"
+was a seasonable pudding at the fall of the year, and then went upstairs
+to put on the red dress, and relieve her feelings by making grimaces at
+herself in the glass as she fastened the buttons.
+
+At four o'clock the patter of horses' feet came from below, doors opened
+and shut, and there was a sound of voices in the hall.  The visitors had
+arrived!
+
+Peggy pressed her lips together, and bent doggedly over her writing.
+She had not progressed with her work as well as she had hoped during
+Rob's absence, for her thoughts had been running on other subjects, and
+she had made mistake after mistake.  She must try to finish one batch at
+least, to show him on his return.  Unless she was especially sent for,
+she would not go downstairs; but before ten minutes had passed,
+Mellicent was tapping at the door and whispering eager sentences through
+the keyhole.
+
+"Peggy, quick!  They've come!  Rosalind's here!  You're to come down!
+Quick!  Hurry up!"
+
+"All right, my dear, keep calm!  You will have a fit if you excite
+yourself like this!" said Peggy coolly.
+
+The summons had come, and could not be disregarded, and on the whole she
+was not sorry.  The meeting was bound to take place sooner or later,
+and, in spite of her affectation of indifference, she was really
+consumed with curiosity to know what Rosalind was like.  She had no
+intention of hurrying, however, but lingered over the arrangement of her
+papers until Mellicent had trotted downstairs again, and the coast was
+clear.  Then she sauntered after her with leisurely dignity, opened the
+drawing-room door, and gave a swift glance round.
+
+Lady Darcy sat talking to Mrs Asplin a few yards away, in such a
+position that she faced the doorway.  She looked up as Peggy entered,
+and swept her eyes curiously over the girl's figure.  She looked older
+than she had done from across the church the day before, and her face
+had a bored expression, but, if possible, she was even more elegant in
+her attire.  It seemed quite extraordinary to see such a fine lady
+sitting on that well-worn sofa, instead of the sober figure of the
+vicar's wife.
+
+Peggy flashed a look from one to the other--from the silk dress to the
+serge, from the beautiful weary face to the cheery loving smile--and
+came to the conclusion that, for some mysterious reason, Mrs Asplin was
+a happier woman than the wife of the great Lord Darcy.
+
+The two ladies stopped talking and looked expectantly towards her.
+
+"Come in, dear!  This is our new pupil, Lady Darcy, for whom you were
+asking.  You have heard of her--"
+
+"From Robert.  Oh yes, frequently!  I was especially anxious to see
+Robert's little friend.  How do you do, dear?  Let me see!  What is your
+funny little name?  Molly--Dolly--something like that, I think--I forget
+for the moment?"
+
+"Mariquita Saville!" quoth Peggy grandiloquently.  She was consumed with
+regret that she had no second name to add to the number of syllables,
+but she did her best with those she possessed, rolling them out in her
+very best manner and with a stately condescension which made Lady Darcy
+smile for the first time since she entered the room.
+
+"Oh-h!"  The lips parted to show a gleam of regular white teeth.
+"That's it, is it?  Well, I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,
+Mariquita.  I hope we shall see a great deal of you while we are here.
+You must go and make friends with Rosalind--my daughter.  She is longing
+to know you."
+
+"Yes, go and make friends with Rosalind, Peggy dear!  She was asking for
+you," said Mrs Asplin kindly; and as the girl walked away the two
+ladies exchanged smiling glances.
+
+"Amusing!  Such grand little manners!  Evidently a character."
+
+"Oh, quite!  Peggy is nothing if not original.  She is a dear, good
+girl, but quite too funny in her ways.  She is really the incarnation of
+mischief, and keeps me on tenter-hooks from morning until night, but
+from her manner you would think she was a model of propriety.  Nothing
+delights her so much as to get hold of a new word or a high-sounding
+phrase."
+
+"But what a relief to have someone out of the ordinary run!  There are
+so many bores in the world, it is quite refreshing to meet with a little
+originality.  Dear Mrs Asplin, you really must tell me how you manage
+to look so happy and cheerful in this dead-alive place?  I am desolate
+at the idea of staying here all winter.  What in the world do you find
+to do?"
+
+Mrs Asplin laughed.
+
+"Indeed, that's not the trouble at all; the question is how to find time
+to get through the day's duties!  It's a rush from morning till night,
+and when evening comes I am delighted to settle down in an easy-chair
+with a nice book to read.  One has no chance of feeling dull in a house
+full of young people."
+
+"Ah, you are so good and clever, you get through so much.  I want to ask
+your help in half a dozen ways.  If we are to settle down here for some
+months, there are so many arrangements to make.  Now tell me, what would
+you do in this case?"  The two ladies settled down to a discussion on
+domestic matters, while Peggy crossed the room to the corner where
+Rosalind Darcy sat in state, holding her court with Esther and Mellicent
+as attendant slaves.  She wore the same grey dress in which she had
+appeared in church the day before, but the jacket was thrown open, and
+displayed a distractingly dainty blouse, all pink chiffon, and frills,
+and ruffles of lace.  Her gloves lay in her lap, and the celebrated
+diamond ring flashed in the firelight as she held out her hand to meet
+Peggy's.
+
+"How do you do?  So glad to see you!  I've heard of you often.  You are
+the little girl who is my bwothar's fwiend."  She pronounced the letter
+"r" as if it had been "w," and the "er" in brother as if it had been
+"ah," and spoke with a languid society drawl more befitting a woman of
+thirty than a schoolgirl of fifteen.
+
+Peggy stood motionless and looked her over, from the crown of her hat to
+the tip of the little trim shoe, with an expression of icy displeasure.
+
+"Oh dear me, no," she said quietly, "you mistake the situation.  You put
+it the wrong way about.  Your brother is the big boy whom I have allowed
+to become a friend of mine!"
+
+Esther and Mellicent gasped with amazement, while Rosalind gave a trill
+of laughter, and threw up her pretty white hands.
+
+"She's wexed!" she cried.  "She's wexed, because I called her little!
+I'm wewwy sowwy, but I weally can't help it, don't you know.  It's the
+twuth!  You are a whole head smaller than I am."  She threw back her
+chin, and looked over Peggy's head with a smile of triumph.  "There,
+look at that, and I'm not a year older.  I call you wewwy small indeed
+for your age."
+
+"I'm thankful to hear it!  I admire small women," said Peggy promptly,
+seating herself on a corner of the window-seat, and staring critically
+at the tall figure of the visitor.  She would have been delighted if she
+could have persuaded herself that her height was awkward and ungainly,
+but such an effort was beyond imagination.  Rosalind was startlingly and
+wonderfully pretty; she had never seen anyone in real life who was in
+the least like her.  Her eyes were a deep, dark blue, with curling dark
+lashes, her face was a delicate oval, and the pink and white colouring,
+and flowing golden locks, gave her the appearance of a princess in a
+fairy tale rather than an ordinary flesh-and-blood maiden.  Peggy looked
+from her to Mellicent, who was considered quite a beauty among her
+companions, and, oh dear me! how plain, and fat, and prosaic she
+appeared when viewed side by side with this radiant vision!  Esther
+stood the comparison better, for, though her long face had no
+pretensions to beauty, it was thoughtful and interesting in expression.
+There was no question which was most charming to look at; but if it had
+come to choice of a companion, an intelligent observer would certainly
+have decided in favour of the vicar's daughter.  Esther's face was
+particularly grave at this moment, and her eyes met Peggy's with a
+reproachful glance.  What was the matter with the girl this afternoon?
+Why did she take up everything that Rosalind said in that hasty,
+cantankerous manner?  Here was an annoying thing--to have just given an
+enthusiastic account of the brightness and amicability of a new
+companion, and then to have that companion come into the room only to
+make snappish remarks, and look as cross and ill-natured as a bear!  She
+turned in an apologetic fashion to Rosalind, and tried to resume the
+conversation at the point where it had been interrupted by Peggy's
+entrance.
+
+"And I was saying, we have ever so many new things to show you--
+presents, you know, and things of that kind.  The last is the nicest of
+all: a really good big camera with which we can take proper photographs.
+Mrs Saville--Peggy's mother--gave it to us before she left.  It was a
+present to the schoolroom, so it belongs equally to us all, and we have
+such fun with it.  We are beginning to do some good things now, but at
+first they were too funny for anything.  There is one of father where
+his boots are twice as large as his head, and another of mother where
+her face has run, and is about a yard long, and yet it is so like her!
+We laughed till we cried over it, and father has locked it away in his
+desk.  He says he will keep it to look at when he is low-spirited."
+
+Rosalind gave a shrug to her shapely shoulders.
+
+"It would not cheer me up to see a cawicature of myself!  I don't think
+I shall sit to you for my portrait, if that is the sort of thing you do,
+but you shall show me all your failures.  It will amuse me.  You will
+have to come up and see me vewwy often this winter, for I shall be so
+dull.  We have been abroad for the last four years, and England seems so
+dark and dweawy.  Last winter we were at Cairo.  We lived in a big
+hotel, and there was something going on almost every night.  I was not
+out, of course, but I was allowed to go into the room for an hour after
+dinner, and to dance with the gentlemen in mother's set.  And we went up
+the Nile in a steamer, and dwove about every afternoon, paying calls,
+and shopping in the bazaars.  It never rains in Cairo, and the sun is
+always shining.  It seems so wonderful!  Just like a place in a fairy
+tale."  She looked at Peggy as she spoke, and that young person smiled
+with an air of elegant condescension.
+
+"It would do so to you.  Naturally it would.  When one has been born in
+the East, and lived there the greater part of one's life, it seems
+natural enough, but the trippers from England who just come out for a
+few months' visit are always astonished.  It used to amuse us so much to
+hear their remarks!"
+
+Rosalind stared, and flushed with displeasure.  She was accustomed to
+have her remarks treated with respect, and the tone of superiority was a
+new and unpleasing experience.
+
+"You were born in the East?"
+
+"Certainly I was!"
+
+"Where, may I ask?"
+
+"In India--in Calcutta, where my father's regiment was stationed."
+
+"You lived there till you were quite big?  You can remember all about
+it?"
+
+"All I want to remember.  There was a great deal that I choose to
+forget.  I don't care for India.  England is more congenial to my
+feelings."
+
+"And can you speak the language?  Did you learn Hindostanee while you
+were there?"
+
+"Naturally.  Of course I did."
+
+A gasp of amazement came from the two girls in the window, for a
+knowledge of Hindostanee had never been included in the list of Peggy's
+accomplishments, and she was not accustomed to hide her light under a
+bushel.  They gazed at her with widened eyes, and Rosalind scented
+scepticism in the air, and cried quickly--
+
+"Say something, then.  If you can speak, say something now, and let us
+hear you."
+
+"Pardon me!" said Peggy, simpering.  "As a matter of fact, I was sent
+home because I was learning to speak too well.  The language of the
+natives is not considered suitable for English children of tender age.
+I must ask you to be so kind as to excuse me.  I should be sorry to
+shock your sensibilities."
+
+Rosalind drew her brows together and stared steadily in the speaker's
+face.  Like many beautiful people, she was not over-gifted with a sense
+of humour, and therefore Peggy's grandiose manner and high-sounding
+words failed to amuse her as they did most strangers.  She felt only
+annoyed and puzzled, dimly conscious that she was being laughed at, and
+that this girl with the small face and the peaked eyebrows was trying to
+patronise her--Rosalind Darcy--instead of following the vicar's
+daughters in adoring her from a respectful distance, as of course it was
+her duty to do.  She had been anxious to meet the Peggy Saville of whom
+her brother had spoken so enthusiastically, for it was a new thing to
+hear Rob praise a girl, but it was evident that Peggy on her side was by
+no means eager to make her acquaintance.  It was an extraordinary
+discovery, and most disconcerting to the feelings of one who was
+accustomed to be treated as a person of supreme importance.  Rosalind
+could hardly speak for mortification, and it was an immense relief when
+the door opened, and Max and Oswald hurried forward to greet her.  Then
+indeed she was in her element, beaming with smiles, and indulging a
+dozen pretty little tricks of manner for the benefit of their admiring
+eyes.  Max took possession of the chair by her side, his face lighted up
+with pleasure and admiration.  He was too thoroughly natural and healthy
+a lad to be much troubled with sentiment, but ever since one winter
+morning five years before, when Rosalind had first appeared in the
+little country church, she had been his ideal of all that was womanly
+and beautiful.  At every meeting he discovered fresh charms, and to-day
+was no exception to the rule.  She was taller, fairer, more elegant.  In
+_some_ mysterious manner she seemed to have grown older than he, so
+that, though he was in reality three years her senior, he was still a
+boy, while she was almost a young lady.
+
+Mrs Asplin looked across the room, and a little anxious furrow showed
+in her forehead.  Maxwell's admiration for Rosalind was already an old
+story, and as she saw his eager face and sparkling eyes, a pang of fear
+came into his mother's heart.  If the Darcys were constantly coming down
+to the Larches, it was only natural to suppose that this admiration
+would increase, and it would never do for Max to fall in love with
+Rosalind!  The vicar's son would be no match for Lord Darcy's daughter;
+it would only mean a heartache for the poor lad, a clouded horizon just
+when life should be the brightest.  For a moment a prevision of trouble
+filled her heart, then she waved it away in her cheery, hopeful
+fashion--
+
+"Why, what a goose I am!  They are only children.  Time enough to worry
+my head about love affairs in half a dozen years to come.  The lad would
+be a Stoic if he didn't admire her.  I don't see how he could help it!"
+
+"Rosalind is lovelier than ever, Lady Darcy, if that is possible!" she
+said aloud, and her companion's face brightened with pleasure.
+
+"Oh, do you think so?" she cried eagerly.  "I am so glad to hear it, for
+this growing stage is so trying.  I was afraid she might outgrow her
+strength and lose her complexion, but so far I don't think it has
+suffered.  I am very careful of her diet, and my maid understands all
+the new skin treatments.  So much depends on a girl's complexion.  I
+notice your youngest daughter has a very good colour.  May I ask what
+you use?"
+
+"Soap and water, fresh air, good plain food,--those are the only
+cosmetics we use in this house," said Mrs Asplin, laughing outright at
+the idea of Mellicent's healthy bloom being the result of "skin
+treatment."  "I am afraid I have too much to do looking after the
+necessities of life for my girls, Lady Darcy, to worry myself about
+their complexions."
+
+"Oh yes.  Well, I'm sure they both look charming; but Rosalind will go
+much into society, and of course,"--She checked herself before the
+sentence was finished; but Mrs Asplin was quick enough to understand
+the imputation that the complexions of a vicar's daughters were but of
+small account, but that it was a very different matter when the
+Honourable Rosalind Darcy was concerned.  She understood, but she was
+neither hurt nor annoyed by the inferences, only a little sad and very,
+very pitiful.  She knew the story of the speaker's life, and the reason
+why she looked forward to Rosalind's entrance into society with such
+ambition.  Lady Darcy had been the daughter of poor but well-born
+parents, and had married the widower, Lord Darcy, not because she loved
+him or had any motherly feeling for his two orphan boys, but simply and
+solely for a title and establishment, and a purse full of money.  Given
+these, she had fondly imagined that she was going to be perfectly happy.
+No more screwing and scraping to keep up appearances; no more living in
+dulness and obscurity; she would be Lady Darcy, the beautiful young wife
+of a famous man.  So, with no thought in her heart but for her own
+worldly advancement, Beatrice Fairfax stood before God's altar and vowed
+to love, honour, and obey a man for whom she had no scrap of affection,
+and whom she would have laughed to scorn if he had been poor and
+friendless.  She married him, but the life which followed was not by any
+means all that she had expected.  Lord Darcy had heavy money losses,
+which obliged him to curtail expenses almost immediately after his
+wedding; her own health broke down, and it was a knife in her heart to
+know that her boy was only the third son, and that the two big, handsome
+lads at Eton would inherit the lion's share of their father's property.
+Hector, the Lifeguardsman, and Oscar, the Dragoon, were for ever running
+into debt and making fresh demands on her husband's purse.  She and her
+children had to suffer for their extravagances; while Robert, her only
+son, was growing up a shy, awkward lad, who hated society, and asked
+nothing better than to be left in the country alone with his frogs and
+his beetles.  Ambition after ambition had failed her, until now all her
+hopes were centred in Rosalind, the beautiful daughter, in whom she saw
+a reproduction of herself in the days of her girlhood.  She had had a
+dull and obscure youth; Rosalind should be the belle of society.  Her
+own marriage had been a disappointment; Rosalind should make a brilliant
+alliance.  She had failed to gain the prize for which she had worked;
+she would live again in Rosalind's triumphs, and in them find fullest
+satisfaction.
+
+So Lady Darcy gloated over every detail of her daughter's beauty, and
+thought day and night of her hair, her complexion, her figure, striving
+still to satisfy her poor tired soul with promises of future success,
+and never dreaming for a moment that the prize which seemed to elude her
+grasp had been gained long ago by the vicar's wife, with her
+old-fashioned dress and work-worn hands.  But Mrs Asplin knew, and
+thanked God in her heart for the sweetness and peace of her dear, shabby
+home; for the husband who loved her, and the children whom they were
+training to be good servants for Him in the world Yes, and for that
+other child too, who had been taken away at the very dawn of his
+manhood, and who, they believed, was doing still better work in the
+unseen world.
+
+Until Lady Darcy discovered that the only true happiness rose from
+something deeper than worldly success, there was nothing in store for
+her but fresh disappointments and heart-hunger; while as for Rosalind,
+the unfortunate child of such a mother--Mrs Asplin looked at the girl
+as she sat leaning back in her chair, craning her throat, and showing
+off all her little airs and graces for the benefit of the two admiring
+schoolboys, gratified vanity and self-love showing on every line of her
+face.
+
+"It seems almost cruel to say so," she sighed to herself, "but it would
+be the best thing that could happen to the child if she were to lose
+some of her beauty before she grew up.  Such a face as that is a
+terrible temptation to vanity."  But Mrs Asplin did not guess how soon
+these unspoken words would come back to her memory, or what bitter cause
+she would have to regret their fulfilment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+A PINK LUNCHEON.
+
+For the next week conversation was more strictly centred on Rosalind
+than ever, and the gloomy expression deepened on Peggy's face.  She was,
+in truth, working too hard for her strength, for, as each day passed,
+the necessity of hurrying on with the calendar became more apparent; and
+as Robert was no longer master of his own time, she was obliged to come
+to his aid in writing out the selected quotations.
+
+At every spare moment of the day she was locked in her room, scribbling
+away for dear life or searching for appropriate extracts, and, as a
+consequence, her brain refused to rest when she wished it to do so.  She
+tossed wakefully on her pillow, and was often most inclined for sleep
+when six o'clock struck, and she dragged herself up, a white-cheeked,
+weary little mortal, to sit blinking over the fire, wishing feebly that
+it was time to go to bed again, instead of getting up to face the long,
+long day.
+
+Robert was not more observant than most boys of his age, and Peggy would
+have worked herself to death before she had complained to him.  She was
+proud to feel that he depended on her more than ever, that without her
+help he could not possibly have finished his task, while his words of
+gratitude helped to comfort a heart which was feeling sore and empty.
+
+In truth, these last few weeks had been harder for Peggy than those
+immediately following her mother's departure.  Then each one in the
+house had vied with the other in trying to comfort her, whereas now,
+without any intention of unkindness, her companions often appeared to be
+neglectful.
+
+When Rosalind was present Esther hung on one arm and Mellicent on the
+other, without so much as a glance over the shoulder to see if Peggy
+were following.  Instead of a constant "Peggy, what would you like?"
+
+"What does Peggy say?" her opinion was never even asked, while
+Rosalind's lightest word was treated as law.
+
+It would have been hard for any girl under the circumstances, but it was
+doubly hard when that girl was so dependent on her friends, and so
+sensitive and reserved in disposition as Peggy Saville.  She would not
+deign to complain or to ask for signs of affection which were not
+voluntarily given, but her merry ways disappeared, and she became so
+silent and subdued that she was hardly recognisable as the audacious
+Peggy of a few weeks earlier.
+
+"Peggy's so grumpy," Mellicent complained to her mother.  "She never
+laughs now, nor makes jokes, nor flies about as she used to do!  She's
+just as glum and mum as can be, and she never sits with us!  She is
+always in her bedroom with the door locked, so that we can't get in!
+She's there now!  I think she might stay with us sometimes!  It's mean,
+always running away!"
+
+Mrs Asplin drew her brows together and looked worried.  She had not
+been satisfied about Peggy lately, and this news did not tend to
+reassure her.  Her kind heart could not endure that anyone beneath her
+roof should be ill or unhappy, and the girl had looked both during the
+last few days.  She went upstairs at once and tapped at the door, when
+Peggy's voice was raised in impatient answer.
+
+"I can't come!  Go away!  I'm engaged!"
+
+"But I want to speak to you, dear!  Please let me in!" she replied in
+her clear, pleasant tones; whereupon there was a hasty scamper inside,
+and the door was thrown open.
+
+"Oh-h!  I didn't know it was you; I thought it was one of the girls.
+I'm sorry I kept you waiting."
+
+Mrs Asplin gave a glance around.  The gas-fire was lit, but the chair
+beside it stood stiffly in the corner, and the cushion was uncrushed.
+Evidently, the girl had not been sitting there.  The work-basket was in
+its accustomed place, and there were no cottons or silks lying about--
+Peggy had not been sewing at Christmas presents, as she had half hoped
+to find her.  A towel was thrown over the writing-table, and a piece of
+blotting-paper lay on the floor.  A chair was pushed to one side, as if
+it had been lately used.  That looked as if she had been writing
+letters.
+
+"Peggy dear, what are you doing all by yourself in this chilly room?"
+
+"I'm busy, Mrs Asplin.  I lit the fire as soon as I came in."
+
+"But a room does not get warm in five minutes.  I don't want you to
+catch cold and be laid up with a sore throat.  Can't you bring your
+writing downstairs and do it beside the others?"
+
+"I would rather not.  I can get on so much better by myself."
+
+"Are you writing to India--to your mother?"
+
+"N-no, not just now."
+
+"Then really, dear, you must come downstairs!  This won't do!  Your
+mother wished you to have a fire in your room, so that you might be able
+to sit here when you wanted to be alone, but she never meant you to make
+it a habit, or to spend all your spare time alone.  It isn't healthy to
+use a room night and day, and to burn so much gas, and it isn't
+sociable, Peggy dear.  Mellicent has just been complaining that you are
+hardly ever with them nowadays.  Come along, like a good girl; put the
+writing away and amuse yourself downstairs.  You have done enough work
+for one day.  You don't do me credit with those white cheeks."
+
+Peggy stood with her eyes fixed on the carpet without uttering a word.
+It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say, "Oh, do let me
+stay upstairs as much as I like for a day or two longer.  I have a piece
+of work on hand which I am anxious to finish.  It is a secret, but I
+hope to tell you all about it soon, and I am sure you will be pleased."
+If she had done so, she knew perfectly well how hearty and pleasant
+would have been Mrs Asplin's consent; but there are some states of mind
+in which it is a positive pleasure to be a martyr, and to feel oneself
+misunderstood, and this was just the mood in which Peggy found herself
+at present.  She heard Mrs Asplin sigh, as if with anxiety and
+disappointment, as she left the room, and shrugged her shoulders in
+wilful indifference.
+
+"She thinks I like sitting shivering here!  I slave, and slave, from
+morning till night, and then people think I am sulky!  I am not working
+for myself.  I don't want the wretched old ten pounds; I could have ten
+pounds to-morrow if I needed it.  Mother said I could.  I am working to
+help Rob, and now I shall have to sit up later, and get up earlier than
+ever, as I mayn't work during the day.  Mellicent said I was never with
+them, did she!  I don't see that it matters whether I am there or not!
+They don't want me; nobody wants me, now that Rosalind has come!  I hate
+Rosalind--nasty, smirking, conceited thing!" and Peggy jerked the towel
+off the writing-table and flicked it violently to and fro in the air,
+just as a little relief to her overcharged feelings.
+
+She was crossing the hall with unwilling steps when the postman's knock
+sounded at the door, and three letters in long, narrow envelopes fell to
+the ground.  Each envelope was of a pale pink tint, with a crest and
+monogram in white relief; one was addressed to the Misses Asplin,
+another to Oswald Elliston, and a third to Miss Mariquita Saville.
+
+"Invitations!" cried Peggy, with a caper of delight.  "Invitations!  How
+scrumptious!"  Her face clouded for a moment as the sight of the letters
+"R.D." suggested the sender of the letters; but the natural girlish
+delight in an unexpected festivity was stronger even than her
+prejudices, and it was the old, bright Peggy who bounced into the
+schoolroom holding up the three letters, and crying gleefully, "_Quis,
+Quis_, something nice for somebody!  An invitation!"
+
+"_Ego, Ego_!" came the eager replies, and the envelopes were seized and
+torn open in breathless haste.
+
+"From Rosalind!  Oh, how funny!  `Requests the pleasure--company--to a
+pink luncheon.'  What in the world is a `pink luncheon'?--`on Tuesday
+next, the 20th inst.'"
+
+"A p-p-pink luncheon?  How wewwy stwange!" echoed Mellicent, who had
+been suddenly affected with an incapacity to pronounce the letter "r"
+since the arrival of Rosalind Darcy on the scene--a peculiarity which
+happened regularly every autumn, and passed off again with the advent of
+spring.  "How can a luncheon possibly be pink?"
+
+"That's more than I can tell you, my dear!  Ask Rob.  What does it mean,
+Rob?" asked Peggy curiously; and Robert scowled, and shook back his
+shock of hair.
+
+"Some American fad, I believe.  The idea is to have everything of one
+colour--flowers, drapery, and food, china--everything that is on the
+table.  It's a fag and an awful handicap, for you can't have half the
+things you want.  But let us be modern or die--that's the motto
+nowadays.  Mother is always trying to get hold of new-fangled notions."
+
+"`Peggy Saville requests the pleasure of Jane Smith's company to a
+magenta supper.'--`Peggy Saville requests the pleasure of Mr Jones's
+company to a purple tea.'  It's a splendid idea!  I like it immensely,"
+said Peggy, pursing her lips, and staring in the fire in meditative
+fashion.  "Pink--pink--what can we eat that is pink?  P-prawns,
+p-pickles, p-p-pomegranates, P-aysandu tongues (you would call those
+pink, wouldn't you--pinky red?)  Humph!  I don't think it sounds very
+nice.  Perhaps they dye the things with cochineal.  I think I shall have
+a sensible brown and green meal before I go, and then I can nibble
+elegantly at the pinkies.  Would it be considered a delicate mark of
+attention if I wore a pink frock?"
+
+"Certainly it would.  Wear that nice one that you put on in the
+evenings.  Rosalind will be in pink from head to foot, you may depend on
+it," said Robert confidently; whereupon Mellicent rushed headlong from
+the room to find her mother, and plead eagerly that summer crepon
+dresses of the desired tint should be brought forth from their
+hiding-place and freshened up for the occasion.  To accede to this
+request meant an extra call upon time already fully occupied, but
+mothers have a way of not grudging trouble where their children are
+concerned.  Mrs Asplin said, "Yes, darling, of course I will!" and set
+to work with such goodwill that all three girls sported pink dresses
+beneath their ulsters when they set off to partake of the mysterious
+luncheon, a few days later.
+
+Rosalind came to the bedroom to receive them, and looked on from an
+arm-chair, while Lady Darcy's maid helped the visitors to take off their
+wraps.  She herself looked like a rose in her dainty pink draperies, and
+Peggy had an impression that she was not altogether pleased to see that
+her guests were as appropriately dressed as herself.  She eyed them up
+and down, and made remarks to the maid in that fluent French of hers
+which was so unintelligible to the schoolgirls' ears.  The maid smirked
+and pursed up her lips, and then, meeting Peggy's steady gaze, dropped
+her eyes in confusion.  Peggy knew, as well as if she had understood
+every word, that the remarks exchanged between mistress and maid had
+been of a depreciatory nature, not as concerned her own attire--that was
+as perfect in its way as Rosalind's own--but with reference to the
+home-made dresses of the vicar's daughters, which seemed to have
+suddenly become clumsy and shapeless when viewed in the mirrors of this
+elegant bedroom.  She was in arms at once on her friends' behalf, and
+when Peggy's dignity was hurt she was a formidable person to tackle.  In
+this instance she fixed her eyes first on the maid, and then on Rosalind
+herself with a steady, disapproving stare which was not a little
+disconcerting.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, "but we really don't know French well enough to
+follow your conversation!  You were talking about us, I think.  Perhaps
+you would be kind enough to repeat your remarks in English?"
+
+"Oh-h, it doesn't matter!  It was nothing at all important!"  Rosalind
+flushed, and had the grace to look a trifle ashamed of her own
+ill-breeding, but she did not by any means appreciate the reproof.  The
+girls had not been ten minutes in the house, and already that
+aggravating Peggy Saville had succeeded in making her feel humiliated
+and uncomfortable.  The same thing happened whenever they met.  The
+respect and awe and adoring admiration which she was accustomed to
+receive from other girls of her own age seemed altogether wanting in
+Peggy's case; and yet, strange to say, the very fact that she refused to
+fall down and worship invested Peggy with a peculiar importance in
+Rosalind's eyes.  She longed to overcome her prejudices and add her name
+to the list of her adorers, and to this end she considered her tastes in
+a way which would never have occurred to her in connection with Mrs
+Asplin's daughters.  In planning the pink luncheon Peggy had been
+continually in her mind, and it is doubtful whether she would have taken
+the trouble to arrange so difficult an entertainment had not the party
+from the vicarage included that important personage, Miss Mariquita
+Saville.
+
+From the bedroom the girls adjourned to the morning-room, where Lady
+Darcy sat waiting; but almost as soon as they had exchanged greetings,
+the gong sounded to announce luncheon, and they walked across the hall
+aglow with expectation.
+
+The table looked exquisite, and the guests stood still in the doorway
+and gasped with admiration.  The weather outside was grey and murky, but
+tall standard lamps were placed here and there, and the light which
+streamed from beneath the pink silk shades gave an air of warmth and
+comfort to the room.  Down the centre of the table lay a slip of
+looking-glass, on which graceful long-necked swans seemed to float to
+and fro, while troughs filled with soft pink blossoms formed a
+bordering.  Garlands of pink flowers fell from the chandelier and were
+attached to the silver candelabra, in which pink candles burned with
+clear and steady flare.  Glass, china, ornaments, were all of the same
+dainty colour, and beside each plate was a dainty little buttonhole
+nosegay, with a coral-headed pin, all ready to be attached to the dress
+or coat of the owner.
+
+"It's--it's beautiful!" cried Mellicent ecstatically; while Peggy's
+beauty-loving eye turned from one detail to another with delighted
+approbation.  "Really," she said to herself in astonishment, "I couldn't
+have done it better myself!  It's quite admirable!" and as Rosalind's
+face peered inquiringly at her beneath the canopy of flowers, she nodded
+her head, and smiled generous approval.
+
+"Beautiful!  Charming!  I congratulate you!  Did you design it and
+arrange everything yourself?"
+
+"Mother and I made it up between us.  We didn't do the actual work, but
+we told the servants what to do, and saw that it was all right.  The
+flowers and bonbons are easy enough to manage; it's the things to eat
+that are the greatest trouble."
+
+"It seems to be too horribly prosaic to eat anything at such a table,
+except crumpled rose-leaves, like the princess in the fairy tale," said
+Peggy gushingly; but at this Mellicent gave an exclamation of dismay,
+and the three big lads turned their eyes simultaneously towards the soup
+tureen, as if anxious to assure themselves that they were not to be put
+off with such ethereal rations.
+
+The soup was pink.  "Tomato!" murmured Peggy to herself, as she raised
+the first creamy spoonful to her lips.  The fish was covered with thick
+pink sauce; tiny little cutlets lurked behind ruffles of pink paper;
+pink baskets held chicken souffles; moulds of pink cream and whipped-up
+syllabubs were handed round in turns, and looked so tempting that
+Mellicent helped herself at once, and nearly shed tears of mortification
+on finding that they were followed by distracting pink ices, which were
+carried away again before she could possibly finish what was on her
+plate.  Then came dessert-plates and finger-glasses, in which
+crystallised rose-leaves floated in the scented water, as if in
+fulfilment of Peggy's suggestion of an hour before, and the young people
+sat in great contentment, eating rosy apples, bananas pared and dipped
+in pink sugar, or helping themselves to the delicious bonbons which were
+strewed about the table.
+
+While they were thus occupied the door opened, and Lord Darcy came into
+the room.  He had not appeared before, and he shook hands with the
+visitors in turn, and then stood at the head of the table looking about
+him with a slow, kindly smile.  Peggy watched him from her seat, and
+thought what a nice face he had, and wondered at the indifferent manner
+in which he was received by his wife and daughter.  Lady Darcy leant
+back in her chair and played with her fruit, the sleeves of her pink
+silk tea-gown falling back from her white arms.  Rosalind whispered to
+Max, and neither of them troubled to cast so much as a glance of welcome
+at the new-comer.  Peggy thought of her own father, the gallant soldier
+out in India, of the joy and pride with which his comings and goings
+were watched; of Mr Asplin in the vicarage, with his wife running to
+meet him, and Mellicent resting her curly bead on his shoulder; and the
+figure of the old lord standing unnoticed at the head of his own table
+assumed a pathetic interest.  It seemed, however, as if Lord Darcy were
+accustomed to be overlooked, for he showed no signs of annoyance; on the
+contrary, his face brightened, and he looked at the pretty scene with
+sparkling eyes.  The room was full of a soft rosy glow, the shimmer of
+silver and crystal was reflected in the sheet of mirror, and beneath the
+garlands of flowers the young faces of the guests glowed with pleasure
+and excitement.  He looked from one to the other--handsome Max, dandy
+Oswald, Robert with his look of strength and decision; then to the
+girls--Esther, gravely smiling; wide-eyed Mellicent; Peggy, with her
+eloquent, sparkling eyes; Rosalind, a queen of beauty among them all;
+finally to the head of the table, where sat his wife.
+
+"I must congratulate you, dear," he said heartily.  "It is the prettiest
+sight I have seen for a long time.  You have arranged admirably, but
+that's no new thing; you always do.  I don't know where you get your
+ideas.  These wreaths--eh?  I've never seen anything like them before.
+What made you think of fastening them up there?"
+
+"I have had them like that several times before, but you never notice a
+thing until its novelty is over, and I am tired to death of seeing it,"
+said his wife, with a frown and an impatient curve of the lip, as if she
+had received a rebuke instead of a compliment.
+
+Peggy stared at her plate, felt Robert shuffle on his chair by her side,
+and realised that he was as embarrassed and unhappy as herself.  The
+beautiful room with its luxurious appointments seemed to have suddenly
+become oppressive and cheerless, for in it was the spirit of discontent
+and discord between those who should have been most in harmony.  Esther
+was shocked, Mellicent frightened, the boys looked awkward and
+uncomfortable.  No one ventured to break the silence, and there was
+quite a long pause before Lady Darcy spoke again in quick, irritable
+tones.
+
+"Have you arranged to get away with me on Thursday, as I asked you?"
+
+"My dear, I cannot.  I explained before.  I am extremely sorry, but I
+have made appointments which I cannot break.  I could take you next week
+if you would wait."
+
+"I can't wait.  I told you I had to go to the dentist's.  Do you wish me
+to linger on in agony for another week?  And I have written to Mrs
+Bouverie that I will be at her `At Home' on Saturday.  My appointments
+are, at least, as binding as yours.  It isn't often that I ask you to
+take me anywhere, but when it is a matter of health I do think you might
+show a little consideration."
+
+Lord Darcy drew his brows together and bit his moustache.  Peggy
+recalled Robert's description of the "governor looking wretched" when he
+found himself compelled to refuse a favour, and did not wonder that the
+lad was ready to deny himself a pleasure rather than see that expression
+on his father's face.  The twinkling light had died out of his eyes, and
+he looked old and sad and haggard, far more in need of physical remedies
+than his wife, whose "agony" had been so well concealed during the last
+two hours as to give her the appearance of a person in very comfortable
+health.  Rosalind alone looked absolutely unruffled, and lay back in her
+chair nibbling at her bonbon, as though such scenes were of too frequent
+occurrence between her parents to be deserving of attention.
+
+"If you have made up your mind to go to-morrow, and cannot go alone, you
+must take Robert with you, Beatrice, for I cannot leave.  It is only for
+four days, and Mr Asplin will no doubt excuse him, if you write and
+explain the circumstances."
+
+Lord Darcy left the room, and Robert and Peggy exchanged agonised
+glances.  Go away for nearly a week, when before two days were over the
+calendar must be sent to London, and there still remained real hard work
+before it was finished!  Peggy sat dazed and miserable, seeing the
+painful effort of the last month brought to naught, Robert's ambition
+defeated, and her own help of no avail.  That one glance had shown the
+lad's face flushed with emotion; but when his mother spoke to him in
+fretful tones, bidding him be ready next morning when she should call in
+the carriage on her way to the station, he answered at once with polite
+acquiescence--
+
+"Very well, mater, I won't keep you waiting.  I shall be ready by
+half-past ten if you want me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
+
+Lady Darcy left the young people by themselves after luncheon, and, as
+was only natural, conversation at once turned on the proposed visit to
+London.  Peggy was too much perturbed to speak, but Mellicent put the
+very inquiry which she most wished answered, being never troubled with
+bashfulness in asking questions.
+
+"Has your mother's tooth been hurting her very much, Rosalind?"
+
+"Tooth! what tooth?  Oh, I think she did have a little twinge one night;
+but it's not the dentist whom she is really going to see.  That's only
+an excuse.  She really wants to go to some parties," said Rosalind
+lightly; whereat her brother scowled at her under heavy brows.
+
+"What business have you to say that?  What can you know about it, pray?
+If mother says she is in pain, it is not for you to contradict, and make
+up your own explanations.  Leave her to manage her own affairs--"
+
+He spoke rapidly, but Rosalind only shrugged her shoulders, and
+whispered something in Max's ear, at which he smiled and nodded his
+head, evidently taking her part against her brother, to Peggy's intense
+indignation.
+
+No words were exchanged between the partners on the subject of the
+calendar until they were once more at home; when Robert took advantage
+of the first quiet opportunity, and came up to Peggy with a face of set
+determination.
+
+"Mariquita!" he said, "_I_--_am_--_not_--_going_--_to give in_!  If you
+stick to me, we can still manage to get the calendar off in time.  There
+are twenty more quotations to be found.  I'll sit up to-night and fix
+them off, and go on writing as long as I can keep awake, but I can't
+take a dozen books up to town with me, so I must leave it to you to
+finish up.  I'll mark the passages I choose, write the full address on a
+piece of paper, and leave everything ready for you to make up the
+parcel.  All you will have to do will be to write the remaining cards,
+and to see that it is sent off on Friday.  Five o'clock will be time
+enough, but if you can get it off in the morning, so much the better.
+You think you can manage as much as that?"
+
+"Oh yes!  I'd do anything rather than give up now.  It would be too
+grudging.  I am not afraid of a little more work."
+
+"You have done more than your share already.  I am mad about it, but it
+can't be helped.  I couldn't refuse to go with the mater, and I wouldn't
+if I could.  She is really not at all strong, and does not like the life
+down here.  It will do her good to have a few days' change."
+
+Peggy looked at him steadily.  She did not speak, but her eyes grew soft
+and shining, and there was something at once so sweet, so kindly, and so
+gentle in her expression that Rob exclaimed in surprise--
+
+"I say, Peggy, you--you do look pretty!  I never saw you look like that
+before--what have you been doing to yourself?"
+
+"Doing!"  Peggy straightened herself at that, in offended dignity.
+"Doing, indeed!  What do you mean?  Don't you think I am pretty as a
+rule?"
+
+"Never thought about it," returned Robert carelessly.  "You are Peggy--
+that's enough for me.  A nice state I should be in to-day if it were not
+for you!  You are the jolliest little brick I ever met, and if I get
+this prize it will be far more your doing than my own."
+
+Well, that was good hearing!  Peggy held her head high for the rest of
+that evening, and felt as if nothing would have power to depress her for
+the future.  But, alas, when the pendulum is at its highest it begins to
+swing downwards.  Peggy's heart sank as she watched Robert drive away
+from the door the next morning, and it went on sinking more and more
+during the next twenty-four hours, as she realised the responsibility
+which weighed upon her shoulders.  When she came down to breakfast on
+Friday morning the calendar was finished and ready to be made up for the
+post, but her head was splitting with pain as the result of the long
+hours' work stolen from sleep, and a dead weight of depression had
+settled on her spirits.  It seemed of a sudden that all this work and
+effort was waste of time; that the chances of being successful were
+infinitesimally small; that even if it were gained, the prize was of
+little value; that if Robert's absence for four days made such a
+difference in the life at the vicarage, it would become altogether
+unbearable when he said good-bye at the beginning of the year and went
+up to Oxford; that she was a desperately unfortunate little unit, thrust
+into the midst of a family which was complete in itself, and had only a
+kindly toleration to offer to a stranger; that, in all probability,
+there would shortly be a war in India, when her father would be killed,
+her mother die of a broken heart, and Arthur be called out to join the
+ranks of the recruits.  She conjured up a touching picture of herself,
+swathed in crape, bidding good-bye to her brother at the railway
+station, and watching the scarlet coat disappear in the distance, as the
+train steamed away.  It was all most miserable and picturesque, and
+outside the fog gathered, and the rain poured down in a fine, persistent
+drizzle.  It was one of those typical November days when it seems as if
+the earth itself is in the blues, and that it becomes everyone living on
+its surface to follow its example.
+
+When afternoon came Peggy curled herself in an arm-chair in the corner
+of the study, and stared gloomily at the fire.  It was four o'clock.  In
+another hour the postman would call for the letters, and she would
+deliver the precious packet into his hands.  She had made it up in the
+dinner-hour, with some faint idea of carrying it to the village; but she
+was tired, the rain poured, and Rob had said that the afternoon post
+would do.  She had given up the idea of going out, and taken a nap
+instead on the top of her bed.  And now it was four o'clock.  Mellicent
+called out that she was dying for tea-time to come; it had seemed such a
+long, long day; they really ought to have tea earlier on these dreary,
+murky afternoons.  "_I want my tea_!" she chanted, in shrill,
+penetrating tones, and instantly the refrain was taken up by the other
+voices, and repeated over and over again with ever-increasing volume,
+until the mistress of the house rushed in to discover the reason of the
+clamour.
+
+"Bless your hearts, you shall have it at once!" she cried.  "I'll ring
+and have it brought in, and ransack my cupboards to see what treats I
+can give you.  Poor dears, it _is_ dull for you sitting indoors all day
+long.  We must think of some bright, exciting games for this evening."
+No sooner said than done; she did not wait until Mary appeared, but
+bustled off to meet her, to enlist the cook's sympathy, and put out the
+promised delicacies, and when the table was set she returned to the room
+and seated herself, smilingly, in Esther's place.
+
+"I am going to stay with you this afternoon," she said brightly.  "Draw
+up your chairs, dears, and let us be jovial.  There is no credit in
+being happy when the sun is shining, as dear old Mark Tapley would have
+said; but it will really be praiseworthy if we succeed in being festive
+this afternoon.  Come, Peggy, dearie!"
+
+Peggy turned her dreary little face and stared at the table.  From
+outside came the sound of the opening and shutting of the door, of
+footsteps in the hall.  She glanced at the clock, wondering if it could
+possibly be the postman already, found it was only ten minutes past
+four, and dismissed the supposition with a sigh.  "I don't--think--I
+want--" she was beginning slowly, when, of a sudden, there came a
+tremendous rat-tat-tat on the schoolroom door; the handle was not
+turned, but burst open; a blast of chilly air blew into the room, and in
+the doorway stood a tall, handsome youth, with square shoulders, a
+gracefully poised head, and Peggy Saville's eave-like brows above his
+dancing eyes.
+
+"Oh, what a surprise!" came the cry in loud laughing tones.  "How do you
+do, everybody?  Just thought I would step in as I was passing, and have
+a cup of tea, don't you know."
+
+"My boy!  My boy!  Oh, how good to see you!" cried Mrs Asplin
+rapturously.  Mellicent gurgled with surprise, and Peggy stood up by her
+chair and stretched out both arms like a child to its mother.
+
+"Arthur!--oh--Arthur!" she gasped, and there was a pathos, a longing, an
+almost incredulous rapture in her voice which made the tears start in
+Mrs Asplin's eyes, and brought a cloud of anxiety over the new-comer's
+face.
+
+"Why, Peg!" he cried.  "My little Peg!  Is something wrong, dear?  You
+look as melancholy as--"
+
+"Peggy has not been like herself for the last few weeks.  I think she
+has had an attack of homesickness and longing for her own people.  I'm
+so glad you've come.  You will do her more good than a dozen tonics.
+Bless the boy; how big he is!  And how did you manage to get away, dear,
+and how long can you stay?  Tell me all about it.  I am consumed with
+curiosity--"
+
+"I can stay till Monday or Tuesday, if you can put me up; and I came
+away because I--I suppose I am not quite up to the mark.  My head
+bothers me.  It aches, and I see black specks floating before my eyes.
+The doctor advised me to knock off for a few days, and I thought I would
+rather come here than anywhere."
+
+"I should think so, indeed.  Of course we can put you up--proud and
+pleased to do so.  Well, this is a pleasant surprise for a dull November
+day!  You couldn't have had a better one if you had had a hundred
+wishes, could you, Peggy?  You won't feel melancholy any longer?"
+
+"I'm just enraptured!  Saturday, Sunday, Monday--three whole days and
+two halves, as good as four days--almost a week!  It's too delicious--
+too utterly delicious to realise!"
+
+Peggy drew deep sighs of happiness, and hung on to Arthur's arm in an
+abandonment of tenderness which showed her in a new light to her
+companions.  She would not loosen her grasp for a moment, and even when
+seated at the table kept her fingers tightly locked round his arm, as
+though afraid that he might escape.
+
+As for Arthur himself, he was in the wildest spirits.  He was as
+handsome a young soldier as one could wish to see, and his likeness to
+Peggy seemed only to make him more attractive in the eyes of the
+beholders.
+
+"Hurrah!" he cried cheerily.  "Hurrah, for a good old vicarage tea!
+Scones? that's the style!  Mary made them, I hope, and put in lots of
+currants.  Raspberry jam!  I say, mater, do you remember that solemn
+waitress you had, who told you that the jam was done again, and when you
+exclaimed in horror, said, `Yes, 'um, it's not a bit of good buying
+raspberry jam.  _They like it_!'  Ha, ha, ha!  I've often thought of
+that!  That looks uncommonly good cake you have over there.  Thank you,
+I think I will!  Begin with cake, and work steadily back to bread and
+butter--that's the style, isn't it, Peggums?  Esther, I looks towards
+you!  Mellicent, you are as thin as ever, I see.  You should really do
+something for it.  There are regular hollows in your cheeks."
+
+"Nasty, horrid thing!  You are always teasing!  How would you like it if
+you were struck fat yourself?" cried Mellicent, aggrieved.  But, in
+spite of herself, her chubby cheeks dimpled with smiles as Arthur rolled
+his eyes at her across the table, for there was something irresistibly
+fascinating about this young fellow, and it was like old times to see
+him seated at the tea-table and to listen to his merry rattling voice.
+
+"The dominie must grant a general holiday to-morrow," he declared, "and
+we will do something fine to celebrate the occasion.  We'll have out
+this wonderful camera in the morning and take some groups.  You and I
+must be taken together, Peggy, to send out to the parents.  You promised
+to send me copies of all the things you took, but you are as false in
+that respect as the whole race of amateur photographers.  They are grand
+hands at promising, but they never, by any chance--Hallo!  What's that?
+My cup over?  Awfully sorry, mater, really!  I'll put a penny in the
+missionary-box.  Was it a clean cloth?"
+
+"Oh, my dear boy, don't apologise!  I should not have felt that it was
+really you if you had not knocked your cup over!  To see the table-cloth
+swimming with tea all round convinces me that it is Arthur himself, and
+nobody else!  Tut, tut!  What does a table-cloth matter?"  And Mrs
+Asplin beamed upon her favourite as if she were really rather delighted
+than otherwise at his exploit.
+
+It was a merry, not to say noisy, meal which followed.  Peggy's lost
+spirits had come back with the first glimpse of Arthur's face; and her
+quips and cranks were so irresistibly droll that three separate times
+over Mellicent choked over her tea, and had to be relieved with vigorous
+pounding on the back, while even Esther shook with laughter, and the
+boys became positively uproarious.
+
+Then Mr Asplin came in, and Arthur was carefully concealed behind the
+window-curtains, while he was asked whom he would most like to see if
+the choice were given him.  In provoking manner he mentioned at once a
+brother in Australia, and, when informed that relatives were not on the
+list, recollected an old college chum who was out in the Mauritius.
+
+"Oh dear, what a stupid man!" cried his wife in despair.  "We don't mean
+the friends of your youth, dear!  Think of the last few years and of
+your young friends!  Now, if you could choose, whom would you--"
+
+"Arthur Saville!" said the vicar promptly, upon which Arthur made a
+loophole between the curtains and thrust his mischievous face through
+the gap, to the vicar's amazement and the uproarious delight of the
+onlookers.  A dozen questions had to be asked and answered about
+studies, examinations, and health, while Peggy sat listening, beaming
+with happiness and pride.
+
+It came as quite a shock to all when the vicar announced that it was
+time to dress for dinner, and Mrs Asplin looked at Peggy with an
+apologetic smile.
+
+"We were all so charmed to see Arthur that I'm afraid we have been
+selfish and engrossed too much of his attention.  You two will be
+longing for a cosy little chat to yourselves.  If you run upstairs now,
+Peggy, and hurry through your dressing, there will be a little time
+before dinner, and you could have this room to yourselves."
+
+"Yes, run along, Peg!  It won't take me ten minutes to get into my
+clothes, and I'll be here waiting for you!" cried Arthur eagerly.  And
+Peggy went flying two steps at a time upstairs to her own room.
+
+The gas was lit; the can of hot water stood in the basin, the towel
+neatly folded over the top; the hands of the little red clock pointed to
+six o'clock, and the faint chime met her ear as she entered.
+
+Peggy stood still in the doorway, an icy chill crept through her veins,
+her hands grasped the lintel, and her eyes grew wide and blank with
+horror.  There, on the writing-table lay a brown paper parcel--the
+precious parcel which contained the calendar which had been the object
+of such painful work and anxiety!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+PEGGY IS LOST.
+
+Arthur Saville waited in vain by the schoolroom fire, for his sister did
+not join him.  And when he entered the dining-room in response to the
+summons of the gong, she had not yet made her appearance.
+
+Mrs Asplin looked at him with uplifted brows.
+
+"Where is Peggy?"
+
+"I don't know.  I haven't seen her since she went upstairs.  The little
+wretch can't have hurried very much."
+
+"She hasn't been with you, then!  Never mind, there is plenty of time to
+come.  She must be making a special toilet for your benefit."
+
+But when the first course was nearly over and the girl had not yet
+appeared, Mrs Asplin grew impatient, and despatched the servant to
+hasten her movements.
+
+"Just tell her that we have been at table for nearly ten minutes.  Ask
+if she will be long."
+
+Mary left the room, was absent a short time, and came back with an
+extraordinary statement.
+
+"Miss Peggy is not in her room, ma'am."
+
+"Not in her room!  Then she must have come downstairs.  Perhaps she
+didn't hear the gong.  Just look in the schoolroom, Mary, and in the
+other rooms too, and tell her to come at once."
+
+Another few minutes passed, and back again came Mary, looking flushed
+and mysterious.
+
+"I can't see Miss Peggy anywhere, ma'am.  She has not come downstairs."
+
+"You have looked in the drawing-room--Mr Asplin's study?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Did you go upstairs again?"
+
+"No, ma'am.  I had looked there before."
+
+"Esther dear, you go!" cried Mrs Asplin quickly.  "Bring her down at
+once!  What in the world is the child doing?  It's most extraordinary!"
+
+"She's not given to playing games of hide-and-seek just at dinner-time,
+is she?" asked Arthur, laughing.  "I am never surprised at anything
+Peggy does.  She has some little prank on hand, depend upon it, and will
+turn up in good time.  It's her own fault if she misses her dinner."
+
+"But it's so extraordinary!  To-night of all nights, when you have just
+arrived!  I wish the child would come!" replied Mrs Asplin, craning her
+neck forward to listen to the cries of "Peggy!  Peggy!" which came from
+the upper storey.
+
+The door stood open, and everyone ceased talking to follow Esther's
+footsteps to and fro, to count the opening and shutting of doors--one,
+two, three, four, five--to look apprehensively at each other as the
+messenger returned--alone!
+
+"Mother, she is not there!  I've looked everywhere--in every corner--and
+she has not changed her dress, nor washed, nor anything.  The room looks
+exactly as if she had never gone in; but she did, for we all followed
+her upstairs.  I looked over the wardrobe, and all her dresses are
+there, and the can of hot water is untouched, and the gas left full up."
+
+"Oh dear, what can have happened?"  Mrs Asplin pushed back her chair
+and stood up, looking anxious and puzzled.  "I cannot rest until she is
+found!  I must look myself!  Go on with dinner, all of you; I won't be
+long.  Where can the child be hiding herself?"
+
+"Don't worry, mater!" said Arthur kindly.  "It's very tiresome of Peggy
+to disappear at such an inopportune moment, but no harm can have
+happened to her, you know.  It's impossible!  As I said before, she has
+probably some wild prank in her head of which this is a part.  I'll give
+her a lecture when I catch her for spoiling dinner like this, and such
+an uncommonly good dinner too!"  And Arthur smiled in cheery fashion,
+and tried his best to keep up the failing spirits of the company by
+chatting away while his hostess was out of the room, as if nothing had
+happened which was the least unusual or alarming.
+
+When Mrs Asplin returned, however, after a lengthened absence, there
+was a simultaneous rising from the table to listen to her report.
+
+"She is not in the house!  Jane began at the top and I began at the
+bottom, and we searched every hole and corner.  I have looked in the
+very cupboards and wardrobes!  I even searched the cistern-room, but she
+is not to be found.  I don't know what to do next.  It seems impossible
+that she can have disappeared--yet where can she be?"
+
+"Have you looked in the cloak-room to see if any of her outdoor things
+are missing?"
+
+"I went in, but I never thought of looking at her clothes.  Outdoor?
+What on earth should take the child out at this hour in the dark and
+rain?"
+
+"I can't tell you that, dear, but we must think of every possibility.
+Esther, you know best what Peggy had in the cloak-room--see if anything
+is missing.  Mellicent, run upstairs and find if any hats or jackets
+have been taken from their places.  If she is not in the house, she must
+have gone out.  It was most thoughtless and foolish to go without asking
+permission, and at such an hour; but, as Arthur says, there is not much
+chance of any harm befalling her.  Try not to work yourself up into a
+state of anxiety, dear; we shall soon find your truant for you.  Well,
+Esther, what is it?"
+
+"Her mackintosh has gone, father, and her red tam-o'-shanter, and her
+snow-shoes.  Her peg is next to mine, and there is nothing on it but her
+check golf cape."
+
+"She has gone out, then!  What can it mean?--to-night of all nights,
+when she was so happy, when Arthur had just arrived, when she promised
+to be downstairs in ten minutes--"
+
+"It is most extraordinary!  It must have been something of great
+importance, one would say.  Does anyone know if Peggy had any special
+interest on hand at present?  Was there any gift which she wished to
+buy?  It does not happen to be anyone's birthday to-morrow, does it?
+Yours, Arthur, for instance?  No?  The birthday of a school-friend,
+then?  She might suddenly have remembered such an occasion, and rushed
+out to post a letter--"
+
+"But there is no post until to-morrow morning, so she would gain no time
+by doing that.  The postman called at five o'clock, and the letters were
+on the hall-table waiting for him as usual.  I do not know of any work
+that she had on hand, but the girls have complained that she has spent
+all her spare time in her room lately, and when I spoke to her about it
+she said she was writing--"
+
+"Perhaps she is writing a book," suggested Mellicent thoughtfully.  "She
+says she is going to be an authoress when she grows up.  I think Robert
+knew what she was doing.  They were always talking together and looking
+over books, and I heard him say to her, `Bring me all you have finished,
+to look over.'  I said something to her about printing some photographs
+for Christmas cards, and she said she could do nothing until after the
+nineteenth."
+
+"The nineteenth!" echoed the vicar sharply.  "That is to-day.  We gather
+from that, then, that Peggy had been busy with work, either by herself
+or in conjunction with Robert, which had to be completed by to-day.
+Nobody has the least idea of what nature it was?  No?  Then I shall go
+to Robert's room and see if there is anything lying about which can give
+me a clue."
+
+"I'll go with you, sir," said Arthur, who was beginning to look a little
+anxious and uneasy, as the moments passed by and brought no sign of his
+sister; but, alas, the scattered papers on Rob's table gave no clue to
+the mystery!
+
+When one is endeavouring to find a reason why a girl should mysteriously
+disappear from her home, it does not help very much to find a few slips
+of paper on which are written such items as "Tennyson's Poems, page 26,"
+"Selections from British Authors, 203", "Macaulay's Essays, 97,"
+etcetera.
+
+Arthur and Mr Asplin looked at one another, puzzled and disappointed,
+and had no alternative but to return to the dining-room and confess
+their failure.
+
+"Would not it be a good thing to go up to the Larches, and hear what
+Robert has to say on the subject?"  Arthur asked; and when he was told
+that Robert was in London he still held to his suggestion.
+
+"For someone else in the house may know about it," he declared.  "Rob
+may have confided in his mother or sister.  At the worst we can get his
+address, and telegraph to him for information, if she has not returned
+before we get back.  She might even have gone to the Larches herself
+to--to see Rosalind!"
+
+"Peggy doesn't like Rosalind.  She never goes to see her if she can help
+it.  I'm quite sure she has not gone there," said Mellicent shrewdly.
+"It is more likely she has gone to Fraulein's lodgings to tell her about
+Arthur.  She is fond of Fraulein."
+
+The suggestion was not very brilliant, but it was hailed with eagerness
+by the listeners as the most probable explanation yet offered.
+
+"Then I'll tell you what we will do.  I'll go off to the Larches," cried
+Arthur, "and one of you fellows can see Fraulein, and find out if Peggy
+has been there.  We must try every place, likely and unlikely.  It is
+better than sitting here doing nothing."
+
+Max frowned and hesitated.  "Or--er--or you might go to Fraulein, and
+I'll take the Larches!  It is a long walk for you after your journey,"
+he suggested, with a sudden access of politeness, "and there seems more
+probability that Fraulein may be able to help us.  You could go there
+and back in a short time."
+
+"Just as you like, of course.  It is all the same to me," returned
+Arthur, in a tone which plainly intimated that it was nothing of the
+sort.  Mrs Asplin looked from one to the other of the flushed faces,
+realising that even in the midst of anxiety the image of beautiful,
+golden-haired Rosalind had a Will-o'-the-wisp attraction for the two big
+lads; but her husband saw nothing of what lay behind the commonplace
+words, and said calmly--
+
+"Very well, then, Max, be off with you as fast as you can go.  Find out
+if Robert has said anything about the work which he has had on hand;
+find out his address in town, and, if possible, where a telegram would
+reach him this evening.  Arthur will call at Fraulein's lodgings; and,
+Oswald, you might go with him so far, and walk through the village.  Ask
+at old Mrs Gilpin's shop if Miss Saville has been there, but don't talk
+about it too much; we don't want to make more fuss than we can help.
+Keep your eyes open!"
+
+The three lads departed without further delay; the vicar put on his coat
+and hat preparatory to searching the garden and the lanes in the
+immediate neighbourhood, and the womenkind of the household settled down
+to an hour of painful waiting.
+
+Mrs Asplin lay back in her chair, with her hand to her head, now
+silent, now breaking out into impetuous lamentations.  The fear lest any
+accident had happened to Peggy paralysed her with dread.  Her thoughts
+went out to far-away India; she imagined the arrival of the ominous
+cablegram; pictured it carried into the house by a native servant; saw
+the light die out of two happy faces at the reading of the fatal words.
+"Oh, Peggy, Peggy!" she groaned.  "Oh, the poor father--the poor mother!
+What will I do?  What will I do?  Oh, Peggy, dearie, come back I come
+back!"
+
+Esther busied herself looking after a dozen little domestic
+arrangements, to which no one else seemed capable of attendance, and
+Mellicent laid her head on her mother's lap, and never ceased crying,
+except for one brief interval, when she darted upstairs to peep inside
+the old oak chest, prompted thereto by a sudden reminiscence of the
+bride of the "Mistletoe Bough."  There was no Peggy inside the chest,
+however; only a few blankets, and a very strong smell of camphor; so
+Mellicent crept back to her footstool, and cried with redoubled energy.
+In the kitchen the fat old cook sat with a hand planted on either knee,
+and thrilled the other servants with an account of how "a cousin of me
+own brother-in-law, him that married our Annie, had a child as went
+a-missing, as fine a girl as you could wish to see from June to January.
+Beautiful kerly 'air, for all the world like Miss Mellicent's, and such
+nice ways with her!  Everybody loved that child, gentle and simple.
+`Beller,' 'er name was, after her mother.  She went out unbeknownst,
+just as it might be Miss Peggy, and they searched and better
+searched,"--cook's hands waved up and down, and the heads of the
+listeners wagged in sympathy--"and never a trace could they find.  'Er
+father--he's a stone-mason by trade, and getting good money--he knocked
+off work, and his friends they knocked off too, and they searched the
+country far and wide.  Day and night I tell you they searched, a week on
+end, and poor Isabeller nearly off her head with grief.  I've heard my
+sister say as she never tasted bite nor sup the whole time, and was
+wasted to a shadow.  Eh, poor soul, it's hard to rare up a child, and
+have it go out smiling and bonnie, and never see nothink of it again but
+its bones--for she had fallen into a lime pit, had Beller, and it was
+nothing but her skeleton as they brought 'ome.  There was building going
+on around there, and she was playing near the pit--childlike--just as it
+might be Miss Peggy..."  Soon and on.  The horrors accumulated with
+every moment.  The housemaid had heard tell of a beautiful little girl,
+the heiress to a big estate, who had been carried off by strolling
+gipsies, and never been seen again by her sorrowing relatives; while the
+waitress hinted darkly that the time might come when it would be a
+comfort to know force had been employed, for sharper than a serpent's
+tooth was an ungrateful child, and she always _had_ said that there was
+something uncanny about that little Miss Saville!
+
+The clock was striking nine o'clock when the first of the messengers
+came back to report his failure; he was closely followed by a second;
+and last of all came Max, bringing word that nothing had been seen or
+heard of Peggy at the Larches; that neither Lord Darcy nor Rosalind had
+the faintest idea of the nature of the work which had just been
+completed; and, further, that on this evening Robert was escorting his
+mother to some entertainment, so that even if sent off at once a
+telegram could not reach him until a late hour.  Mrs Asplin turned her
+white face from one speaker to the other, and, when the last word was
+spoken, broke into a paroxysm of helpless weeping.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+THE SECRET CONFESSED.
+
+"Something has happened!  Something terrible has happened to the child!
+And she was left in our charge.  We are responsible.  Oh, if any harm
+has happened to Peggy, however, ever, ever, can I bear to live and send
+the news to her parents--"
+
+"My dearest, you have done your best; you could not have been kinder or
+more thoughtful.  No blame can attach to you.  Remember that Peggy is in
+higher hands than yours.  However far from us she may be, she can never
+stray out of God's keeping.  It all seems very dark and mysterious,
+but--"
+
+At this moment a loud rat-tat-tat sounded on the knocker, and with one
+accord the hearers darted into the hall, and stood panting and gasping,
+while Arthur threw open the door.
+
+"Telegram, sir!" said a sharp, young voice, and the brown envelope which
+causes so much agitation in quiet households was thrust forward in a
+small cold hand.  Arthur looked at the address and handed it to the
+vicar.
+
+"It is for you, sir, but it cannot possibly be anything about--"
+
+Mr Asplin tore open the envelope, glanced over the words, and broke
+into an exclamation of amazement.  "It is!  It is from Peggy
+herself!--`Euston Station.  Returning by 10.30 train.  Please meet me at
+twelve o'clock.--Peggy.'  What in the world does it mean?"  He looked
+round the group of anxious faces, only to see his own expression of
+bewilderment repeated on each in turn.
+
+"Euston!  Returning!  She is in London.  She is coming back from town!"
+
+"She ran away to London, to-night when she was so happy, when Arthur had
+just arrived!  Why?  Why?  Why?"
+
+"She must have caught the seven o'clock train."
+
+"She must have left the house almost immediately after going upstairs to
+dress for dinner."
+
+"Oh, father, why should she go to London?"
+
+"I am quite unable to tell you, my dear," replied the vicar drily.  He
+looked at his wife's white, exhausted face, and his eyes flashed with
+the "A-word-with-you-in-my-study" expression, which argued ill for Miss
+Peggy's reception.  Mrs Asplin, however, was too thankful to know of
+the girl's safety to have any thought for herself.  She began to smile,
+with the tears still running down her face, and to draw long breaths of
+relief and satisfaction.
+
+"It's no use trying to guess at that, Millie dear.  It is enough for me
+to know that she is alive and well.  We shall just have to try and
+compose ourselves in patience until we hear Peggy's own explanation.
+Let me see!  There is nearly an hour before you need set out.  What can
+we do to pass the time as quickly as possible?"
+
+"Have some coffee, I should say!  None of us have had too much dinner,
+and a little refreshment would be very welcome after all this strain,"
+said Arthur promptly, and Mrs Asplin eagerly welcomed the suggestion.
+
+"That's what I call a really practical proposal!  Ring the bell, dear,
+and I will order it at once.  I am sure we shall all have thankful
+hearts while we drink it."  She looked appealingly at Mr Asplin as she
+spoke; but there was no answering smile on his face, and the lines down
+his cheeks looked deeper and grimmer than ever.
+
+"Oh, goody, goody, goodness, aren't I glad I am not Peggy!" sighed
+Mellicent to herself; while Arthur Saville pursed his lips together, and
+thought, "Poor little Peg!  She'll catch it.  I've never seen the
+dominie look so savage.  This is a nice sort of treat for a fellow who
+has been ordered away for rest and refreshment!  I wish the next two
+hours were safely over."
+
+Wishing, unfortunately, however, can never carry us over the painful
+crises of our lives.  We have to face them as best we may, and Arthur
+needed all his cheery confidence to sustain him during the damp walk
+which followed, when the vicar tramped silently by his side, his shovel
+hat pulled over his eyes, his mackintosh coat flapping to and fro in the
+wind.
+
+They reached the station in good time, and punctually to the minute the
+lights of the London express were seen in the distance.  The train drew
+up, and among the few passengers who alighted the figure of Peggy, in
+her scarlet-trimmed hat, was easily distinguished.  She was assisted out
+of the carriage by an elderly gentleman, in a big travelling coat, who
+stood by her side as she looked about for her friends.  As Mr Asplin
+and Arthur approached, they only heard his hearty, "Now you are all
+right!" and Peggy's elegant rejoinder, "Exceedingly indebted to you for
+all your kindness!"  Then he stepped back into the carriage, and she
+came forward to meet them, half shy, half smiling, "I--I am afraid that
+you--"
+
+"We will defer explanations, Mariquita, if you please, until we reach
+home.  A fly is waiting.  We will return as quickly as possible," said
+the vicar frigidly; and the brother and sister lagged behind as he led
+the way out of the station, gesticulating and whispering together in
+furtive fashion.
+
+"Oh, you Peggy!  _Now_ you have done it!  No end of a row!"
+
+"Couldn't help it!  Had to go.  Stick to me, Arthur, whatever you do!"
+
+"Like a leech!  We'll worry through somehow.  Never say die!"  Then the
+fly was reached, and they jolted home in silence.
+
+Mrs Asplin and the four young folks were sitting waiting in the
+drawing-room, and each one turned an eager, excited face towards the
+doorway as Peggy entered, her cheeks white, but with shining eyes, and
+hair ruffled into little curls beneath the scarlet cap.  Mrs Asplin
+would have rushed forward in welcome, but a look in her husband's face
+restrained her, and there was a deathlike silence in the room as he took
+up his position by the mantelpiece.
+
+"Mariquita," he said slowly, "you have caused us to-night some hours of
+the most acute and painful anxiety which we have ever experienced.  You
+disappeared suddenly from among us, and until ten o'clock, when your
+telegram arrived, we had not the faintest notion as to where you could
+be.  The most tragic suspicions came to our minds.  We have spent the
+evening in rushing to and fro, searching and inquiring in all
+directions.  Mrs Asplin has had a shock from which, I fear, she will be
+some time in recovering.  Your brother's pleasure in his visit has been
+spoiled.  We await your explanation.  I am at a loss to imagine any
+reason sufficiently good to excuse such behaviour; but I will say no
+more until I have heard what you have to say."
+
+Peggy stood like a prisoner at the bar, with hanging head and hands
+clasped together.  As the vicar spoke of his wife, she darted a look at
+Mrs Asplin, and a quiver of emotion passed over her face.  When he had
+finished she drew a deep breath, raised her head and looked him full in
+the face with her bright, earnest eyes.
+
+"I am sorry," she said slowly.  "I can't tell you in words _how_ sorry I
+am.  I know it will be difficult, but I hope you will forgive me.  I was
+thinking what I had better do while I was coming back in the train, and
+I decided that I ought to tell you everything, even though it is
+supposed to be a secret.  Robert will forgive me, and it is Robert's
+secret as much as mine.  I'll begin at the beginning.  About five weeks
+ago Robert saw an advertisement of a prize that was offered by a
+magazine.  You had to make up a calendar with quotations for every day
+in the year, and the person who sent in the best selection would get
+thirty pounds.  Rob wanted the money very badly to buy a microscope, and
+he asked me to help him.  I was to have ten pounds for myself if we won,
+but I didn't care about that.  I just wanted to help Rob.  I said I
+would take the money, because I knew if I didn't he would not let me
+work so hard, and I thought I would spend it in buying p-p-presents for
+you all at Christmas."--Peggy's voice faltered at this point, and she
+gulped nervously several times before she could go on with her
+story.--"We had to work very hard, because the time was so short.
+Robert had not seen the advertisement until it had been out some time.
+I printed the headings on the cards; that is why I sat so much in my own
+room.  The last fortnight I have been writing every morning before six
+o'clock.  Oh, you can't think how difficult it was to get it finished,
+but Robert was determined to go on; he thought our chance was very good,
+because he had found some beautiful extracts, and translated others, and
+the pages really looked pretty and dainty.  The manuscript had to be in
+London this morning; if it missed the post last night, all our work
+would have been wasted, and at the last moment Lady Darcy took Rob away
+with her, and I was left with everything to finish.  I _may_ have slept
+a little bit the last two nights; I did lie down for an hour or two, and
+I _may_ have had a doze, but I don't think so!  I wrote the last word
+this morning after the breakfast-bell had rung, and I made up the parcel
+at twelve o'clock.  I thought of going out and posting it then; of
+course, that is what I should have done, but,"--her voice trembled once
+more--"I was so tired!  I thought I would give it to the postman myself,
+and that would do just as well.  I didn't put it with the letters
+because I was afraid someone would see the address and ask questions,
+and Rob had said that I was to keep it a secret until we knew whether we
+had won.  I left the parcel on my table.  Then Arthur came!  I was so
+happy--there was so much to talk about--we had tea--it seemed like five
+minutes.  Everyone was amazed when we found it was time to dress, but
+even then I forgot all about the calendar.  I only remembered that
+Arthur was here, and was going to stay for four days, and all the way
+upstairs I was saying to myself, `I'm happy, I'm happy; oh I _am_
+happy!' because, you know, though you are so kind, you have many
+relatives belonging to you whom you love better than me, and my own
+people are all far-away, and sometimes I've been very lonely!  I thought
+of nothing but Arthur, and then I opened the door of my room, and there,
+before my eyes, was the parcel--Rob's parcel that he had trusted to me--
+that I had solemnly promised to post in time--"
+
+She stopped short, and there was a gasp of interest and commiseration
+among the listeners.  Peggy caught it; she glanced sharply at the
+vicar's face, saw its sternness replaced by a momentary softness, and
+was quick to make the most of her opportunity.  Out flew the dramatic
+little hand, her eyes flashed, her voice thrilled with suppressed
+excitement.
+
+"It lay there before my eyes, and I stood and looked at it.--I thought
+of nothing, but just stood and stared.  I heard you all come upstairs,
+and the doors shut, and Arthur's voice laughing and talking; but there
+was only one thing I could remember--I had forgotten Rob's parcel, and
+he would come back, and I should have to tell him, and see his face!  I
+felt as if I were paralysed, and then suddenly I seized the parcel in my
+hands, and flew downstairs.  I put on my cap and cloak and went out into
+the garden.  I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was going to do
+_something_!  I ran on and on, through the village, down towards the
+station.  I knew it was too late for the post-office, but I had a sort
+of feeling that if I were at the station something might be done.  Just
+as I got there a train came in, and I heard the porter call out, `London
+express.'  I thought--No!  I did not think at all--I just ran up to a
+carriage and took a seat, and the door banged, and away we went.  The
+porter came and asked for my ticket, and I had a great deal of trouble
+to convince him that I had only come from here, and not all the way.
+There was an old lady in the carriage, and she told him that it was
+quite true, for she had seen me come in.  When we went off again, she
+looked at me very hard, and said, `Are you in trouble, dear?' and I
+said, `Yes, I am; but oh, please don't talk to me!  Do please leave me
+alone!' for I had begun to realise what I had done, and that I couldn't
+be back for hours and hours, and that you would all be anxious and
+unhappy.  I think I was as miserable as you were when I sent off that
+telegram.  I posted the parcel in London, and went and sat in the
+waiting-room.  I had an hour and a half to wait, and I was wretched and
+nervous and horribly hungry.  I had no money left except a few coppers,
+and I was afraid to spend them and have nothing left.  It seemed like a
+whole day, but at last the train came in, and I saw an old gentleman
+with white hair standing on the platform.  I took a fancy to his
+appearance, so I walked up to him, and bowed, and said, `Excuse me,
+sir--I find myself in a dilemma!  Will you allow me to travel in the
+same carriage as yourself?'  He was most agreeable.  He had travelled
+all over the world, and talked in the most interesting fashion, but I
+could not listen to his conversation.  I was too unhappy.  Then we
+arrived, and Mr Asplin called me `M-M-Mariquita!' and w-wouldn't let
+you kiss me--"
+
+Her voice broke helplessly this time, and she stood silent, with
+quivering lip, while sighs and sobs of sympathy echoed from every side.
+Mrs Asplin cast a glance at her husband, half defiant, half appealing,
+met a smile of assent, and rushed impetuously to Peggy's side.
+
+"My darling!  I'll kiss you now.  You see we knew nothing of your
+trouble, dear, and we were so very, very anxious.  Mr Asplin is not
+angry with you any longer, are you, Austin?  You know now that she had
+no intention of grieving us, and that she is truly sorry--"
+
+"I never thought--I never thought,"--sobbed Peggy; and the vicar gave a
+slow, kindly smile.
+
+"Ah, Peggy, that is just what I complain about.  You don't think, dear,
+and that causes all the trouble.  No, I am not angry any longer.  I
+realise that the circumstances were peculiar, and that your distress was
+naturally very great.  At the same time, it was a most mad thing for a
+girl of your age to rush off by rail, alone, and at night-time, to a
+place like London.  You say that you had only a few coppers left in your
+purse.  Now suppose there had been no train back to-night, what would
+you have done?  It does not bear thinking of, my dear; or that you
+should have waited alone in the station for so long, or thrown yourself
+on strangers for protection.  What would your parents have said to such
+an escapade?"
+
+Peggy sighed, and cast down her eyes.  "I think they would have been
+cross too.  I am sure they would have been anxious, but I know they
+would forgive me when I was sorry, and promised that I really and truly
+would try to be better and more thoughtful!  They would say, `Peggy
+dear, you have been sufficiently punished!  Consider yourself
+absolved!'"
+
+The vicar's lips twitched, and a twinkle came into his eye.  "Well then,
+I will say the same!  I am sure you have regretted your hastiness by
+this time, and it will be a lesson to you in the future.  For Arthur's
+sake, as well as your own, we will say no more on the subject.  It would
+be a pity if his visit were spoiled.  Just one thing, Peggy, to show you
+that, after all, grown-up people are wiser than young ones, and that it
+is just as well to refer to them now and then, in matters of difficulty.
+Has it ever occurred to you that the mail went up to London by the very
+train in which you yourself travelled, and that by giving your parcel to
+the guard it could still have been put in the bag?  Did that thought
+never occur to your wise little brain?"
+
+Peggy made a gesture as of one heaping dust and ashes on her head.  "I
+never did," she said, "not for a single moment!  And I thought I was so
+clever!  I am prostrate with confusion!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+ROSALIND'S BALL.
+
+In consideration of Arthur's presence and of the late hours and
+excitement of the night before, the next day was observed as a holiday
+in the vicarage.  Mrs Asplin stayed in bed until lunch-time, the boys
+went for a bicycle ride, and Peggy and her brother had a delightful chat
+together by the schoolroom fire, when he told her more details about his
+own plans than he had been able to touch upon in a dozen letters.
+
+"The preliminary examination for Sandhurst begins on the 26th this
+year," he explained, "and so far as I can make out I shall romp through
+it.  I am going to take all the subjects in Class One--mathematics,
+Latin, French, geometrical drawing, and English composition; I'll
+astonish them in the last subject!  Plenty of dash and go, eh, Peggy,--
+that's the style to fetch 'em!  In Class Two you can only take two
+subjects, so I'm going in for chemistry and physics.  I rather fancy
+myself in physics, and if I don't come out at the head of the list, or
+precious near the head, it won't be for want of trying.  I have worked
+like a nigger these last six months; between ourselves, I thought I had
+worked too hard a few days ago; I felt so stupid and dizzy, and my head
+ached until I could hardly open my eyes.  If I had not come away, I
+believe I should have broken down, but I'm better already, and by
+Tuesday I shall be as fit as a fiddle.  I hope I do well, it would be so
+jolly to cable out the news to the old pater; and I say, Peg, I don't
+mean to leave Sandhurst without bringing home something to keep as a
+souvenir.  At the end of each Christmas term a sword is presented to the
+cadet who passes out first in the final exam.--`The Anson Memorial
+Sword.'  Mariquita!"--Arthur smote his breast, and struck a fierce and
+warlike attitude,--"that sword is mine!  In the days to come, when you
+are old and grey-headed, you will see that rusty blade hanging over my
+ancestral hearth, and tell in faltering tones the story of the gallant
+youth who wrested it from his opponents."
+
+"Ha, ha!" responded Peggy deeply.  There was no particular meaning in
+the exclamation, but it seemed right and fitting in the connection, and
+had a smack of melodrama which was quite to her taste.  "Of course you
+will be first, Arthur!" she added; "and, oh dear! how proud I shall be
+when I see you in all your uniform!  I am thankful all my men relatives
+are soldiers, they are so much more interesting than civilians.  It
+would break my heart to think of you as a civilian!  Of course wars are
+somewhat disconcerting, but then one always hopes there won't be wars."
+
+"I don't!" cried Arthur loudly.  "No, no--active service for me, and
+plenty of it!
+
+  "`Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
+  From its firm base as soon as I!'
+
+"That's my motto, and my ambition is the Victoria Cross, and I'll get
+that too before I'm done; you see if I don't!  It's the ambition of my
+life, Peg.  I lie awake and think of that little iron cross; I go to
+sleep and dream of it, and see the two words dancing before my eyes in
+letters of fire, `For Valour,' `For Valour,' `For Valour.'  Ah!"--he
+drew a deep breath of excitement--"I don't think there is anything in
+the world I should envy, if I could only gain that."
+
+Peggy gazed at him with kindling eyes.  "You are a soldier's son," she
+said, "and the grandson of a soldier, and the great-grandson of a
+soldier; it's in your blood; you can't help it--it's in my blood too,
+Arthur!  I give you my solemn word of honour that if the French or
+Germans came over to invade this land, I'd--" Peggy seized the ruler and
+waved it in the air with a gesture of fiercest determination--"I'd fight
+them!  There!  I'd shoot at them; I'd go out and spike the guns; I'd--
+I'd climb on the house-tops and throw stones at them.  You needn't
+laugh, I tell you I should be _terrible_!  I feel as if I could face a
+whole regiment myself.  The spirit--the spirit of my ancestors is in my
+breast, Arthur Reginald, and woe betide that enemy who tries to wrest
+from me my native land!"  Peggy went off into a shriek of laughter, in
+which Arthur joined, until the sound of the merry peals reached Mrs
+Asplin's ears as she lay wearily on her pillow, and brought a smile to
+her pale face.  "Bless the dears!  How happy they are!" she murmured to
+herself; nor even suspected that it was a wholesale massacre of foreign
+nations which had been the cause of this gleeful outburst.
+
+Arthur left the vicarage on Tuesday evening, seemingly much refreshed by
+the few days' change, though he still complained of his head, and
+pressed his hand over his eyes from time to time as though in pain.  The
+parting from Peggy was more cheerful than might have been expected, for
+in a few more weeks Christmas would be at hand, when, as he himself
+expressed it, he hoped to return with blushing honours thick upon him.
+Peggy mentally expended her whole ten pounds in a present for the dear
+handsome fellow, and held her head high in the consciousness of owning a
+brother who was destined to be Commander-in-Chief of the British forces
+in the years to come.
+
+The same evening Robert returned from his visit to London.  He had heard
+of Peggy's escapade from his father and sister, and was by no means so
+grateful as that young lady had expected.
+
+"What in all the world possessed you to play such a mad trick?" he
+queried bluntly.  "It makes me ill to think of it.  Rushing off to
+London on a wet, foggy night, never even waiting to inquire if there was
+a return train, or to count if you had enough money to see you through!
+Goodness only knows what might have happened!  You are careless enough
+in an ordinary way, but I must say I gave you credit for more sense than
+that."
+
+"Well, but, Rob," pleaded Peggy, aggrieved, "I don't think you need
+scold!  I did it for you, and I thought you would be pleased."
+
+"Did you indeed?  Well, you are mightily mistaken; I wouldn't have let
+you do a thing like that for all the microscopes in the world.  I don't
+care a rap for the wretched old microscope."
+
+"Oh! oh!"
+
+"In comparison, I mean.  Of course I should have been glad to get it if
+it had come to me in an ordinary way, but I was not so wrapped up in the
+idea that I would not have been reasonable, if you had come to me
+quietly and explained that you had missed the post."
+
+Peggy shook her head sagely.  "You think so now, because the danger is
+over, and you are sure it can't happen.  But I know better.  I can tell
+you exactly what would have happened.  You wouldn't have stormed or
+raged, it would have been better if you had, and sooner over; you would
+just have stood still, and--glared at me!  When I'd finished speaking,
+you would have swallowed two or three times over, as if you were gulping
+down something which you dared not say, and then turned on your heel and
+marched out of the room.  That's what you would have done, my dear and
+honourable sir, and you know it!"
+
+Robert hung his head and looked self-conscious.
+
+"Well, if I had!  A fellow can't hide all he feels in the first moment
+of disappointment.  But I should have got over it, and you know very
+well that I should never have brought it up against you.  `Glared!'
+What if I _did_ glare?  There is nothing very terrible in that, is
+there?"
+
+"Yes, there is.  I could not have borne it, when I had been trying so
+hard to help you.  And it would not have been only the first few
+minutes.  Every time when you were quiet and depressed, when you looked
+at your specimens through your little old glass and sighed, and pitched
+it away, as I've seen you do scores and scores of times, I should have
+felt that it was my fault, and been in the depths of misery.  No, no,
+I'm sorry to the depths of my heart that I scared dear Mrs Asplin and
+the rest, but it is a matter of acute satisfaction to me to know that
+your chance has in no way been hindered by your confidence in me!" and
+Peggy put her head on one side, and coughed in a faint and ladylike
+manner, which brought the twinkle back into Robert's eyes.
+
+"Good old Mariquita!" he cried, laughing.  "`Acute satisfaction' is
+good, Mariquita--decidedly good!  You will make your name yet in the
+world of letters.  Well, as I said before, you are a jolly little brick,
+and the best partner a fellow ever had!  Mind you, I tell you straight
+that I think you behaved badly in cutting off like that; but I'll stand
+by you to the others, and not let them sit upon you while I am there."
+
+"Thanks!" said Peggy meekly.  "But, oh, I beseech of you, don't bring up
+the subject if you can help it!  I'm tired to death of it all!  The
+kindest thing you can do is to talk hard about something else, and give
+them a fresh excitement to think about.  Talk about--about--about
+Rosalind if you will; anything will do--only, for pity's sake, leave me
+alone, and pretend there is not such a thing in the world as a
+calendar!"
+
+"Right you are!" said Robert, laughing.  "I'll steer clear of the rocks!
+And as it happens, I have got a piece of news that will put your doings
+into the background at one fell swoop.  Rosalind is going to give a
+party!  The Earl and Countess of Berkhampton are coming down to the
+Larches the week after next, and are going to bring their two girls with
+them.  They are great lanky things, with about as much `go' in the pair
+as in one of your little fingers; but this party is to be given in their
+honour.  The mater has asked everyone of a right age within a dozen
+miles around, and the house will be crammed with visitors.  Your card is
+coming to-morrow, and I hope you will give me the honour of the first
+round, and as many as possible after that."
+
+"The first, with pleasure; I won't promise any more until I see how we
+get on.  It doesn't seem appropriate to think of your dancing, Rob;
+there is something too heavy and serious in your demeanour.  Oswald is
+different; he would make a charming dancing master.  Oh, it will be an
+excitement!  Mellicent will not be able to eat or sleep for thinking of
+it; and poor Mrs Asplin will be running up seams on the sewing-machine,
+and making up ribbon bows from this day to that.  I'm glad I have a
+dress all ready, and shan't be bothered with any trying on!  You don't
+know what it is to stand first on one leg and then on the other, to be
+turned and pulled about as if you were a dummy, and have pins stuck into
+you as if you were a pin-cushion!  I adore pretty clothes, but every
+time I go to the dressmaker's I vow and declare that I shall take to
+sacks.  Tell them at dinner, do, and they will talk about it for the
+rest of the evening!"
+
+Peggy's prophecy came true, for the subject of Rosalind's party became a
+topic of such absorbing interest as left room for little else during the
+next few weeks.  New dresses had to be bought and made for the girls,
+and Peggy superintended the operations of the village dressmaker with
+equal satisfaction to herself and her friends.
+
+Rosalind appeared engrossed in preparations, and two or three times a
+week, as the girls trudged along the muddy roads, with Fraulein lagging
+in the rear, the jingle of bells would come to their ears, and
+Rosalind's two white long-tailed ponies would come dashing past, drawing
+the little open carriage in which their mistress sat, half-hidden among
+a pile of baskets and parcels.  She was always beautiful and radiant,
+and as she passed she would turn her head over her shoulders and look at
+the three mud-bespattered pedestrians with a smile of pitying
+condescension, which made Peggy set her teeth and draw her eyebrows
+together in an ominous frown.
+
+One day she condescended to stop and speak a few words from her throne
+among the cushions.
+
+"How de do?  So sowwy not to have been to see you!  Fwightfully busy,
+don't you know.  We are decowating the wooms, and don't know how to
+finish in time.  It's going to be quite charming!"
+
+"We know!  We know!  Rob told us.  I'm dying to see it.  You should ask
+Peggy to help you, if you are in a hurry.  She's s-imply splendid at
+decorations!  Mother says she never knew anyone so good at it as Peggy!"
+cried Mellicent, with an outburst of gushing praise, in acknowledgment
+of which she received a thunderous frown and such a sharp pinch on the
+arm as penetrated through all her thick winter wrappings.
+
+Rosalind, however, only ejaculated, "Oh, weally!" in an uninterested
+manner, and whipped up her ponies without taking any further notice of
+the suggestion; but it had taken root in her mind all the same, and she
+did not forget to question her brother on the first opportunity.
+
+Mellicent Asplin had said that Peggy Saville was clever at decoration.
+Was it true, and would it be the least use asking her to come and help
+in the decorations?
+
+Robert laughed, and wagged his head with an air of proud assurance.
+
+Clever!  Peggy?  She was a witch!  She could work wonders!  If you set
+her down in an empty room, and gave her two-and-sixpence to transform it
+into an Alhambra, he verily believed she could do it.  The way in which
+she had rigged up the various characters for the Shakespeare reading was
+nothing short of miraculous.  Yes, indeed, Peggy would be worth a dozen
+ordinary helpers.  The question was, Would she come?
+
+"Certainly she will come.  I'll send down for her at once," said
+Rosalind promptly, and forthwith sat down and wrote a dainty little
+note, not to Peggy herself, but to Mrs Asplin, stating that she had
+heard great accounts of Peggy Saville's skill in the art of decoration,
+and begging that she might be allowed to come up to the Larches to help
+with the final arrangements, arriving as early as possible on the day of
+the party, and bringing her box with her, so as to be saved the fatigue
+of returning home to dress.  It was a prettily worded letter, and Mrs
+Asplin was dismayed at the manner of its reception.
+
+"No, Peggy Saville won't!" said that young person, pursing her lips and
+tossing her head in her most high and mighty manner.  "She won't do
+anything of the sort!  Why should I go?  Let her ask some of her own
+friends!  I'm not her friend!  I should simply loathe to go!"
+
+"My dear Peggy!  When you are asked to help!  When this entertainment is
+given for your pleasure, and you can be of real use--"
+
+"I never asked her to give the party!  I don't care whether I go or not!
+She is simply making use of me for her own convenience!"
+
+"It is not the first or only time that you have been asked, as you know
+well, Peggy.  And sometimes you have enjoyed yourself very much.  You
+said you would never forget the pink luncheon.  In spite of all you say,
+you owe Rosalind thanks for some pleasant times; and now you can be of
+some service to her.  Well, I'm not going to force you, dear.  I hate
+unwilling workers, and if it's not in your heart to go, stay at home,
+and settle with your conscience as best you can."
+
+Peggy groaned with sepulchral misery.
+
+"Wish I hadn't got no conscience!  Tiresome, presuming thing--always
+poking itself forward and making remarks when it isn't wanted.  I
+suppose I shall have to go, and run about from morning till night,
+holding a pair of scissors, and nasty little balls of string, for
+Rosalind's use!  Genius indeed!  What's the use of talking about genius?
+I know very well I shall not be allowed to do anything but run about
+and wait upon her.  It's no use staring at me, Mrs Asplin.  I mean it
+all--every single word."
+
+"No, you don't, Peggy!  No, you don't, my little kind, warm-hearted
+Peggy!  I know better than that!  It's just that foolish tongue that is
+running away with you, dearie.  In your heart you are pleased to do a
+service for a friend, and are going to put your whole strength into
+doing it as well and tastefully as it can be done."
+
+"I'm not!  I'm not!  I'm not!  I'm savage, and it's no use pretending--"
+
+"Yes, you are!  I know it!  What is the good of having a special gift if
+one doesn't put it to good use?  Ah, that's the face I like to see!  I
+didn't recognise my Peggy with that ugly frown.  I'll write and say
+you'll come with pleasure."
+
+"It's to please you, then, not Rosalind!" said Peggy obstinately.  But
+Mrs Asplin only laughed, dropped a kiss upon her cheek, and walked away
+to answer the invitation forthwith.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+AT THE LARCHES.
+
+The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Peggy went up to her own
+room to pack for her visit to the Larches.  The long dress-box, which
+had been stored away ever since its arrival, was brought out, and its
+contents displayed to an admiring audience, consisting of Mrs Asplin,
+Esther, Mellicent, and Mary the housemaid.
+
+Everything was there that the heart of girl could desire, and a mother's
+forethought provide for her darling's use when she was far-away.  A
+dress of cobweb Indian muslin embroidered in silk, a fan of curling
+feathers, a dear little satin pocket in which to keep the lace
+handkerchief, rolls of ribbons, dainty white shoes, with straggly silk
+stockings rolled into the toes.
+
+Peggy displayed one article after another, while Mellicent groaned and
+gurgled with delight; Mary exclaimed, "My, Miss Peggy, but you will be
+smart!" and Mrs Asplin stifled a sigh at the thought of her own
+inferior preparations.
+
+Punctually at ten o'clock the carriage drove up to the door, and off
+Peggy drove, not altogether unwillingly, now that it had come to the
+pinch, for after all it _is_ pleasant to be appreciated, and, when a
+great excitement is taking place in the neighbourhood, it is only human
+to wish to be in the thick of the fray.
+
+Lady Darcy welcomed her guest with gracious kindness, and, as soon as
+she had taken off her hat and jacket in the dressing-room which was
+allotted to her use, she was taken straight away to the chief room,
+where the work of decoration was being carried briskly forward.  The
+village joiner was fitting mirrors into the corners and hammering with
+deafening persistence, a couple of gardeners were arranging banks of
+flowers and palms, and Rosalind stood in the midst of a bower of
+greenery, covered from head to foot in a smock of blue linen, and with a
+pair of gardening gloves drawn over her hands.
+
+She gave a little cry of relief and satisfaction as Peggy entered.
+
+"Oh, Mawiquita, so glad you have come!  Mother is so busy that she can't
+be with me at all, and these wretched bwanches pwick my fingers!  Do
+look wound, and say how it looks!  This is weally the servants' hall,
+you know, as we have not a pwoper ballroom, and it is so square and high
+that it is perfectly dweadful to decowate!  A long, narrow woom is so
+much better!"
+
+Peggy thought the arrangements tasteful and pretty; but she could not
+gush over the effect, which, in truth, was in no way original or
+striking.  There seemed little to be done in the room itself, so she
+suggested an adjournment into the outer hall, which seemed to offer
+unique opportunities.
+
+"That space underneath the staircase!" she cried eagerly.  "Oh,
+Rosalind, we could make it look perfectly sweet with all the beautiful
+Eastern things that you have brought home from your travels!  Let us
+make a little harem, with cushions to sit on, and hanging lamps, and
+Oriental curtains for drapery.  We could do it while the men are
+finishing this room, and be ready to come back to it after lunch."
+
+"Oh, what a sweet idea!  Mawiquita, you are quite too clever!" cried
+Rosalind, aglow with pleasure.  "Let us begin at once.  It will be ever
+so much more intewesting than hanging about here."
+
+She thrust her hand through Peggy's arm as she spoke, and the two girls
+went off on a tour through the house to select the most suitable
+articles for their decoration of the "harem."  There was no lack of
+choice, for the long suite of reception-rooms was full of treasures, and
+Peggy stopped every few minutes to point with a small forefinger and
+say, "That screen, please!  That table!  That stool!" to the servants
+who had been summoned in attendance.  The smaller things, such as
+ornaments, table-cloths, and lamps she carried herself, while Rosalind
+murmured sweetly, "Oh, don't twouble!  You mustn't, weally!  Let me help
+you!" and stood with her arms hanging by her side, without showing the
+faintest sign of giving the offered help.
+
+As the morning passed away, Peggy found indeed that the Honourable Miss
+Darcy was a broken reed to lean upon in the way of assistance.  She sat
+on a stool and looked on while the other workers hammered and pinned and
+stitched--so that Peggy's prophecy as to her own subordinate position
+was exactly reversed, and the work of supervision was given entirely
+into her hands.
+
+It took nearly two hours to complete the decorations of the "harem," but
+when all was finished the big ugly space beneath the staircase was
+transformed into as charming a nook as it is possible to imagine.
+Pieces of brilliant flag embroidery from Cairo draped the farther wall,
+a screen of carved work shut out the end of the passage, gauzy curtains
+of gold and blue depended in festoons from the ascending staircase, and
+stopped just in time to leave a safe place for a hanging lamp of wrought
+iron and richly coloured glass.  On the floor were spread valuable rugs
+and piles of bright silken cushions, while on an inlaid table stood a
+real Turkish hookah and a brass tray with the little egg-shaped cups out
+of which travellers in the East are accustomed to sip the strong black
+coffee of the natives.
+
+Peggy lifted the ends of her apron in her hands and executed a dance of
+triumph on her own account when all was finished, and Rosalind said,
+"Weally, we have been clever!  I think we may be proud of ourselves!" in
+amiable effusion.
+
+The two girls went off to luncheon in a state of halcyon amiability
+which was new indeed in the history of their acquaintance, and Lady
+Darcy listened with an amused smile to their rhapsodies on the subject
+of the morning's work, promising faithfully not to look at anything
+until the right moment should arrive, and she should be summoned to gaze
+and admire.
+
+By the time that the workers were ready to return to the room, the men
+had finished the arrangements at which they had been at work before
+lunch, and were beginning to tack festoons of evergreens along the
+walls, the dull paper of which had been covered with fluting of soft
+pink muslin.  The effect was heavy and clumsy in the extreme, and
+Rosalind stamped her foot with an outburst of fretful anger.
+
+"Stop putting up those wreaths!  Stop at once!  They are simply hideous!
+It weminds me of a penny weading in the village schoolwoom!  You might
+as well put up `God save the Queen' and `A Mewwy Chwistmas' at once!
+Take them down this minute, Jackson!  I won't have them!"
+
+The man touched his forehead, and began pulling out the nails in
+half-hearted fashion.
+
+"Very well, miss, as you wish.  Seems a pity, though, not to use 'em,
+for it took me all yesterday to put 'em together.  It's a sin to throw
+'em away."
+
+"I won't have them in the house, if they took you a week!"  Rosalind
+replied sharply, and she turned on her heel and looked appealingly in
+Peggy's face.  "It's a howwid failure!  The woom looks so stiff and
+stwaight--like a pink box with nothing in it!  Mother won't like it a
+bit.  What can we do to make it better?"
+
+Peggy scowled, pursed up her lips, pressed her hand to her forehead, and
+strode up and down the room, rolling her eyes from side to side, and
+going through all the grimaces of one in search of inspiration.
+Rosalind was right: unless some device were found by which the shape of
+the room could be disguised, the decorations must be pronounced more or
+less a failure.  She craned her head to the ceiling, and suddenly beamed
+in triumph.
+
+"I have it!  The very thing!  We will fasten the garlands to that middle
+beam, and loop up the ends at intervals all round the walls.  That will
+break the squareness, and make the room look like a tent, with a ceiling
+of flowers."
+
+"Ah-h!" cried Rosalind; and clasped her hands with a gesture of relief.
+"Of course!  The vewy thing!  We ought to have thought of it at the
+beginning.  Get the ladder at once, Jackson, and put in a hook or wing,
+or something to hold the ends; and be sure that it is strong enough.
+What a good thing that the weaths are weady!  You see, your work will
+not be wasted after all."
+
+She was quite gracious in her satisfaction, and for the next two hours
+she and Peggy were busily occupied superintending the hanging of the
+evergreen wreaths and in arranging bunches of flowers to be placed at
+each point where the wreaths were fastened to the wall.  At the end of
+this time, Rosalind was summoned to welcome the distinguished visitors
+who had arrived by the afternoon train.  She invited Peggy to accompany
+her to the drawing-room, but in a hesitating fashion, and with a glance
+round the disordered room, which said, as plainly as words could do,
+that she would be disappointed if the invitation were accepted; and
+Peggy, transformed in a moment into a poker of pride and dignity,
+declared that she would prefer to remain where she was until all was
+finished.
+
+"Well, it weally would be better, wouldn't it?  I will have a tway sent
+in to you here, and do, Mawiquita, see that evewything is swept up and
+made tidy at once, for I shall bring them in to look wound diwectly
+after tea, and we must have the wooms tidy!"
+
+Rosalind tripped away, and Peggy was left to herself for a lonely and
+troublesome hour.  The tea-tray was brought in, and she was just seating
+herself before an impromptu table, when up came a gardener to say that
+one of "these 'ere wreaths seemed to hang uncommon near the gas-bracket.
+It didn't seem safe like."  And off she went in a panic of
+consternation to see what could be done.  There was nothing for it but
+to move the wreath some inches farther away, which involved moving the
+next also, and the next, and the next, so as to equalise the distances
+as much as possible; and by the time that they were settled to Peggy's
+satisfaction, lo, table and tray had been whisked out of sight by some
+busy pair of hands, and only a bare space met her eyes.  This was blow
+number one, for, after working hard all afternoon, tea and cake come as
+a refreshment which one would not readily miss.  She cheered herself,
+however, by putting dainty finishing touches here and there, seeing that
+the lamp was lighted in the "harem" outside, and was busy placing fairy
+lamps among the shrubs which were to screen the band, when a babel of
+voices from outside warned her that the visitors were approaching.
+Footsteps came nearer and nearer, and a chorus of exclamations greeted
+the sight of the "harem."  The door stood open, Peggy waited for
+Rosalind's voice to call and bid her share the honours, but no summons
+came.  She heard Lady Darcy's exclamation, and the quick, strong tones
+of the strange countess.
+
+"Charming, charming; quite a stroke of genius!  I never saw a more
+artistic little nook.  What made you think of it, my dear?"
+
+"Ha!" said Peggy to herself, and took a step forward, only to draw back
+in dismay, as a light laugh reached her ear, followed by Rosalind's
+careless--
+
+"Oh, I don't know; I wanted to make it pwetty, don't you know; it was so
+dweadfully bare, and there seemed no other way."
+
+Then there was a rustle of silk skirts, and the two ladies entered the
+room, followed by their respective daughters, Rosalind beautiful and
+radiant, and the Ladies Berkhampton with their chins poked forward, and
+their elbows thrust out in ungainly fashion.  They paused on the
+threshold, and every eye travelled up to the wreath-decked ceiling.  A
+flush of pleasure came into Lady Darcy's pale cheeks, and she listened
+to the countess's compliments with sparkling eyes.
+
+"It is all the work of this clever child," she said, laying her hand
+fondly on Rosalind's shoulder.  "I have had practically nothing to do
+with the decorations.  This is the first time I have been in the room
+to-day, and I had no idea that the garlands were to be used in this way.
+I thought they were for the walls."
+
+"I congratulate you, Rosalind!  You are certainly very happy in your
+arrangements," said the countess cordially.  Then she put up her
+eyeglass and stared inquiringly at Peggy, who stood by with her hair
+fastened back in its usual pigtail, and a big white apron pinned over
+her dress.
+
+"She thinks I am the kitchen-maid!" said Peggy savagely to herself; but
+there was little fear of such a mistake, and, the moment that Lady Darcy
+noticed the girl's presence, she introduced her kindly enough, if with
+somewhat of a condescending air.
+
+"This is a little friend of Rosalind's who has come up to help.  She is
+fond of this sort of work," she said; then, before any of the strangers
+had time to acknowledge the introduction, she added hastily, "And now I
+am sure you must all be tired after your journey, and will be glad to go
+to your rooms and rest.  It is quite wicked of me to keep you standing.
+Let me take you upstairs at once!"
+
+They sailed away with the same rustle of garments, the same babel of
+high-toned voices, and Peggy stood alone in the middle of the deserted
+room.  No one had asked her to rest, or suggested that she might be
+tired; she had been overlooked and forgotten in the presence of the
+distinguished visitor.  She was only a little girl who was "fond" of
+this sort of work, and, it might be supposed, was only too thankful to
+be allowed to help!  The house sank into silence.  She waited for half
+an hour longer, in the hope that someone would remember her presence,
+and then, tired, hungry, and burning with repressed anger, crept
+upstairs to her own little room and fell asleep upon the couch.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+ANOTHER ACCIDENT!
+
+Dinner was served unusually early that evening, and was an embarrassing
+ordeal from which Peggy was thankful to escape.
+
+On her way upstairs, however, Rosalind called her back with an eager
+petition.
+
+"Oh, Peggy! would you mind awwanging some flowers?  A big hamper has
+just awwived from town, and the servants are all so dweadfully busy.  I
+must get dwessed in time to help mother to weceive, but it wouldn't
+matter if you were a few minutes late.  Thanks so much!  Awfully
+obliged."
+
+She gave her thanks before an assent had been spoken, and tripped
+smilingly away, while Peggy went back to the big room to find a great
+tray full of hothouse treasures waiting to be arranged, and no availing
+vases in which to place them.  The flowers, however, were so beautiful,
+and the fronds of maidenhair so green and graceful, that the work was a
+pleasure; she enjoyed discovering unlikely places in which to group
+them, and lingered so long over her arrangements that the sudden
+striking of the clock sent her flying upstairs in a panic of
+consternation.  Another quarter of an hour and the vicarage party would
+arrive, for they had been bidden a little in advance of the rest, so
+that Robert might help his mother and sister in receiving their guests.
+Peggy tore off dress and apron, and made all the speed she could, but
+she was still standing in dressing-jacket and frilled white petticoat,
+brushing out her long waves of hair when the door opened and Esther and
+Mellicent entered.  They had begged to be shown to Miss Saville's room,
+and came rustling in, smiling and beaming, with woollen caps over their
+heads, snow-shoes on their feet, and fleecy shawls swathed round and
+round their figures, and fastened with a hairpin on the left shoulder,
+in secure and elegant fashion.  Peggy stood, brush in hand, staring at
+them and shaking with laughter.
+
+"He! he! he!  I hope you are warm enough!  Esther looks like a sausage,
+and Mellicent looks like a dumpling.  Come here, and I'll unwind you.
+You look as if you could not move an inch, hand or foot."
+
+"It was mother," Mellicent explained.  "She was so afraid we would catch
+cold.  Oh, Peggy, you are not half dressed.  You will be late!  Whatever
+have you been doing?  Have you had a nice day?  Did you enjoy it?  What
+did you have for dinner?"
+
+Peggy waved her brush towards the door in dramatic warning.
+
+"Rosalind's room!" she whispered.  "Don't yell, my love, unless you wish
+every word to be overheard.  This is her dressing-room, which she lent
+to me for the occasion, so there's only a door between us.--There, now,
+you are free.  Oh, dear me, how you have squashed your sash!  You really
+must remember to lift it up when you sit down.  You had better stand
+with your back to the fire, to take out the creases."
+
+Mellicent's face clouded for a moment, but brightened again as she
+caught sight of her reflection in the swing glass.  Crumples or no
+crumples, there was no denying that blue was a becoming colour.  The
+plump, rosy cheeks dimpled with satisfaction, and the flaxen head was
+twisted to and fro to survey herself in every possible position.
+
+"Is my hair right at the back?  How does the bow look?  I haven't burst,
+have I?  I thought I heard something crack in the cab.  Do you think I
+will do?"
+
+"Put on your slippers, and I'll tell you.  Anyone would look a fright in
+evening dress and snow-shoes."
+
+Peggy's answer was given with a severity which sent Mellicent waddling
+across the room to turn out the contents of the bag which lay on the
+couch, but the next moment came a squeal of consternation, and there she
+stood in the attitude of a tragedy queen, with staring eyes, parted
+lips, and two shabby black slippers grasped in either hand.
+
+"M-m-m-my old ones!" she gasped in horror-stricken accents.
+"B-b-b-brought them by mistake!"  It was some moments before her
+companions fully grasped the situation, for the new slippers had been
+black too, and of much the same make as those now exhibited.  Mrs
+Asplin had had many yearnings over white shoes and stockings, all silk
+and satin, and tinkling diamond buckles like those which had been
+displayed in Peggy's dress-box.  Why should not her darlings have dainty
+possessions like other girls?  It went to her heart to think what an
+improvement these two articles would make in the simple costumes; then
+she remembered her husband's delicate health, his exhaustion at the end
+of the day, and the painful effort with which he nerved himself to fresh
+exertions, and felt a bigger pang at the thought of wasting money so
+hardly earned.  As her custom was on such occasions, she put the whole
+matter before the girls, talking to them as friends, and asking their
+help in her decision.
+
+"You see, darlings," she said, "I want to do my very best for you, and
+if it would be a real disappointment not to have these things, I'll
+manage it somehow, for once in a way.  But it's a question whether you
+would have another chance of wearing them, and it seems a great deal of
+money to spend for just one evening, when poor dear father--"
+
+"Oh, mother, no, don't think of it!  Black ones will do perfectly well.
+What can it matter what sort of shoes and stockings we wear?  It won't
+make the least difference in our enjoyment," said Esther the sensible;
+but Mellicent was by no means of this opinion.
+
+"I don't know about that!  I love white legs!" she sighed dolefully.
+"All my life long it has been my ambition to have white legs.  Silk ones
+with little bits of lace let in down the front, like Peggy's.  They're
+so beautiful!  It doesn't seem a bit like a party to wear black
+stockings; only of course I know I must, for I'd hate to waste father's
+money.  When I grow up I shall marry a rich man, and have everything I
+want.  It's disgusting to be poor...  Will they be nice black slippers,
+mother, with buckles on them?"
+
+"Yes, dearie.  Beauties!  Great big buckles!" said Mrs Asplin lovingly;
+and a few days later a box had come down from London, and the slippers
+had been chosen out of a selection of "leading novelties"; worn with
+care and reverence the previous evening, "to take off the stiffness,"
+and then after all--oh, the awfulness of it!--had been replaced by an
+old pair, in the bustle of departure.
+
+The three girls stared at one another in consternation.  Here was a
+catastrophe to happen just at the last moment, when everyone was so
+happy and well satisfied!  The dismay on the chubby face was so pitiful
+that neither of Mellicent's companions could find it in her heart to
+speak a word of reproof.  They rather set to work to propose different
+ways out of the difficulty.
+
+"Get hold of Max, and coax him to go back for them!"
+
+"He wouldn't; it's no use.  It's raining like anything, and it would
+take him an hour to go there and come back."
+
+"Ask Lady Darcy to send one of the servants--"
+
+"No use, my dear.  They are scampering up and down like mice, and
+haven't a moment to spare from their own work."
+
+"See if Rosalind would lend me a pair!"
+
+"Silly goose!  Look at your foot.  It is three times the size of hers.
+You will just have to wear them, I'm afraid.  Give them to me, and let
+me see what can be done."  Peggy took the slippers in her hands and
+studied them critically.  They were certainly not new, but then they
+were by no means old; just respectable, middle-aged creatures, slightly
+rubbed on the heel and white at the toes, but with many a day of good
+hard wear still before them.
+
+"Oh, come," she said reassuringly, "they are not so bad, Mellicent!
+With a little polish they would look quite presentable.  I'll tap at the
+door and ask Rosalind if she has some that she can lend us.  She is sure
+to have it.  There are about fifty thousand bottles on her table."
+
+Peggy crossed the room as she spoke, tapped on the panel, and received
+an immediate answer in a high complacent treble.
+
+"Coming!  Coming!  I'm weady;" then the door flew open; a tiny pink silk
+shoe stepped daintily over the mat, and Rosalind stood before them in
+all the glory of a new Parisian dress.  Three separate gasps of
+admiration greeted her appearance, and she stood smiling and dimpling
+while the girls took in the fascinating details--the satin frock of
+palest imaginable pink, the white chiffon over-dress which fell from
+shoulder to hem in graceful freedom, sprinkled over with exquisite
+rose--leaves--it was all wonderful--fantastic--as far removed from
+Peggy's muslin as from the homely crepon of the vicar's daughters.
+
+"Rosalind! what a perfect _angel_ you look!" gasped Mellicent, her own
+dilemma forgotten in her wholehearted admiration; but the next moment
+memory came back, and her expression changed to one of pitiful appeal.
+"But, oh, have you got any boot-polish?  The most awful thing has
+happened.  I've brought my old shoes by mistake!  Look!  I don't know
+what on earth I shall do, if you can't give me something to black the
+toes."  She held out the shoes as she spoke, and Rosalind gave a shrill
+scream of laughter.
+
+"Oh! oh!  Those things!  How fwightfully funny! what a fwightful joke!
+You will look like Cinderwella, when she wan away, and the glass
+slippers changed back to her dweadful old clogs.  It is too scweamingly
+funny, I do declare!"
+
+"Oh, never mind what you declare!  Can you lend us some boot-polish--
+that's the question!" cried Peggy sharply.  She knew Mellicent's horror
+of ridicule, and felt indignant with the girl who could stand by, secure
+in her own beauty and elegance, and have no sympathy for the misfortune
+of a friend.  "If you have a bottle of peerless gloss, or any of those
+shiny things with a sponge fastened on the cork, I can make them look
+quite respectable, and no one will have any cause to laugh."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" trilled Rosalind once more, "Peggy is cwoss!  I never knew
+such a girl for flying into tantwums at a moment's notice!  Yes, of
+course I'll lend you the polish.  There is some in this little
+cupboard--there!  I won't touch it, in case it soils my gloves.  Shall I
+call Marie to put it on for you?"
+
+"Thank you, there's no need--I can do it!  I would rather do it myself!"
+
+"Oh--oh, isn't she cwoss!  You will bweak the cork if you scwew it about
+like that, and then you'll never be able to get it out.  Why don't you
+pull it pwoperly?"
+
+"I know how to pull out a cork, thank you; I've done it before!"
+
+Peggy shot an angry glance at her hostess, and set to work again with
+doubled energy.  Now that Rosalind had laughed at her inability, it
+would be misery to fail; but the bottle had evidently lain aside for
+some time, and a stiff black crust had formed round the cork which made
+it difficult to move.  Peggy pulled and tugged, while Rosalind stood
+watching, laughing her aggravating, patronising little laugh, and
+dropping a word of instruction from time to time.  And then, quite
+suddenly, a dreadful thing happened.  In the flash of an eye--so quickly
+and unexpectedly, that, looking back upon it, it seemed like a nightmare
+which could not possibly have taken place in real life--the cork jerked
+out in Peggy's hand, in response to a savage tug, and with it out flew
+an inky jet, which rose straight up in the air, separated into a
+multitude of tiny drops, and descended in a flood--oh, the horror of
+that moment!--over Rosalind's face, neck, and dress.
+
+One moment a fairy princess, a goddess of summer, the next a figure of
+fun with black spots scattered thickly over cheeks and nose, a big
+splash on the white shoulder, and inky daubs dotted here and there
+between the rose-leaves.  What a transformation!  What a spectacle of
+horror!  Peggy stood transfixed; Mellicent screamed in terror; and
+Esther ran forward, handkerchief in hand, only to be waved aside with
+angry vehemence.  Rosalind's face was convulsed with anger; she stamped
+her foot and spoke at the pitch of her voice, as if she had no control
+over her feelings.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!  You wicked girl! you hateful, detestable girl!  You did it
+on purpose, because you were in a temper!  You have been in a temper all
+the afternoon!  You have spoiled my dress!  I was weady to go
+downstairs.  It is eight o'clock.  In a few minutes everyone will be
+here, and oh, what shall I do--what shall I do!  Whatever will mother
+say when she sees me?"
+
+As if to give a practical answer to this inquiry, there came a sound of
+hasty footsteps in the corridor, the door flew open, and Lady Darcy
+rushed in, followed by the French maid.
+
+"My darling, what is it?  I heard your voice.  Has something happened?
+Oh-h!"  She stopped short, paralysed with consternation, while the maid
+wrung her hands in despair.  "Rosalind, what _have_ you done to
+yourself?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing!  It was Peggy Saville; she splashed me with her
+horrid boot-polish--I gave it to her for her shoes.  It is on my face,
+my neck, in my mouth--"
+
+"I was pulling the cork.  It came out with a jerk.  I didn't know; I
+didn't see!--"
+
+Lady Darcy's face stiffened with an expression of icy displeasure.
+
+"It is too annoying!  Your dress spoiled at the last moment!
+Inexcusable carelessness!  What is to be done, Marie?  I am in despair!"
+
+The Frenchwoman shrugged her shoulders with an indignant glance in
+Peggy's direction.
+
+"There is nothing to do.  Put on another dress--that is all.
+Mademoiselle must change as quick as she can.  If I sponge the spots, I
+spoil the whole thing at once."
+
+"But you could cut them out, couldn't you?" cried Peggy, the picture of
+woe, yet miserably eager to make what amends she could.  "You could cut
+out the spots with sharp scissors, and the holes would not show, for the
+chiffon is so full and loose.  I--I think I could do it, if you would
+let me try!"
+
+Mistress and maid exchanged a sharp, mutual glance, and the Frenchwoman
+nodded slowly.
+
+"Yes, it is true; I could rearrange the folds.  It will take some time,
+but still it can be done.  It is the best plan."
+
+"Go then, Rosalind, go with Marie; there is not a moment to spare, and
+for pity's sake don't cry!  Your eyes will be red, and at any moment now
+the people may begin to arrive.  I wanted you to be with me to receive
+your guests.  It will be most awkward being without you, but there is no
+help for it, I suppose.  The whole thing is too annoying for words!"
+
+Lady Darcy swept out of the room, and the three girls were once more
+left alone; but how changed were their feelings in those few short
+moments!  There was not the shadow of a smile between them; they looked
+more as if they were about to attend a funeral than a scene of
+festivity, and for several moments no one had the heart to speak.  Peggy
+still held the fatal cork in her hand, and went through the work of
+polishing Mellicent's slippers with an air of the profoundest dejection.
+When they were finished she handed them over in dreary silence, and was
+recommencing the brushing of her hair, when something in the expression
+of the chubby face arrested her attention.  Her eyes flashed; she faced
+round with a frown and a quick, "Well, what is it?  What are you
+thinking now?"
+
+"I--I wondered," whispered Mellicent breathlessly, "if you did do it on
+purpose!  Did you _mean_ to spoil her dress, and make her change it?"
+
+Peggy's hands dropped to her side, her back straightened until she stood
+stiff and straight as a poker.  Every atom of expression seemed to die
+out of her face.  Her voice had a deadly quiet in its intonation.
+
+"What do you think about it yourself?"
+
+"I--I thought perhaps you did!  She teased you, and you were so cross.
+You seemed to be standing so very near her, and you are jealous of her--
+and she looked so lovely!  I thought perhaps you did..."
+
+"Mellicent Asplin," said Peggy quietly, and her voice was like the east
+wind that blows from an icy-covered mountain,--"Mellicent Asplin, my
+name is Saville, and in my family we don't condescend to mean and
+dishonourable tricks.  I may not like Rosalind, but I would have given
+all I have in the world sooner than this should have happened.  I was
+trying to do you a service, but you forget that.  You forget many
+things!  I have been jealous of Rosalind, because when she arrived you
+and your sister forgot that I was alone and far-away from everyone
+belonging to me, and were so much engrossed with her that you left me
+alone to amuse myself as best I might.  You were pleased enough to have
+me when no one else was there, but you left me the moment someone
+appeared who was richer and grander than I.  I wouldn't have treated
+_you_ like that, if our positions had been reversed.  If I dislike
+Rosalind, it is your fault as much as hers; more than hers, for it was
+you who made me dread her coming!"
+
+Peggy stopped, trembling and breathless.  There was a moment's silence
+in the room, and then Esther spoke in a slow, meditative fashion.
+
+"It is quite true!" she said.  "We _have_ left you alone, Peggy; but it
+is not quite so bad as you think.  Really and truly we like you far the
+best, but--but Rosalind is such a change to us!  Everything about her is
+so beautiful and so different, that she has always seemed the great
+excitement of our lives.  I don't know that I'm exactly fond of her, but
+I want to see her, and talk to her, and hear her speak, and she is only
+here for a short time in the year.  It was because we looked upon you as
+really one of ourselves that we seemed to neglect you; but it was wrong,
+all the same.  As for your spoiling her dress on purpose, it's
+ridiculous to think of it.  How could you say such a thing, Mellicent,
+when Peggy was trying to help you, too?  How _could_ you be so mean and
+horrid?"
+
+"Oh, well, I'm sure I wish I were dead!" wailed Mellicent promptly.
+"Nothing but fusses and bothers, and just when I thought I was going to
+be so happy!  If I'd had white shoes, this would never have happened.
+Always the same thing!  When you look forward to a treat, everything is
+as piggy and nasty as it can be!  Wish I'd never come!  Wish I'd stayed
+at home, and let the horrid old party go to Jericho!  Rosalind's crying,
+Peggy's cross, you are preaching!  This is a nice way to enjoy yourself,
+I must say!"
+
+Nothing is more hopeless than to reason with a placid person who has
+lapsed into a fit of ill-temper.  The two elder girls realised this, and
+remained perfectly silent while Mellicent continued to wish for death,
+to lament the general misery of life, and the bad fortune which attended
+the wearers of black slippers.  So incessant was the stream of her
+repinings, that it seemed as if it might have gone on for ever, had not
+a servant entered at last, with the information that the guests were
+beginning to arrive, and that Lady Darcy would be glad to see the young
+ladies without delay.  Esther was anxious to wait and help Peggy with
+her toilet, but that young lady was still on her dignity, and by no
+means anxious to descend to a scene of gaiety for which she had little
+heart.  She refused the offer, therefore, in Mariquita fashion, and the
+sisters walked dejectedly along the brightly-lit corridors, Mellicent
+still continuing her melancholy wail, and Esther reflecting sadly that
+all was vanity, and devoutly wishing herself back in the peaceful
+atmosphere of the vicarage.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+FIRE!
+
+It was fully half an hour later when Peggy crept along the passage, and
+took advantage of a quiet moment to slip into the room and seat herself
+in a sheltered corner.  Quick as she was, however, somebody's eyes were
+even quicker, for a tall figure stepped before her, and an aggrieved
+voice cried loudly--
+
+"Well, I hope you are smart enough to satisfy yourself, now that you
+_are_ ready!  You have taken long enough, I must say.  What about that
+first waltz that you promised to have with me?"
+
+Peggy drew in her breath with a gasp of dismay.
+
+"Oh, Rob, I am sorry!  I forgot all about it.  I've been so perturbed.
+Something awful has occurred.  You heard about it, of course--"
+
+"No, I didn't?  What on earth," began the boy anxiously; but so soon as
+he heard the two words "Rosalind's dress!" he shrugged his shoulders in
+contemptuous indifference.  "Oh, that!  I heard something about it, but
+I didn't take much notice.  Spilt some ink, didn't you?  What's the odds
+if you did?  Accidents will happen, and she has a dozen others to choose
+from.  I don't see anything wrong with the dress.  It looks decent
+enough."
+
+Peggy followed the direction of his eyes, and caught a glimpse of
+Rosalind floating past on the arm of a tall soldierly youth.  She was
+sparkling with smiles, and looking as fresh and spotless as on the
+moment when she had stepped across the threshold of her own room.
+Neither face nor dress bore any trace of the misfortune of an hour
+before, and Peggy heaved a sigh of relief as she watched her to and fro.
+
+"Jolly enough, isn't she?  There's nothing for you to fret about, you
+see," said Rob consolingly.  "She has forgotten all about it, and the
+best thing you can do is to follow her example.  What would you think of
+some light refreshment?  Let's go to the dining-room and drown our
+sorrows in strawberry ice.  Then we can have a waltz, and try a
+vanilla--and a polka, and some lemonade!  That's, my idea of enjoying
+myself.  Come along, while you get the chance!--"
+
+"Oh, Rob, you _are_ greedy!" protested Peggy; nevertheless she rose
+blithely enough, and her eyes began to sparkle with some of their wonted
+vivacity.  There was something strong and reassuring about Robert's
+presence; he looked upon things in such an eminently sensible,
+matter-of-fact way, that one was ashamed to give way to moods and tenses
+in his company.
+
+Peggy began to feel that there was still some possibility of happiness
+in life, and on her way to the door she came face to face with Lady
+Darcy, who reassured her still further by smiling as amiably as if
+nothing had happened.
+
+"Well, dear, enjoying yourself?  Got plenty of partners?"  Then in a
+whispered aside, "The dress looks all right!  Such a clever suggestion
+of yours.  Dear, dear, what a fright we had!" and she swept away,
+leaving an impression of beauty, grace, and affability which the girl
+was powerless to resist.  When Lady Darcy chose to show herself at her
+best, there was a charm about her which subjugated all hearts, and, from
+the moment that the sweet tired eyes smiled into hers, Peggy Saville
+forgot her troubles and tripped away to eat strawberry ices, and dance
+over the polished floor with a heart as light as her heels.
+
+One party is very much like another.  The room may be larger or smaller,
+the supper more or less substantial, but the programme is the same in
+both cases, and there is little to be told about even the grandest of
+its kind.  Somebody wore pink; somebody wore blue; somebody fell down on
+the floor in the middle of the lancers, which are no longer the stately
+and dignified dance of yore, but an ungainly romp more befitting a
+kitchen than a ballroom; somebody went in to supper twice over, and
+somebody never went at all, but blushed unseen in a corner, thinking
+longingly of turkey, trifle, and crackers; and then the carriages began
+to roll up to the door, brothers and sisters paired demurely together,
+stammered out a bashful "Enjoyed myself so much!  Thanks for a pleasant
+evening," and raced upstairs for coats and shawls.
+
+By half-past twelve all the guests had departed except the vicarage
+party, and the sons and daughters of the old squire who lived close by,
+who had been pressed to stay behind for that last half-hour which is
+often the most enjoyable of the whole evening.
+
+Lord and Lady Darcy and the grown-up visitors retired into the
+drawing-room to regale themselves with sandwiches and ices, and the
+young people stormed the supper-room, interrupted the servants in their
+work of clearing away the good things, seated themselves
+indiscriminately on floor, chair, or table, and despatched a second
+supper with undiminished appetite.  Then Esther mounted the platform
+where the band had been seated, and played a last waltz, and a very last
+waltz, and "really the last waltz of all."  The squire's son played a
+polka with two fingers, and a great deal of loud pedal, and the fun grew
+faster and more uproarious with every moment.  Even Rosalind threw aside
+young ladylike affectations and pranced about without thinking of
+appearances, and when at last the others left the room to prepare for
+the drive home she seized Peggy's arm in eager excitement.
+
+"Peggy!  Peggy!  Such a joke!  I told them to come back to say good-bye,
+and I am going to play a twick!  I'm going to be a ghost, and glide out
+from behind the shwubs, and fwighten them.  I can do it beautifully.
+See!"  She turned down the gas as she spoke, threw her light gauze skirt
+over her head, and came creeping across the room with stealthy tread,
+and arms outstretched, while Peggy clapped her hands in delight.
+
+"Lovely!  Lovely!  It looks exactly like wings.  It makes me quite
+creepy.  Don't come out if Mellicent is alone, whatever you do.  She
+would be scared out of her seven senses.  Just float gently along toward
+them, and keep your hands forward so as to hide your face.  They will
+recognise you if you don't."
+
+"Oh, if you can see my face, we must have less light.  There are too
+many candles, I'll put out the ones on the mantelpiece.  Stay where you
+are, and tell me when it is wight," Rosalind cried gaily, and ran across
+the room on her tiny pink silk slippers.
+
+So long as she lived Peggy Saville remembered the next minutes; to the
+last day of her life she had only to shut her eyes and the scene rose up
+before her, clear and vivid as in a picture.  The stretch of empty room,
+with its fragrant banks of flowers; the graceful figure flitting across
+the floor, its outline swathed in folds of misty white; the glimpse of a
+lovely, laughing face as Rosalind stretched out her arm to reach the
+silver candelabra, the sudden flare of light which caught the robe of
+gauze, and swept it into flame.  It all happened within the space of a
+minute, but it was one of those minutes the memory of which no years can
+destroy.  She had hardly time to realise the terror of the situation
+before Rosalind was rushing towards her with outstretched hands, calling
+aloud in accents of frenzied appeal--
+
+"Peggy!  Peggy!  Oh, save me, Peggy!  I'm burning!  Save me!  Save me!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+A NIGHT OF TERROR.
+
+While the young folks had been enjoying themselves in the ballroom,
+their elders had found the time hang somewhat heavily on their hands.
+The evening had not been so interesting to them as to their juniors.
+Lady Darcy was tired with the preparations of the day, and the countess
+with her journey from town.  Both were fain to yawn behind their fans
+from time to time, and were longing for the moment to come when they
+could retire to bed.  If only those indefatigable children would say
+good-night and take themselves off!  But the echo of the piano still
+sounded from the room, and seemed to go on and on, in endless
+repetition.
+
+Everything comes to those who wait, however--even the conclusion of a
+ball to the weary chaperon.  At long past midnight the strains died
+away, and in the hope of an early release the ladies roused themselves
+to fresh conversational effort.  What they said was unimportant, and
+could never be remembered; but at one moment, as it seemed, they were
+smiling and exchanging their little commonplace amenities, two languid,
+fine ladies whose aim in life might have been to disguise their own
+feelings and hide the hearts that God had given them; the next the
+artificial smiles were wiped away, and they were clinging together, two
+terrified, cowering women, with a mother's soul in their faces--a
+mother's love and fear and dread!  A piercing cry had sounded through
+the stillness, and another, and another, and, while they sat paralysed
+with fear, footsteps came tearing along the passage, the door was burst
+open, and a wild, dishevelled-looking figure rushed into the room.  A
+curtain was wound round face and figure, but beneath its folds a long
+white arm gripped convulsively at the air, and two little feet staggered
+about in pink silk slippers.
+
+Lady Darcy gave a cry of anguish; but her terror seemed to hold her
+rooted to the spot, and it was her husband who darted forward and caught
+the swaying figure in his arms.  The heavy wrappings came loose in his
+grasp, and as they did so an unmistakable smell pervaded the room--the
+smell of singed and burning clothing.  A cloud of blackened rags
+fluttered to the ground as the last fold of the curtain was unloosed,
+and among them--most pitiful sight of all--were stray gleams of gold
+where a severed lock of hair lay on the carpet, its end still turned in
+glistening curl.
+
+"Rosalind!  Rosalind!" gasped the poor mother, clutching the arms of her
+chair, and looking as if she were about to faint herself, as she gazed
+upon the pitiful figure of her child.  The lower portion of Rosalind's
+dress was practically uninjured, but the gauze skirt and all the frills
+and puffing round the neck hung in tatters, her hair was singed and
+roughened, and as the air touched her skin she screamed with pain, and
+held her hands up to her neck and face.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  I am burning!  Cover me up!  Cover me up!  I shall die!
+Oh, mother, mother!  The pain--the pain!"
+
+She reeled as if about to faint, yet if anyone attempted to approach she
+beat them off with frantic hands, as if in terror of being touched.
+
+One of the ladies ran forward with a shawl, and wrapped it forcibly
+round the poor scarred shoulders, while the gentlemen hurried out of the
+room to send for a doctor and make necessary arrangements.  One of the
+number came back almost immediately, with the news that he had failed to
+discover the cause of the accident.  There was no sign of fire upstairs,
+the ballroom was dark and deserted, the servants engaged in setting the
+entertaining rooms in order.  For the present, at least, the cause of
+the accident remained a mystery, and the distracted father and mother
+occupied themselves in trying to pacify their child.
+
+"I'll carry you upstairs, my darling.  We will put something on your
+skin which will take away the pain.  Try to be quiet, and tell us how it
+happened.  What were you doing to set yourself on fire?"
+
+"Peggy!  Peggy!" gasped Rosalind faintly.  Her strength was failing by
+this time, and she could hardly speak; but Lady Darcy's face stiffened
+into an awful anger at the sound of that name.  She turned like a
+tigress to her husband, her face quivering with anger.
+
+"That girl again!  That wicked girl!  It is the second time to-night!
+She has killed the child; but she shall be punished!  I'll have her
+punished!  She shall not kill my child, and go free!  I'll--I'll--"
+
+"Hush, hush, Beatrice!  Take care!  You frighten Rosalind.  We must get
+her to bed.  There is not a moment to lose."
+
+Lord Darcy beckoned to one of the servants, who by this time were
+crowding in at the door, and between them they lifted poor, groaning
+Rosalind in their arms, and carried her up the staircase, down which she
+had tripped so gaily a few hours before.  Tenderly as they held her, she
+moaned with every movement, and, when she was laid on her bed, it seemed
+for a moment as if consciousness were about to forsake her.  Then
+suddenly a light sprung into her eyes.  She lifted her hand and gasped
+out one word--just one word--repeated over and over again in a tone of
+agonised entreaty.
+
+"Peggy!  Peggy!  Peggy!"
+
+"Yes, darling, yes!  I'll go to her.  Be quiet--only be quiet!"
+
+Lady Darcy turned away with a shudder as the maid and an old family
+servant began the task of removing the clothes from Rosalind's writhing
+limbs, and, seizing her husband by the arm, drew him out on the landing.
+Her face was white, but her eyes gleamed, and the words hissed as they
+fell from her lips.
+
+"Find that girl, and turn her out of this house!  I will not have her
+here another hour!  Do you hear--not a minute!  Send her away at once
+before I see her!  Don't let me see her!  I can't be responsible for
+what I would do!"
+
+"Yes, yes, dear, I'll send her away!  Try to calm yourself.  Remember
+you have work to do Rosalind will need you."
+
+The poor old lord went stooping away, his tired face looking aged and
+haggard with anxiety.  His beautiful young daughter was scarcely less
+dear to him than to her mother, and the sound of her cries cut to his
+heart; yet in the midst of his anguish he had a pang of compassion for
+the poor child who, as he believed, was the thoughtless cause of the
+accident.  What agony of remorse must be hers!  What torture she would
+now be suffering!
+
+The guests and servants were standing huddled together on the landing
+upstairs, or running to and fro to procure what was needed.  Every
+thought was concentrated on Rosalind, and Rosalind alone, and the part
+of the house where the dance had been held was absolutely deserted.
+
+He took his way along the gaily decorated hall, noted with absent eye
+the disordered condition of the "harem," which had been pointed out so
+proudly at the beginning of the evening, and entered the empty room.
+The lights were out, except for a few candles scattered here and there
+among the flowers.  He walked slowly forward, saw the silver candlestick
+on the floor before the fireplace, and stood gazing at it with a quick
+appreciation of what had happened.  For some reason or other Rosalind
+had tried to reach the candle, and the light had caught her gauzy skirt,
+which had burst into flames.  It was easy--terribly easy to imagine; but
+in what way had Peggy Saville been responsible for the accident, so that
+her name should sound so persistently on Rosalind's lips,--and who had
+been the Good Samaritan who had come to the rescue with that thick
+curtain which had killed the flames before they had time to finish the
+work of destruction?
+
+Lord Darcy peered curiously round.  The oak floor stretched before him
+dark and still, save where its polished surface reflected the light
+overhead; but surely in the corner opposite to where he stood there was
+a darker mass--a shadow deeper than the rest?
+
+He walked towards it, bending forward with straining eyes.  Another
+curtain of the same pattern as that which had enveloped Rosalind--a
+curtain of rich Oriental hues with an unaccountable patch of white in
+the centre.  What was it?  It must be part of the fabric itself.  Lord
+Darcy told himself that he had no doubt on the subject, yet the way
+across the room seemed unaccountably long, and his heart beat fast with
+apprehension.  In another moment he stood in the corner, and knew too
+well the meaning of that patch of white, for Peggy Saville lay stretched
+upon the curtain, motionless, unconscious--to all appearance, dead!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
+
+It was one o'clock in the morning when a carriage drove up to the door
+of the Larches, and Mrs Asplin alighted, all pale, tear-stained, and
+tremulous.  She had been nodding over the fire in her bedroom when the
+young people had returned with the news of the tragic ending to the
+night's festivity, and no persuasion or argument could induce her to
+wait until the next day before flying to Peggy's side.
+
+"No, no!" she cried.  "You must not hinder me.  If I can't drive, I will
+walk!  I would go to the child to-night, if I had to crawl on my hands
+and knees!  I promised her mother to look after her.  How could I stay
+at home and think of her lying there?  Oh, children, children, pray for
+Peggy!  Pray that she may be spared, and that her poor parents may be
+spared this awful--awful news!"
+
+Then she kissed her own girls, clasped them to her in a passionate
+embrace, and drove off to the Larches in the carriage which had brought
+the young people home.
+
+Lady Darcy came out to meet her, and gripped her hand in welcome.
+
+"You have come!  I knew you would.  I am so thankful to see you.  The
+doctor has come, and will stay all night.  He has sent for a nurse--"
+
+"And--my Peggy?"
+
+Lady Darcy's lips quivered.
+
+"Very, very ill--much worse than Rosalind!  Her poor little arms!  I was
+so wicked, I thought it was her fault, and I had no pity, and now it
+seems that she has saved my darling's life.  They can't tell us about it
+yet, but it was she who wrapped the curtain round Rosalind, and burned
+herself in pressing out the flames.  Rosalind kept crying, `Peggy!
+Peggy!' and we thought she meant that it was Peggy's fault.  We had
+heard so much of her mischievous tricks.  My husband found her lying on
+the floor.  She was unconscious; but she came round when they were
+dressing her arms.  I think she will know you--"
+
+"Take me to her, please!"  Mrs Asplin said quickly.  She had to wait
+several moments before she could control her voice sufficiently to add,
+"And Rosalind, how is she?"
+
+"There is no danger.  Her neck is scarred, and her hair singed and
+burned.  She is suffering from the shock, but the doctor says it is not
+serious.  Peggy--"
+
+She paused, and the other walked on resolutely, not daring to ask for
+the termination of that sentence.  She crept into the little room, bent
+over the bed, and looked down on Peggy's face through a mist of tears.
+It was drawn and haggard with pain, and the eyes met hers without a ray
+of light in their hollow depths.  That she recognised was evident, but
+the pain which she was suffering was too intense to leave room for any
+other feeling.  She lay motionless, with her bandaged arms stretched
+before her, and her face looked so small and white against the pillow
+that Mrs Asplin trembled to think how little strength was there to
+fight against the terrible shock and strain.  Only once in all that long
+night did Peggy show any consciousness of her surroundings, but then her
+eyes lit up with a gleam of remembrance, her lips moved, and Mrs Asplin
+bent down to catch the faintly whispered words--
+
+"The twenty-sixth--next Monday!  Don't tell Arthur!"
+
+"`The twenty-sixth!'  What is that, darling?  Ah, I remember--Arthur's
+examination!  You mean if he knew you were ill, it would upset him for
+his work?"
+
+An infinitesimal movement of the head answered "Yes," and she gave the
+promise in trembling tones--
+
+"No, my precious, we won't tell him.  He could not help, and it would
+only distress you to feel that he was upset.  Don't trouble about it,
+darling.  It will be all right."
+
+Then Peggy shut her eyes and wandered away into a strange world, in
+which accustomed things disappeared, and time was not, and nothing
+remained but pain and weariness and mystery.  Those of us who have come
+near to death have visited this world too, and know the blackness of it,
+and the weary waking.
+
+Peggy lay in her little white bed, and heard voices speaking in her ear,
+and saw strange shapes flit to and fro.  Quite suddenly, as it appeared,
+a face would be bending over her own, and as she watched it with languid
+curiosity, wondering what manner of thing it could be, it would melt
+away and vanish in the distance.  At other times again it would grow
+larger and larger, until it assumed gigantic proportions, and she cried
+out in fear of the huge, saucer-like eyes.  There was a weary puzzle in
+her brain, an effort to understand, but everything seemed mixed up and
+incomprehensible.  She would look round the room and see the sunshine
+peeping in through the chinks of the blinds, and when she closed her
+eyes for a moment--just a single fleeting moment--lo! the gas was lit,
+and someone was nodding in a chair by her side.  And it was by no means
+always the same room.  She was tired, and wanted badly to rest, yet she
+was always rushing about here, there, and everywhere, striving vainly to
+dress herself in clothes which fell off as soon as they were fastened,
+hurrying to catch a train to reach a certain destination; but in each
+instance the end was the same--she was falling, falling, falling--always
+falling--from the crag of an Alpine precipice, from the pinnacle of a
+tower, from the top of a flight of stairs.  The slip and the terror
+pursued her wherever she went; she would shriek aloud, and feel soft
+hands pressed on her cheeks, soft voices murmuring in her ear.
+
+One vision stood out plainly from those nightmare dreams--the vision of
+a face which suddenly appeared in the midst of the big grey cloud which
+enveloped her on every side--a beautiful face which was strangely like,
+and yet unlike, something she had seen long, long ago in a world which
+she had well-nigh forgotten.  It was pale and thin, and the golden hair
+fell in a short curly crop on the blue garment which was swathed over
+the shoulders.  It was like one of the heads of celestial choir-boys
+which she had seen on Christmas cards and in books of engravings, yet
+something about the eyes and mouth seemed familiar.  She stared at it
+curiously, and then suddenly a strange, weak little voice faltered out a
+well-known name.
+
+"Rosalind!" it cried, and a quick exclamation of joy sounded from the
+side of the bed.  Who had spoken?  The first voice had been strangely
+like her own, but at an immeasurable distance.  She shut her eyes to
+think about it, and the fair-haired vision disappeared, and was seen no
+more.
+
+There was a big, bearded man also who came in from time to time, and
+Peggy grew to dread his appearance, for with it came terrible stabbing
+pain, as if her whole body were on the rack.  He was one of the Spanish
+Inquisitors, of whom she had read, and she was an English prisoner whom
+he was torturing!  Well, he might do his worst!  She would die before
+she would turn traitor and betray her flag and country.  The Savilles
+were a fighting race, and would a thousand times rather face death than
+dishonour.
+
+One day, when she felt rather stronger than usual, she told him so to
+his face, and he laughed--she was quite sure he laughed, the
+hard-hearted wretch!  And someone else said, "Poor little love!" which
+was surely an extraordinary expression for a Spanish Inquisitor.  That
+was one of the annoying things in this new life--people were so
+exceedingly stupid in their conversation!  Now and again she herself had
+something which she was especially anxious to say, and when she set it
+forth with infinite difficulty and pains the only answer which she
+received was a soothing, "Yes, dear, yes!"
+
+"No, dear, no!" or a still more maddening, "Yes, darling, I quite
+understand!"--which she knew perfectly well to be an untruth.  Really,
+these good people seemed to think that she was demented, and did not
+know what she was saying.  As a matter of fact, it was exactly the other
+way about; but she was too tired to argue.  And then one day came a
+sleep when she neither dreamt nor slipped nor fell, but opened her eyes
+refreshed and cheerful, and beheld Mrs Asplin sitting by a table
+drinking tea and eating what appeared to be a particularly tempting
+slice of cake.
+
+"I want some cake!" she said clearly; and Mrs Asplin jumped as if a
+cannon had been fired off at her ear, and rushed breathlessly to the
+bedside, stuttering and stammering in amazement--
+
+"Wh-wh-wh-what?"
+
+"Cake!" repeated Peggy shrilly.  "I want some!  And tea!  I want my
+tea!"
+
+Surely it was a very natural request!  What else could you expect from a
+girl who had been asleep and wakened up feeling hungry?  What on earth
+was there in those commonplace words to make a grown-up woman cry like a
+baby, and why need everyone in the house rush in and stare at her as if
+she were a figure in a waxwork?  Lord Darcy, Lady Darcy, Rosalind, the
+old French maid--they were all there--and, as sure as her name was Peggy
+Saville, they were all four, handkerchief in hand, mopping their eyes
+like so many marionettes!
+
+Nobody gave her the cake for which she had asked.  Peggy considered it
+exceedingly rude and ill-bred; but while she was thinking of it she grew
+tired again, and, rolling round into a soft little bundle among the
+blankets, fell afresh into sweet refreshing slumbers.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+CONVALESCENCE.
+
+"Convalescence," remarked Peggy elegantly, a week later on,
+"convalescence is a period not devoid of attraction!"  She was lying on
+a sofa in her bedroom at the Larches, wrapped in her white
+dressing-gown, and leaning against a nest of pink silk cushions, and,
+what with a table drawn up by her side laden with grapes and jelly, a
+pile of Christmas numbers lying close at hand, and the presence of an
+audience consisting of Rosalind, Lady Darcy, and Mrs Asplin, ready to
+listen admiringly to her conversation, and to agree enthusiastically
+with every word she uttered, it did indeed seem as if the position was
+one which might be endured with fortitude!  Many were the questions
+which had been showered upon her since her return to consciousness, and
+the listeners never grew tired of listening to her account of the
+accident.  How Rosalind had clutched too carelessly at the slender
+candlestick, so that it had fallen forward, setting the gauze dress in
+flames, how she herself had flown out of the room, torn down the
+curtains which draped the "harem," and had flung them round the frantic,
+struggling figure.  With every day that passed, however, Peggy gained
+more strength, and was petted to her heart's content by everyone in the
+house.  The old lord kissed her fondly on the cheek, and murmured, "God
+reward you, my brave girl, for I never can."  Lady Darcy shed tears
+every morning when the burns were dressed, and said, "Oh, Peggy dear,
+forgive me for being cross, and do, do be sure to use the lotion for
+your arms regularly every day when you get better!"  And the big doctor
+chucked her under the chin, and cried--
+
+"Well, `Fighting Saville,' and how are we to-day?  You are the pluckiest
+little patient I've had for a long time.  I'll say that for you!  Let's
+have another taste of the rack!"  It was all most agreeable and soothing
+to one's feelings!
+
+One of the first questions Peggy asked after her return to consciousness
+was as to how much her father and mother had been told of her accident,
+and whether the news had been sent by letter or cable.
+
+"By letter, dear," Mrs Asplin replied.  "We talked it over carefully,
+and concluded that that would be best.  You know, dearie, we were very,
+very anxious about you for a few days, but the doctor said that it would
+be useless cabling to your mother, because if all went well you would be
+up again before she could arrive, and if--if it had gone the other way,
+Peggy, she could not have been in time.  I sent her a long letter, and I
+have written every mail since, and now we are going to calculate the
+time when the first letter will arrive, and send a cable to say that you
+are quite out of danger, and sitting up, and getting hungrier and more
+mischievous with every day as it passes!"
+
+"Thank you," said Peggy warmly.  "That's very kind.  I am glad you
+thought of that; but will you please promise not to be economical about
+the cable?  They won't care about the money.  Spend pounds over it if it
+is necessary, but do, do manage to make them believe that I am quite
+perky.  Put at the end, `Peggy says she is perky!'  They will know that
+is genuine, and it will convince them more than anything else."  And so
+those five expressive words went flashing across the world at the end of
+a long message, and brought comfort to two hearts that had been near to
+breaking.
+
+So soon as Peggy was pronounced to be out of danger, Mrs Asplin went
+back to the vicarage, leaving her in the charge of the kind hospital
+nurse, though for that matter every member of the household took it in
+turns to wait upon her.  A dozen times a day the master and mistress of
+the house would come into the sick-room to inquire how things were
+going, or to bring some little gift for the invalid; and as she grew
+stronger it became the custom for father, mother, and daughter to join
+her at her early tea.  Peggy watched them from her sofa, too weak to
+speak much, but keenly alive to all that was going on, among other
+things, to the change which had come over these three persons since she
+had known them first.  Lord Darcy had always been kind and considerate,
+but his manner seemed gentler and more courteous than ever, while
+Rosalind's amiability was an hourly surprise, and Lady Darcy's manner
+had lost much of its snappish discontent.  On one occasion, when her
+husband made some little request, she replied in a tone so sweet and
+loving that the listener started with surprise.  What could it be that
+had worked this transformation?  She did not realise that when the Angel
+of Death has hovered over a household, and has at last flown away with
+empty arms, leaving the home untouched, they would be hard hearts that
+were not touched, ungrateful natures that did not take thought of
+themselves, and face life with a higher outlook!  Lady Darcy's social
+disappointments seemed light compared with the awful "might have been";
+while Rosalind's lamentations over her disfigurement had died away at
+the sight of Peggy's unconscious form.  Perhaps, when Lord Darcy thanked
+Peggy for all she had done for him and his, he had other thoughts in his
+mind than the mere physical deliverance of which she had been the
+instrument!
+
+Arthur had been kept well informed of his sister's recovery, and proved
+himself the kindest of brothers, sending letters by the dozen, full of
+such nonsensical jokes, anecdotes, and illustrations, as would have
+cheered the gloomiest invalid in the world.  But the happiest day of all
+was when the great news arrived that his name was placed first of all in
+the list of successful candidates.  This was indeed tidings of comfort
+and joy!  Peggy clapped her bandaged hands together, and laughed aloud
+with tears of pain streaming down her face.  "Arthur Saville, V.C.,
+Arthur Saville, V.C.!" she cried, and then fell to groaning because some
+days must still elapse before the medical examination was over, and her
+hero was set free to hasten to her side.
+
+"And I shall be back at the vicarage then, and we shall all be together!
+Oh, let us be joyful!  How happy I am!  What a nice old world it is,
+after all!" she continued hilariously, while Rosalind gazed at her with
+reproachful eyes.
+
+"Are you so glad to go away?  I shall be vewy, vewy sowwy--I'll miss you
+awfully.  I shall feel that there is nothing to do when you have gone
+away, Peggy!"--Rosalind hesitated, and looked at her companion in
+uncertain bashful fashion.  "I--I think you like me a little bit now,
+and I'm vewy fond of you, but you couldn't bear me before we were ill.
+You might tell me why?"
+
+"I was jealous of you," said Peggy promptly; whereat Rosalind's eyes
+filled with tears.
+
+"You won't be jealous now!" she said dismally, and raised her head to
+stare at her own reflection in the mirror.  The hair which had once
+streamed below her waist was now cut short round her head, her face had
+lost its delicate bloom, and an ugly scar disfigured her throat and the
+lower portion of one cheek.  Beautiful she must always be, with her
+faultless features and wonderful eyes, but the bloom and radiance of
+colour which had been her chief charm had disappeared for the time being
+as completely as though they had never existed.
+
+"I'll love you more," said Peggy reassuringly.  "You are ever so much
+nicer, and you will be as pretty as ever when your hair grows and the
+marks fade away.  I like you better when you are not _quite_ so pretty,
+for you really were disgustingly conceited; weren't you now?  You can't
+deny it."
+
+"Oh, Peggy Saville, and so were you!  I saw that the first moment you
+came into the woom.  You flared up like a Turkey cock if anyone dared to
+offend your dignity, and you were always widing about on your high
+horse, tossing your head, and using gweat long words."
+
+"That's pride, it's not conceit.  It's quite a different thing."
+
+"It's about the same to other people," said Rosalind shrewdly.  "We both
+gave ourselves airs, and the wesult was the same, whatever caused it.  I
+was pwoud of my face, and you were pwoud of your--your--er--family--and
+your cleverness, and--the twicks you played; so if I confess, you ought
+to confess too.  I'm sorry I aggwavated you, Mawiquita, and took all the
+pwaise for the decowations.  It was howwibly mean, and I don't wonder
+you were angwy.  I'm sorry that I was selfish!"
+
+"I exceedingly regret that I formed a false estimate of your character!
+Let's be chums!" said Peggy sweetly; and the two girls eyed one another
+uncertainly for a moment, then bent forward and exchanged a kiss of
+conciliation, after which unusual display of emotion they were seized
+with instant embarrassment.
+
+"Hem!" said Peggy.  "It's very cold!  Fire rather low, I think.  Looks
+as if it were going to snow."
+
+"No," said Rosalind; "I mean--yes.  I'll put on some more--I mean coals.
+In half an hour Esther and Mellicent will be here--"
+
+"Oh, so they will!  How lovely!"  Peggy seized gladly on the new
+opening, and proceeded to enlarge on the joy which she felt at the
+prospect of seeing her friends again, for on that afternoon Robert and
+the vicarage party were to be allowed to see her for the first time, and
+to have tea in her room.  She had been looking forward to their visit
+for days, and, new that the longed-for hour was at hand, she was eager
+to have the lamps lit, and all preparations made for their arrival.
+
+Robert appeared first, having ridden over in advance of the rest.  And
+Rosalind, after going out to greet him, came rushing back, all shaken
+with laughter, with the information that he had begun to walk on tiptoe
+the moment that he had left the drawing-room, and was creeping along the
+passage as if terrified at making a sound.
+
+Peggy craned her head, heard the squeak, squeak of boots coming nearer
+and nearer, the cautious opening of the door, the heavy breaths of
+anxiety, and then, crash!--bang!--crash! down flopped the heavy screen
+round the doorway, and Rob was discovered standing among the ruins in
+agonies of embarrassment.  From his expression of despair, he might have
+supposed that the shock would kill Peggy outright; but she gulped down
+her nervousness, and tried her best to reassure him.
+
+"Oh, never mind--never mind!  It doesn't matter.  Come over here and
+talk to me.  Oh, Rob, Rob, I am so glad to see you!"
+
+Robert stood looking down in silence, while his lips twitched and his
+eyebrows worked in curious fashion.  If it had not been altogether too
+ridiculous, Peggy would have thought that he felt inclined to cry.  But
+he only grunted, and cried--
+
+"What a face!  You had better tuck into as much food as you can, and get
+some flesh on your bones.  It's about as big as the palm of my hand!
+Never saw such a thing in my life."
+
+"Never mind my face," piped Peggy in her weak little treble.  "Sit right
+down and talk to me.  What is the news in the giddy world?  Have you
+heard anything about the prize?  When does the result come out?
+Remember you promised faithfully not to open the paper until we were
+together.  I was so afraid it would come while I was too ill to look at
+it!"
+
+"I should have waited," said Robert sturdily.  "There would have been no
+interest in the thing without you; but the result won't be given for ten
+days yet, and by that time you will be with us again.  The world hasn't
+been at all giddy, I can tell you.  I never put in a flatter time.
+Everybody was in the blues, and the house was like a tomb, and a jolly
+uncomfortable tomb at that.  Esther was housekeeper while Mrs Asplin
+was away, and she starved us!  She was in such a mortal fright of being
+extravagant that she could scarcely give us enough to keep body and soul
+together, and the things we had were not fit to eat.  Nothing but milk
+puddings and stewed fruit for a week on end.  Then we rebelled.  I
+nipped her up in my arms one evening in the schoolroom, and stuck her on
+the top of the little bookcase.  Then we mounted guard around, and set
+forth our views.  It would have killed you to see her perched up there,
+trying to look prim and to keep up her dignity.
+
+"`Let me down this moment, Robert.  Bring a chair and let me get down.'
+
+"`Will you promise to give us a pie to-morrow, then, and a decent sort
+of a pudding?'
+
+"`It's no business of yours what I give you.  You ought to be thankful
+for good wholesome food!'
+
+"`Milk puddings are not wholesome.  They don't agree with us--they are
+too rich!  We should like something a little lighter for a change.  Will
+you swear off milk puddings for the next fortnight if I let you down?'
+
+"`You are a cruel, heartless fellow, Robert Darcy--thinking of puddings
+when Peggy is ill, and we are all so anxious about her!'
+
+"`Peggy would die at once if she heard how badly you were treating us.
+Now then, you have kept me waiting for ten minutes, so the price has
+gone up.  Now you'll have to promise a pair of ducks and mince-pies into
+the bargain!  I shall be ashamed of meeting a sheep soon, if we go on
+eating mutton every day of the week.'
+
+"`Call yourself a gentleman!' says she, tossing her head and withering
+me with a glance of scorn.
+
+"`I call myself a hungry man, and that's all we are concerned about for
+the moment,' said I.  `A couple of ducks and two nailing good puddings
+to-morrow night, or there you sit for the rest of the evening!'
+
+"We went at it hammer and tongs until she was fairly spluttering with
+rage; but she had to promise before she came down, and we had no more
+starvation diet after that.  Oswald went up to town for a day, and
+bought a pair of blue silk socks and a tie to match--that's the greatest
+excitement we have had.  The rest has been all worry and grind, and
+Mellicent on the rampage about Christmas presents.  Oh, by the bye, I
+printed those photographs you wanted to send to your mother, and packed
+them off by the mail a fortnight ago, so that she would get them in good
+time for Christmas."
+
+"Rob, you didn't!  How noble of you!  You really are an admirable
+person!"  Peggy lay back against her pillows and gazed at her "partner"
+in great contentment of spirit.  After living an invalid's life for
+these past weeks, it was delightfully refreshing to look at the big
+strong face.  The sight of it was like a fresh breeze coming into the
+close, heated room, and she felt as if some of his superabundant energy
+had come into her own weak frame.
+
+A little later the vicarage party arrived, and greeted the two
+convalescents with warmest affection.  If they were shocked at the sight
+of Rosalind's disfigurement and Peggy's emaciation, three out of the
+four were polite enough to disguise their feelings; but it was too much
+to expect of Mellicent that she should disguise what she happened to be
+feeling.  She stared and gaped, and stared again, stuttering with
+consternation--
+
+"Why--why--Rosalind--your hair!  It's shorter than mine!  It doesn't
+come down to your shoulders!  Did they cut it all off?  What did you do
+with the rest?  And your poor cheek!  Will you have that mark all your
+life?"
+
+"I don't know.  Mother is going to twy electwicity for it.  It will fade
+a good deal, I suppose, but I shall always be a fwight.  I'm twying to
+wesign myself to be a hideous monster!" sighed Rosalind, turning her
+head towards the window the while in such a position that the scar was
+hidden from view, and she looked more like the celestial choir-boy of
+Peggy's delirium than ever, with the golden locks curling round her
+neck, and the big eyes raised to the ceiling in a glance of pathetic
+resignation.
+
+Rob guffawed aloud with the callousness of a brother; but the other two
+lads gazed at her with an adoring admiration which was balm to her vain
+little heart.  Vain still, for a nature does not change in a day; and,
+though Rosalind was an infinitely more lovable person now than she had
+been a few weeks before, the habits of a lifetime were still strong upon
+her, and she could never by any possibility be indifferent to
+admiration, or pass a mirror without stopping to examine the progress of
+that disfiguring scar.
+
+"It wouldn't have mattered half so much if it had been Peggy's face that
+was spoiled," continued Mellicent, with cruel outspokenness, "and it is
+only her hands that are hurt.  Things always go the wrong way in this
+world!  I never saw anything like it.  You know that night-dress bag I
+was working for mother, Peggy?  Well, I only got two skeins of the blue
+silk, and then if I didn't run short, and they hadn't any more in the
+shop.  The other shades don't match at all, and it looks simply vile.  I
+am going to give it to--ahem!  I mean that's the sort of thing that
+always happens to me--it makes me mad!  You can't sew at all, I suppose?
+What do you do with yourself all day long, now that you are able to get
+up?"
+
+Peggy's eyes twinkled.
+
+"I sleep," she said slowly, "and eat, and sleep a little more, and eat
+again, and talk a little bit, roll into bed, and fall fast asleep.
+_Voila tout, ma chere!  C'est ca que je fais tous les jours_."
+
+Rosalind gave a shriek of laughter at Peggy's French, and Mellicent
+rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
+
+"How s-imply lovely!" she sighed.  "I wish I were you!  I'd like to go
+to bed in November and stay there till May.  In a room like this, of
+course, with everything beautiful and dainty, and a maid to wait upon
+me.  I'd have a fire and an india-rubber hot-water bottle, and I'd lie
+and sleep, and wake up every now and then, and make the maid read aloud,
+and bring me my meals on a tray.  Nice meals!  Real, nice invalidy
+things, you know, to tempt my appetite."  Mellicent's eyes rolled
+instinctively to the table, where the jelly and the grapes stood
+together in tempting proximity.  She sighed, and brought herself back
+with an effort to the painful present.  "Goodness, Peggy, how funny your
+hands look!  Just like a mummy!  What do they look like when the
+bandages are off?  Very horrible?"
+
+"Hideous!"  Peggy shrugged her shoulders and wrinkled her nose in
+disgust.  "I am going to try to grow old as fast as I can, so that I can
+wear mittens and cover them up.  I'm really rather distressed about it,
+because I am so--so addicted to rings, don't you know.  They have been a
+weakness of mine all my life, and I've looked forward to having my
+fingers simply loaded with them when I grew up.  There is one of
+mother's that I especially admire--a big square emerald surrounded with
+diamonds.  She promised to give it to me on my twenty-first birthday,
+but, unless my hands look very different by that time, I shall not want
+to call attention to them.  Alack-a-day!  I fear I shall never be able
+to wear a ring--"
+
+"Gracious goodness!  Then you can never be married!" ejaculated
+Mellicent, in a tone of such horrified dismay as evoked a shriek of
+merriment from the listeners--Peggy's merry trill sounding clear above
+the rest.  It was just delicious to be well again, to sit among her
+companions and have one of the old hearty laughs over Mellicent's quaint
+speeches.  At that moment she was one of the happiest girls in all the
+world.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+ALAS, FOR ARTHUR!
+
+A few days later Peggy was driven home to the vicarage, and stood the
+drive so well that she was able to walk downstairs at tea-time, and sit
+at the table with only a cushion at her back, to mark her out as an
+invalid just recovering from a serious illness.  There was a special
+reason why she wished to look well this afternoon, for Arthur was
+expected by the six o'clock train; and the candidate who had come out
+first in his examination lists must not have his reception chilled by
+anxiety or disappointment.
+
+Peggy was attired in her pink dress, and sat roasting before the fire,
+so as to get some colour into her cheeks.  If her face were only the
+size of the palm of a hand, she was determined that it should at least
+be rosy; and if she looked very bright, and smiled all the time, perhaps
+Arthur would not notice how thin she had become.
+
+When half-past six struck, everyone crowded into the schoolroom, and
+presently a cab drove up to the door, and a modest rap sounded on the
+knocker.
+
+"That's not Arthur!" cried Mrs Asplin confidently.  "He knocks straight
+on without stopping, peals the bell at the same time, and shouts
+Christmas carols through the letter-box!  He has sent on his luggage, I
+expect, and is going to pounce in upon us later on."
+
+"Ah, no, that's not Arthur!" assented Peggy; but Mr Asplin turned his
+head quickly towards the door, as if his ear had caught a familiar note,
+hesitated for a moment, and then walked quickly into the hall.
+
+"My dear boy!" the listeners heard him cry; and then another voice spoke
+in reply--Arthur's voice--saying, "How do you do, sir?" in such flat,
+subdued tones as filled them with amazement.
+
+Mrs Asplin and Peggy turned towards each other with distended eyes.  If
+Arthur had suddenly slid down the chimney and crawled out on the hearth
+before them, turned a somersault in at the window, or crawled from
+beneath the table, it would have caused no astonishment whatever; but
+that he should ring at the bell, walk quietly into the hall, and wait to
+hang up his hat like any other ordinary mortal,--this was indeed an
+unprecedented and extraordinary proceeding!  The same explanation darted
+into both minds.  His sister's illness!  He was afraid of startling an
+invalid, and was curbing his overflowing spirits in consideration for
+her weakness.
+
+Peggy rose from her chair, and stood waiting, with sparkling eyes and
+burning cheeks.  He should see in one glance that she was better--almost
+well--that there was no need of anxiety on her behalf.  And then the
+tall, handsome figure appeared in the doorway, and Arthur's voice
+cried--
+
+"Peggikens!  Up and dressed!  This is better than I hoped.  How are you,
+dear little Peg?"
+
+There was something wrong with the voice, something lacking in the
+smile; but his sister was too excited to notice it.  She stretched out
+her arms towards him, and raised her weak, quavering little voice in a
+song of triumph--
+
+"See-ee the conquering he-he-he-he-hero com-ums!  Sow-ow-ow-ow-ownd the
+trumpet, play--a--a--a--"
+
+"Don't, Peg!" cried Arthur sharply.  "Don't, dear!"  He was standing by
+her side by this time, and suddenly he wrapped his arms round her and
+laid his curly head on hers.  "I'm plucked, Peg!" he cried, and his
+voice was full of tears.  "Oh, Peg, I'm plucked!  It's all over; I can
+never be a soldier.  I'm plucked--plucked--plucked!"
+
+"Arthur dear!  Arthur darling!" cried Peggy loudly.  She clasped her
+arms round his neck, and glared over his shoulder, like a tigress whose
+young has been threatened with danger.  "You plucked!  My brother
+plucked!  Ho! ho! ho!"  She gave a shrill peal of laughter.  "It's
+impossible!  You were first of all, the very first.  You always are
+first.  Who was wicked enough, and cruel enough, and false enough, to
+say that Arthur Saville was plucked in an examination?"
+
+"Arthur, my boy, what is it?  What does it mean?  You told us you were
+first.  How can you possibly be plucked?"
+
+"My--my eyes!" said Arthur faintly.  He raised his head from Peggy's
+shoulder and looked round with a haggard smile.  "The medical exam.
+They would not pass me.  I was rather blind when I was here before, but
+I thought it was with reading too much.  I never suspected there was
+anything really wrong--never for a moment!"
+
+"Your eyes!"  The vicar pressed his hand to his forehead, as if unable
+to grasp this sudden shattering of his hopes.  "But--but I don't
+understand!  Your eyes never gave you any trouble when you were here.
+You were not short-sighted.  One knew, of course, that good sight was
+necessary; but there seemed no weakness in that direction.  I can't
+imagine any cause that can have brought it on."
+
+"I can!" said Arthur drearily.  "I got a bad knock at lacrosse two years
+ago.  I didn't tell you about it, for it wasn't worth while; but my eyes
+were bad for some time after that.  I thought they were all right again;
+but I had to read a lot of things across a room, and made a poor show of
+it.  Then the doctor took me to a window and pointed to an omnibus that
+was passing.
+
+"`What's the name on that 'bus?' he said.  `What is the colour of that
+woman's hat?  How many horses are there?'
+
+"I guessed.  I couldn't see.  I made a shot at it, and it was a wrong
+shot.  He was a kind old chap.  I think he was sorry for me.  I--I came
+out into the street, and walked about.  It was very cold.  I tried to
+write to you, but I couldn't do it--I couldn't put it down in black and
+white.  No V.C. now, little Peg!  That's all over.  You will have a
+civilian for your brother, after all!"
+
+He bent down to kiss the girl's cheeks as he spoke, and she threw her
+arms round his neck and kissed him passionately upon his closed eyelids.
+
+"Dear eyes!" she cried impetuously.  "Oh, dear eyes!  They are the
+dearest eyes in all the world, whatever anyone says about them.  It
+doesn't matter what you are--you are my Arthur, the best and cleverest
+brother in all the world.  Nobody is like you!"
+
+"You have a fine career before you still, my boy!  You will always
+fight, I hope, and conquer enemies even more powerful than armed men!"
+cried Mrs Asplin, trembling.  "There are more ways than one of being a
+soldier, Arthur!"
+
+"I know it, mater," said the young man softly.  He straightened his back
+and stood in silence, his head thrown back, his eyes shining with
+emotion, as fine a specimen of a young English gentleman as one could
+wish to meet.  "I know it," he repeated, and Mrs Asplin turned aside to
+hide her tears.  "Oh, my pretty boy!" she was saying to herself.  "Oh,
+my pretty boy!  And I'll never see him in his red coat, riding his horse
+like a prince among them all!  I'll never see the medals on his breast!
+Oh, my poor lad that has the fighting blood in his veins!  It's like
+tearing the heart out of him to turn Arthur Saville into anything but a
+soldier.  And the poor father--what will he say at all, when he hears
+this terrible news?"  She dared not trust herself to speak again; the
+others were too much stunned and distressed to make any attempt at
+consolation, and it was a relief to all when Mellicent's calm,
+matter-of-fact treble broke the silence.
+
+"Well, for my part, I'm very glad!" she announced slowly.  "I'm sorry,
+of course, if he has to wear spectacles, because they are not becoming,
+but I'm glad he is not going to be a soldier.  I think it's silly having
+nothing to do but drill in barracks, and pretending to fight when there
+is no one to fight with.  I should hate to be a soldier in times of
+peace, and it would be fifty thousand times worse in war.  Oh, my
+goodness, shouldn't I be in a fright!  I should run away--I know I
+should; but Arthur would be in the front of every battle, and it's
+absurd to think that he would not get killed.  You know what Arthur is!
+Did you ever know him have a chance of hurting himself and not taking
+it?  He would be killed in the very first battle--that's my belief--and
+_then_ you would be sorry that you wanted him to be a soldier!  Or, if
+he wasn't killed, he would have his legs shot off.  Last time I was in
+London I saw a man with no legs.  He was sitting on a little board with
+wheels on it, and selling matches in the street.  Well, I must say I'd
+rather have my brother a civilian, as you call it, than have no legs, or
+be cut in pieces by a lot of nasty naked old savages."
+
+A general smile went round the company.  There was no resisting it.
+Even Arthur's face brightened, and he turned his head and looked at
+Mellicent with his old twinkling smile.
+
+"Bravo, Chubby!" he cried.  "Bravo, Chubby!  Commend me to Mellicent for
+good, sound commonsense.  The prospect of squatting on a board, selling
+matches, is not exhilarating, I must confess.  I'm glad there is one
+person at least who thinks my prospects are improved."  He gave a little
+sigh, which was stifled with praiseworthy quickness.  "Well, the worst
+is over, now that I have told you and written the letter to India.
+Those were the two things that I dreaded most.  Now I shall just have to
+face life afresh, and see what can be made of it.  I must have a talk
+with you, sir, later on, and get your advice.  Cheer up, Peggikens!
+Cheer up, mater!  It's no use grieving over spilt milk, and Christmas is
+coming.  It would never do to be in the dolefuls over Christmas!  I've
+got a boxful of presents upstairs--amused myself with buying them
+yesterday to pass the time.  You come up with me to-night, Peg, and I'll
+give you a peep.  You look better than I expected, dear, but fearsome
+scraggy!  We shall have to pad her out a bit, shan't we, mater?  She
+must have an extra helping of plum-pudding this year."
+
+He rattled on in his own bright style, or in as near an imitation of it
+as he could manage, and the others tried their best to follow his
+example and make the evening as cheery as possible.  Once or twice the
+joy of being all together again in health and strength conquered the
+underlying sorrow, and the laughter rang out as gaily as ever; but the
+next moment Arthur would draw in his breath with another of those short,
+stabbing sighs, and Peggy would shiver, and lie back trembling among her
+pillows.  She had no heart to look at Christmas presents that night, but
+Arthur carried her upstairs in his strong arms, laid her on her bed, and
+sat beside her for ten minutes' precious private talk.
+
+"It's a facer, Peg," he said.  "I can't deny it's a facer.  When I
+walked out of that doctor's room I felt as weak as a child.  The shock
+knocked the strength out of me.  I had never thought of anything else
+but being a soldier, you see, and it's a strange experience to have to
+face life afresh, with everything that you had expected taken out of it,
+and nothing ahead but blankness and disappointment.  I've been so strong
+too--as strong as a horse.  If it hadn't been for that blow--well, it's
+over!  It's a comfort to me to feel that it was not my own fault.  If
+I'd been lazy or careless, and had failed in the exam., it would have
+driven me crazy; but this was altogether beyond my control.  It is
+frightfully rough luck, but I don't mean to howl--I must make the best
+of what's left!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm sure you will.  You have begun well, for I think you have
+been wonderfully brave and courageous about it, Arthur dear!"
+
+"Well, of course!" said Arthur softly.  "I always meant to be that, Peg;
+and, as the mater says, it is only another kind of battle.  The other
+would have been easier, but I mean to fight still.  I am not going to
+give up all my dreams.  You shall be proud of me yet, though not in the
+way you expected."
+
+"I never was so proud of you in my life!"  Peggy cried.  "Never in all
+my life."
+
+Long after Arthur had kissed her and gone to his own room she lay awake,
+thinking of his words and of the expression on his handsome face as the
+firelight played on moistened eye and trembling lip.  "I mean to fight."
+
+"You shall be proud of me yet."  The words rang in her ears, and would
+not be silenced.  When she fell asleep Arthur was still by her side; the
+marks of tears were on his face.  He was telling her once more the story
+of disappointment and failure; but she could not listen to him, for her
+eyes were fixed on something that was pinned on the breast of his coat--
+a little cross with two words printed across its surface.
+
+In her dream Peggy bent forward, and read those two words with a great
+rush of joy and exultation.
+
+"For Valour!"
+
+"For Valour!"  Yes, yes, it was quite true!  Never was soldier flushed
+with victory more deserving of that decoration than Arthur Saville in
+his hour of disappointment and failure.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+THE PARTING OF THE WAYS!
+
+Arthur kept his word, and tried manfully not to let his own
+disappointment interfere with the enjoyment of Christmas Day.
+
+The party at the vicarage was smaller than usual, for Rob and Oswald had
+both gone home for the festive season, and he knew well that the
+knowledge that "Arthur was coming" had seemed the best guarantee of a
+merry day to those who were left.
+
+Peggy too--poor little Peg, with her bandaged hands and tiny white
+face--it would never do to grieve her by being depressed and gloomy!
+
+"Begone, dull care!" cried Arthur to himself then, when he awoke on
+Christmas morning, and, promptly wrapping himself in his dressing-gown,
+he sallied out on to the landing, where he burst into the strains of
+"Christians, awake!" with such vigorous brush-and-comb accompaniment on
+the panels of the doors as startled the household out of their dreams.
+
+"Miserable boy!  I was having such a lovely nap!  I'll never forgive
+you!" cried Mrs Asplin's voice, in sleepy wrath.
+
+"Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!" shouted the girls; and Peggy's
+clear pipe joined in last of all.  "And many of them!  Come in!  Come
+in!  I was lying awake and longing to see you!"
+
+Arthur put his ruffled head round the door and beamed at the little
+figure in the bed, as if he had never known a trouble in his life.
+
+"What a wicked story!  I heard you snore.  Merry Christmas, Peg, and a
+Happy New Year!  And don't you go for to do it again never no more!
+It's a jolly morning.  I'll take you out for a toddle in the garden when
+we come home from church, if you are a good girl.  Will you have your
+present now, or wait till you get it?  It begins with a B.  I love my
+love with a B, because she's a--"
+
+"Oh, Arthur!" interrupted Peggy regretfully.  "I haven't half such a
+nice present for you as I expected.  You see I couldn't work anything,
+and I couldn't get out to the shops, and I hadn't nearly as much money
+as I expected either.  If Rob and I had won that prize, I should have
+had ten pounds; but the stupid editors have put off announcing the
+result week after week.  They say there were so many competitors; but
+that's no consolation, for it makes our chance less.  I do hope it may
+be out next week.  But, at any rate, I didn't get my ten pounds in time,
+and there I was, you see, with little money and practically no hands--
+a--er--a most painful contingency, which I hope it may never be your lot
+to experience.  You must take the will for the deed."
+
+"Oh, I will!" agreed Arthur promptly.  "I'll take the will now, and you
+can follow up with the deed as soon as you get the cash.  But no more
+journeys up to London, my dear, if you love me, and don't use such big
+words before seven o'clock in the morning, or you'll choke.  It's bad
+for little girls to exert themselves so much.  Now I'm going to skate
+about in the bath for a bit, and tumble into my clothes, and then I'll
+come back and give you a lift downstairs.  You are coming down for
+breakfast, I suppose?"
+
+"Rather!  On Christmas morning!  I should just think I was!" cried Peggy
+emphatically; and Arthur went off to the bathroom, calling in at Max's
+room _en route_, to squeeze a sponge full of water over that young
+gentleman's head, and pull the clothes off the bed, by way of giving
+emphasis to his, "Get up, you lazy beggar!  It's the day after
+to-morrow, and the plum-pudding is waiting!"
+
+Peggy was the only one of the young folks who did not go to church that
+morning; but she was left in charge of the decorations for the
+dinner-table, and when this was finished there was so much to think
+about that the time passed all too quickly.
+
+Last year she and Arthur had spent Christmas with their mother; now both
+parents were away in India, and everything was strange and altered.  As
+Peggy sat gazing into the heart of the big gloomy fire, it seemed to her
+that the year that was passing away would end a complete epoch in her
+brother's experiences and her own, and that from this hour a new chapter
+would begin.  She herself had come back from the door of death, and had
+life given, as it were, afresh into her hands.  Arthur's longed-for
+career had been checked at its commencement, and all his plans laid
+waste.  Even the life in the vicarage would henceforth take new
+conditions, for Rob and Oswald would go up to Oxford at the beginning of
+the term, and their place be filled by new pupils.  There was something
+solemnising in the consciousness of change which filled the air.  One
+could never tell what might be the next development.  Nothing was too
+unexpected to happen--since Arthur's success had ended in failure, and
+she herself had received Rosalind's vows of love and friendship.
+
+"Good things have happened as well as bad," acknowledged Peggy honestly;
+"but how I do hate changes!  The new pupils may be the nicest boys in
+the world, but no one will ever--ever be like Rob, and I'd rather Arthur
+had been a soldier than anything in the wide world.  I wish one could go
+on being young for ever and ever.  It's when you grow old that all these
+troubles and changes come upon you."  And Peggy sighed and wagged her
+head, oppressed with the weight of fifteen years.
+
+It was a relief to hear the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the sound of
+voices in the hall, which proved that the church-goers had returned
+home.  Mr and Mrs Asplin had been driven home from church by Lord and
+Lady Darcy, and the next moment they were in the room, and greeting
+Peggy with demonstrative affection.
+
+"We couldn't go home without coming to see you, dear," said Lady Darcy
+fondly.  "Rosalind is walking with the rest, and will be here in a few
+minutes.  A merry Christmas to you, darling, and many, many of them.
+I've brought you a little present which I hope you will like.  It's a
+bangle bracelet--quite a simple one that you can wear every day--and you
+must think of me sometimes when you put it on."
+
+She touched the spring of a little morocco case as she spoke, and there
+on the satin lining lay a band of gold, dependent from which hung the
+sweetest little locket in the world--heart-shaped, studded with pearls,
+and guarding a ring of hair beneath the glass shield.
+
+Lady Darcy pointed to it in silence--her eyes filling with tears, as
+they invariably did on any reference to Rosalind's accident, and Peggy's
+cheeks flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I can't thank you!  I really can't," she said.  "It is too lovely.  You
+couldn't possibly have given me anything I liked better.  I have a
+predilection for jewellery, and the little locket is too sweet, dangling
+on that chain!  I do love to have something that waggles!"  She held up
+her arm as she spoke, shaking the locket to and fro with a childlike
+enjoyment, while the two ladies watched her with tender amusement.  Lord
+Darcy had not spoken since his first greeting, but now he came forward,
+and linking his arm in Peggy's led her to the farther end of the room.
+
+"I have no present for you, my dear--I could not think of one that was
+good enough--but yesterday I really think I hit on something that would
+please you.  Robert told us how keenly you were feeling your brother's
+disappointment, and that he was undecided what to try next.  Now, I
+believe I can help him there.  I have influence in the Foreign Office,
+and can ensure him an opening when he is ready for it, if your father
+agrees that it is desirable.  Would that please you, Peggy?  If I can
+help your brother, will it go some little way towards paying the debt I
+owe you?"
+
+"Oh-h!" cried Peggy rapturously.  "Oh!"  She clasped Lord Darcy's hands
+in her own and gazed at him with dilated eyes.  "Can you do it?  Will
+you do it?  There is nothing in all the world I should like so much.
+Help Arthur--give him a good chance--and I shall bless you for ever and
+ever!  I could never thank you enough--"
+
+"Well, well, I will write to your father and see what he has to say.  I
+can promise the lad a start at least, and after that his future will be
+in his own hands, where I think we may safely leave it.  Master Arthur
+is one of the fortunate being's who has an `open sesame' to all hearts.
+Mr Asplin assures me that he is as good at work as at play; I have not
+seen that side of his character, but he has always left a most pleasing
+impression on my mind, most pleasing."  The old lord smiled to himself,
+and his eyes took a dreamy expression, as if he were recalling to memory
+the handsome face and strong manly presence of the young fellow of whom
+he was speaking.  "He has been a favourite at our house for some years
+now, and I shall be glad to do him a service; but remember, Peggy, that
+when I propose this help, it is, in the first instance at least, for
+your sake, not his.  I tell you this because I think it will give you
+pleasure to feel that you have been the means of helping your brother.
+Talk it over with him some time when you are alone together, and then he
+can come up and see me.  To-day we must leave business alone.  Here they
+come!  I thought they would not be long after us--"
+
+Even as he spoke voices sounded from the hall, there was a clatter of
+feet over the tiled flooring, and Mellicent dashed into the room.
+
+"P-P-P-Postman!" she stammered breathlessly.  "He is coming!  Round the
+corner!  Heaps of letters!  Piles of parcels!  A hand-cart, and a boy to
+help him!  Here in five minutes!  Oh! oh! oh!"  She went rushing back to
+the door, and Rosalind came forward, looking almost her old beautiful
+self, with her cheeks flushed by the cold air, and the fur collar of her
+jacket turned up so as to hide the scarred cheek.
+
+"Merry Christmas, Rosalind!  How--how nice you look!" cried Peggy,
+looking up and down the dainty figure with more pleasure in the sight
+than she could have believed possible a few weeks before.  After being
+accustomed for four long weeks to gaze at those perfectly cut features,
+Esther's long chin and Mellicent's retrousse nose had been quite a trial
+to her artistic sensibilities on her return to the vicarage.  It was
+like having a masterpiece taken down from the walls and replaced by an
+inferior engraving.  She gave a sigh of satisfaction as she looked once
+more at Rosalind's face.
+
+"Mewwy Chwistmas, Peggy!  I've missed you fwightfully.  I've not been to
+church, but I dwove down to meet the others, and came to see you.  I had
+to see you on Chwistmas Day.  I've had lovely pwesents, and there are
+more to come.  Mother has given you the bwacelet, I see.  Is it what you
+like?"
+
+"My dear, I love it.  I'm fearfully addicted to jewellery.  I had to put
+it on at once, and it looks quite elegant on top of the bandages!  I'm
+inexpressibly obliged.  I've got heaps of things--books, scent,
+glove-box, writing-case, a big box coming from India, and--don't tell
+her--an apron from Mellicent!  The most awful thing.  I can't think
+where she found it.  Yellow cloth with dog-roses worked in filoselle!
+Imagine me in a yellow apron with spotty roses around the brim!"
+
+"He! he!  I can't!  I weally can't.  It's too widiculous!" protested
+Rosalind.  "She sent me a twine bag made of netted cotton.  It's awfully
+useful if you use twine, but I never do.  Don't say I said so.  Who got
+the night-dwess bag with the two shades of blue that didn't match?"
+
+"Esther!  You should have seen her face!" whispered Peggy roguishly, and
+the girls went into peals of laughter, which brought Robert hurrying
+across the room to join them.
+
+"Now then, Rosalind; when you have quite done, I should like to speak to
+Peggy.  The compliments of the season to you, Mariquita; I hope I see
+you well."
+
+Peggy pursed up her lips, and looked him up and down with her dancing
+hazel eyes.
+
+"Most noble sir, the heavens rain blessings on you--Oh, my goodness,
+there's the postman!" she said all in one breath; and the partners
+darted forward side by side towards the front door, where the old
+postman was already standing, beaming all over his weatherbeaten face,
+as he began turning out the letters and calling out the names on the
+envelopes.
+
+"Asplin, Asplin, Saville, Asplin, Saville, Saville, Miss Peggy Saville,
+Miss Mellercent Asplin, Miss Saville, Miss M. Saville, Miss Peggy
+Saville."
+
+So the list ran on, with such a constant repetition of the same name
+that Max exclaimed in disgust, "Who _is_ this Miss Peggy Saville that we
+hear so much about?  She's a greedy thing, whoever she may be;" and
+Mellicent whined out, "I wish I had been at a boarding-school!  I wish
+my relatives lived abroad.  There will be none left for me by the time
+she has finished."  Then Arthur thrust forward his mischievous face, and
+put in a stern inquiry--
+
+"Forbes!  Where's that registered letter?  That letter with the
+hundred-pound note.  Don't say you haven't got it, for I know better.
+Hand it over now, without any more bother."
+
+The old postman gave a chuckle of amusement, for this was a standing
+joke renewed every Christmas that Arthur had spent at the vicarage.
+
+"'Tasn't come ter-day, Muster Saville.  Missed the post.  'Twill be
+coming ter-morrer morning certain!"
+
+"Forbes!" croaked Arthur solemnly.  "Reflect!  You have a wife and
+children.  This is a serious business.  It's ruin, Forbes, that's what
+it is.  R-u-i-n, my friend!  Be advised by me, and give it up.  The
+hundred pounds is not worth it, and besides I need it badly.  Don't
+deprive a man of his inheritance!"
+
+"Bless yer rart, I'd bring it yer with pleasure rif I could!  Nobody'd
+bring it quicker ran I would!" cried Forbes, who like everyone else
+adored the handsome young fellow who was always ready with a joke and a
+kindly word.  "It's comin' for the Noo Year, sir.  You mark my words.
+There's a deal of luck waitin' for yer in the Noo Year!"
+
+Arthur's laugh ended in a sigh, but he thanked the old man for his good
+wishes, tipped him even more lavishly than usual, and followed his
+companions to the drawing-room to examine their treasures.
+
+Parcels were put on one side to await more leisurely inspection, but
+cards and letters were opened at once, and Rob seated himself by Peggy's
+side as she placed the pile of envelopes on a table in the corner.
+
+"We are partners, you know," he reminded her, "so I think I am entitled
+to a share in these.  What a lot of cards!  Who on earth are the
+senders?"
+
+"My godfathers, and my godmothers, and all my relatives and friends.
+The girls at school and some of the teachers.  This fat one is from
+`Buns'--Miss Baker, the one whose Sunday hat I squashed.  She used to
+say that I was sent to her as wholesome discipline, to prevent her being
+too happy as a hard-worked teacher in a ladies' school, but she wept
+bucketfuls when I came away.  I liked Buns!  This is from Marjorie
+Riggs, my chum.  She had a squint, but a most engaging disposition.
+This is from Kate Strong: now if there is a girl in the world for whom I
+cherish an aversion, it is Katie Strong!  She is what I call a specious
+pig, and why she wanted to send me a Christmas card I simply can't
+imagine.  We were on terms of undying hatred.  This is from Miss Moss,
+the pupil teacher.  She had chilblains, poor dear, and spoke through her
+dose.  `You busn't do it, Peggy, you really busn't.  It's bost adoying!'
+Then I did it again, you know, and she sniggered and tried to look
+cross.  This is--I don't know who this is from!  It's a man's writing.
+It looks like a business letter--London postmark--and something printed
+in white on the seal.  What is it?  `The Pic-Pic-Piccadilly'--Robert!"
+Peggy's voice grew shrill with excitement.  "_The Piccadilly Magazine_."
+
+"Wh-at!"  Robert grabbed at the envelope, read the words himself, and
+stared at her with sparkling eyes.  "It is!  It's the prize, Mariquita!
+It must be.  What else would they write about?  Open it and see.  Quick!
+Shall I do it for you?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried Peggy breathlessly.  She craned her head forward as
+Rob tore open the envelope, and grasped his arm with both hands.
+Together they read the typewritten words, together they gasped and
+panted, and shrieked aloud in joy.  "We've done it!  We have!  We've won
+the prize!  Thirty pounds!  Bravo, Rob!  Now you can buy your
+microscope!"--"Good old Mariquita, it's all your doing.  Don't speak to
+us; we are literary people, far above ordinary commonplace creatures
+like you.  Thir-ty pounds! made by our own honest toil.  What do you
+think of that, I'd like to know?"
+
+Each member of the audience thought something different, and said it
+amid a scene of wild excitement.  The elders were pleased and proud,
+though not above improving the occasion by warnings against secret work,
+over-anxiety, midnight journeys, etcetera.  Mellicent exclaimed, "How
+jolly!  Now you will be able to give presents for the New Year as well
+as Christmas;" and Arthur said, "Dear Peggums!  I always loved you; I
+took the `will,' you know, without any grumbling, and now you can follow
+up with the deed as quickly as you like!"  Each one wanted to hold the
+precious document in his own hands, to read it with his own eyes, and it
+was handed round and round to be exclaimed over in accents of wonder and
+admiration, while Rob beamed, and Peggy tossed her pigtail over her
+shoulder, holding her little head at an angle of complacent
+satisfaction.
+
+The moment of triumph was very sweet--all the sweeter because of the
+sorrows of the last few weeks.  The partners forgot all the hard work,
+worry, and exhaustion, and remembered only the joy of success and hope
+fulfilled.  Robert said little in the way of thanks, preferring to wait
+until he could tell Peggy of his gratitude without an audience to
+criticise his words; but when his mother began to speak of leaving, it
+was he who reminded Mrs Asplin of the promise that the invalid should
+have her first walk on Christmas Day.
+
+"Let us go on ahead, and take her with us until the carriage overtakes
+us.  It will do her no harm.  It's bright and dry--"
+
+"Oh, mater, yes!  I told Peg I would take her out," chimed in Arthur,
+starting from his seat by Rosalind's side, and looking quite distressed
+because he had momentarily forgotten his promise.  "Wrap her up well,
+and we'll take care of her.  The air will do her good."
+
+"I think it will, but you must not go far--not an inch beyond the
+crossroads.  Come, Peggy, and I'll dress you myself.  I can't trust you
+to put on enough wraps."  Mrs Asplin whisked the girl out of the room,
+and wrapped her up to such an extent that when she came downstairs again
+she could only puff and gasp above her muffler, declare that she was
+choking, and fan herself with her muff.  Choking or not, the eyes of the
+companions brightened as they looked at her, for the scarlet
+tam-o'-shanter was set at a rakish angle on the dark little head, and
+Peggy the invalid seemed to have made way for the Peggy of old, with
+dimpling cheeks and the light of mischief in her eyes.
+
+The moment that Mrs Asplin stopped fumbling with her wraps, she was out
+at the door, opening her mouth to drink in the fresh chill air, and
+Robert was at her side before anyone had a chance of superseding him.
+
+"Umph!  Isn't it good?  I'm stifling for a blow.  My lungs are sore for
+want of exercise.  I was longing, longing to get out.  Robert, do you
+realise it?  We have won the prize!  Can you believe it?  It is almost
+too good to be true.  It's the best present of all.  Now you can buy
+your microscope, and get on with your work as you never could before!"
+
+"Yes, and it's all your doing, Mariquita.  I could not have pulled it
+off without your help.  If I make anything out of my studies, it will be
+your doing too.  I'll put it down to you, and thank you for it all my
+life."
+
+"H-m!  I don't think I deserve so much praise, but I like it.  It's very
+soothing," said Peggy reflectively.  "I'm very happy about it, and I
+needed something to make me happy, for I felt as blue as indigo this
+morning.  We seem to have come to the end of so many things, and I hate
+ends.  There is this disappointment about Arthur, which spoils all the
+old plans, and the break-up of our good times here together.  I shall
+miss Oswald.  He was a dear old dandy, and his ties were quite an
+excitement in life; but I simply can't imagine what the house will be
+like without you, Rob!"
+
+"I shall be here for some weeks every year, and I'll run down for a day
+or two whenever I can.  It won't be good-bye."
+
+"I know--I know! but you will never be one of us again, living in the
+house, joining in all our jokes.  It will be quite a different thing.
+And you will grow up so quickly at Oxford, and be a man before we know
+where we are."
+
+"So will you--a woman at least.  You are fifteen in January.  At
+seventeen, girls put their hair up and wear long dresses.  You will look
+older than I do, and give yourself as many airs as if you were fifty.  I
+know what girls of seventeen are like.  I've met lots of them, and they
+say, `That boy!' and toss their heads as if they were a dozen years
+older than fellows of their own age.  I expect you will be as bad as the
+rest, but you needn't try to snub me.  I won't stand it."
+
+"You won't have a chance, for I shan't be here.  As soon as my education
+is finished I am going out to India, to stay until father retires and we
+come home to settle.  So after to-day--"
+
+"After to-day--the deluge!  Peggy, I didn't tell you before, but I'm off
+to-morrow to stay in town until I go up to Oxford on the fourteenth.
+The pater wants to have me with him, so I shan't see you again for some
+months.  Of course I am glad to be in town for most things, but--"
+
+"Yes, but!" repeated Peggy, and turned a wan little face upon him.  "Oh,
+Rob, it is changing quickly I never thought it would be so soon as this.
+So it is good-bye.  No wonder I felt so blue this morning.  It is
+good-bye for ever to the old life.  We shall meet again, oh yes! but it
+will be different.  Some day when I'm old and grown-up I will see in a
+newspaper the name of a distinguished naturalist and discoverer, and
+say, `I used to know him once.  He was not at all proud.  He used to
+pull my hair like any ordinary mortal.'
+
+"Some day I shall enter a ballroom, and see a little lady sitting by the
+door waving her hands in the air, and using words a mile long, and shall
+say to myself, `Do my eyes deceive me?  Is it indeed the Peggy Pickle of
+the Past?' and my host will say, `My good sir, that is the world-famous
+authoress, Mariquita de Ponsonby Plantagenet Saville!'  Stevenson, I
+assure you, is not in it for flow of language, and she is so proud of
+herself that she won't speak to anyone under a belted earl."
+
+"That sounds nice!" said Peggy approvingly.  "I should like that; but it
+wouldn't be a ball, you silly boy--it would be a conversazione, where
+all the clever and celebrated people of London were gathered together,
+`To have the honour of meeting Miss Saville.'  There would be quite a
+number of people whom we knew among the Lions.  A very grand Lady
+Somebody or other, the beauty of the season--Rosalind, of
+course--all sparkling with diamonds, and leaning on the arm of a
+distinguished-looking gentleman with orders on his breast.  That's
+Arthur.  I'm determined that he shall have orders.  It's the only thing
+that could reconcile me to the loss of the Victoria Cross, and a
+dress-coat is so uninteresting without trimmings!  A fat lady would be
+sitting in a corner prattling about half a dozen subjects all in one
+moment--that's Mellicent; and a tall, lean lady in spectacles would be
+imparting useful information to a dandy with an eyeglass stuck in one
+eye--that's Esther and Oswald!  Oh dear, I wonder--I wonder--I wonder!
+It's like a story-book, Rob, and we are at the end of the first volume.
+How much shall we have to do with each other in the second and third;
+and what is going to happen next, and how, and when?"
+
+"We--we have to part, that's the next thing," said Rob sadly.  "Here
+comes the carriage, and Arthur is shouting for us to stop.  It's
+good-bye, for the present, Mariquita; there's no help for it!"
+
+"At the crossroads!" said Peggy slowly, her eye wandering to the
+sign-board which marked the paths branching north, south, east, and
+west.  She stopped short and stood gazing into his face, her eyes big
+and solemn, the wind blowing her hair into loose little curls beneath
+her scarlet cap, her dramatic mind seizing eagerly on the significance
+of the position.  "At the crossroads, Rob, to go our different ways!
+Good-bye, good-bye!  I hate to say it.  You--you won't forget me, and
+like the horrid boys at college better than me, will you, Rob?"
+
+Robert gave a short, strangled little laugh.
+
+"I think--not!  Cheer up, partner!  We will meet again, and have a
+better time together than we have had yet.  The third volume is always
+more exciting than the first.  I say we shall, and you know when I make
+up my mind to a thing, it has to be done!"
+
+"Ah, but how?" sighed Peggy faintly.  "But how?"  Vague prophecies of
+the future were not much comfort to her in this moment of farewell.  She
+wanted something more definite; but Rob had no time to enter into
+details, for even as she spoke the carriage drew up beside them, and,
+while the occupants congratulated Peggy on having walked so far and so
+well, he could only grip her hand, and take his place in silence beside
+his sister.
+
+Lady Darcy bent forward to smile farewell; Rosalind waved her hand, and
+then they were off again, driving swiftly homewards, while Peggy stood
+watching, a solitary figure upon the roadside.
+
+Arthur and his companions hurried forward to join her, afraid lest she
+should be tired, and overcome with grief by the parting with her friend
+and partner.
+
+"Poor little Peg!  She won't like it a bit," said Arthur.  "She's
+crying!  I'm sure she is."
+
+"She is putting her handkerchief to her eyes," said Mellicent.
+
+"We will give her an arm apiece, and take her straight back," said Max
+anxiously.  "It's a shame to have left the poor little soul alone!"
+
+They stared with troubled eyes at the little figure which stood with its
+back turned towards them, in an attitude of rigid stillness.  There was
+something pathetic about that stillness, with just the flutter of the
+tell-tale handkerchief, to hint at the quivering face that was hidden
+from view.  The hearts of Peggy's companions were very tender over her
+at that moment; but even as they planned words of comfort and cheer, she
+wheeled round suddenly and walked back to meet them.
+
+It was an unusually mild morning for the season of the year, and the sun
+was shining from a cloudless sky.  Its rays fell full upon Peggy's face
+as she advanced--upon reddened eyes, trembling lips, and two large tears
+trickling down her cheeks.  It was undeniable that she was crying, but
+she carried her head well back upon her shoulders, rather courting than
+avoiding observation, and as she drew nearer it became abundantly
+evident that Peggy had retired in honour of Mariquita, and that
+consolations had better be deferred to a more promising occasion.
+
+"A most lacerating wind!" she said coolly.  "It draws the moisture to my
+eyes.  Quite too piercingly cold, I call it!" and even Mellicent had not
+the courage to contradict.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+And here, dear readers, we leave Peggy Saville at a milestone of her
+life.  In what direction the crossroads led the little company of
+friends, and what windings of the path brought them once more together,
+remains still to be told.  It was a strange journey, and in their
+travelling they met many friends with whom all young people are
+acquainted.  The giant barred the way, and had to be overcome before the
+palace could be reached; the Good Spirit intervened at the right moment
+to prevent calamity, the prince and princess stepped forward and made
+life beautiful; for life is the most wonderful fairy tale that was ever
+written, and full of magic to those who have eyes to see.
+
+Farewell, then, to Peggy Pickle; but if it be the wish of those who have
+followed her so far, we may meet again with Mariquita Saville, in the
+glory of sweet and twenty, and learn from her the secret of the years.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's About Peggy Saville, by Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
+
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