pleased to pass on your message. The chief is a conscientious fellow, and feels his responsibility so much that it will doubtless be a relief to him to know that Peggy Saville is to the rescue. I’ll introduce you to him some time soon, when you can have an opportunity of airing your views.”

“I should like that. I suppose we shall have any amount of invitations when we are really settled, but just at first we want to devote all our energies to house-hunting. We are going to drive to the agent’s first thing to-morrow morning, to see what he has to offer us, and then Mellicent arrives in the afternoon. You knew she was coming, didn’t you, and that I am going home with her at the end of a fortnight?”

Arthur chuckled softly to himself.

“Chubby in London! What delirious excitement! I must try to go about with you sometimes, for it will be great to hear her remarks. She has never been in town for more than a few hours at a time on a shopping expedition, and has everything to see. Chubby has developed into a very creditable specimen, I’d have you know, and she don’t appreciate being called Chubby no more. Consequently, I make a point of addressing her by no other name! When she gets into a rage she looks surprisingly like the fat little girl of a dozen years back.”

“Too bad!” cried Peggy, laughing. “None of that sort of thing while she is here, remember! No one shall tease my visitors but myself. I’m simply longing to see the dear old girl, and hear all the news about everybody. Rob is at The Cedars, they say, so I must wait to see him there, but Rosalind is in town. Oh, Arthur, do you see much of her? Do you meet her often? Is she a great beauty, and does every one talk about her and make a fuss of her wherever she goes, as we used to imagine they would do when she grew up? Do tell me all about Rosalind!”

Arthur’s face stiffened in a curious, unnatural fashion, and his lips lost their laughing curve, and grew straight and hard. The sparkle died out of his face, and he looked a boy no longer, but a man, and a man who had not found his life too easy. He was astonishingly like his father at that moment, and both mother and sister noted the fact.

“Oh, that would be a long story, and would take up too much time. For Rosalind’s doings, see the society papers,” he cried, with an indifference too elaborate to be genuine. “To-morrow’s issue will no doubt inform you that she is at some big function to-night, wearing a robe of sky-blue silk, festooned with diamonds and bordered with rubies. That’s the proper style of thing, isn’t it, for a society belle? I see her occasionally. Lord Darcy is the kindest of friends, and I have always a welcome at his house. I don’t go very often, but I meet them out, and am vouchsafed a dance, or ten minutes’ conversation, if nobody more important is on the scene. Rosalind is an important personage nowadays, and can’t waste her time on the likes of me; but she is devoted to you, Peg, and will rush round to see you the moment you let her know that you are at home.”

But Peggy set her lips, and privately resolved to be in no hurry to apprise Rosalind Darcy of her return. No one who considered herself too grand for Arthur should have the chance of associating with his sister. Dear, darling Arthur! Did he still care, then? Was Rosalind’s beautiful face still a Will-o’-the-wisp to dazzle and ensnare his heart, and was it possible that she, or any mortal woman, could have the hardihood to resist Arthur Saville when he came to woo? Peggy sat silent, but her heart formed a voiceless prayer—a prayer that if in the future trouble must come, she might be the one to bear it, and that Arthur might be shielded from a second crushing disappointment.