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About Peggy Saville

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey · English · Gutenberg #23622 · 417,875 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: About Peggy Saville

Author: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey


        
Release date: November 25, 2007 [eBook #23622]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23622

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE 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 t

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