THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.

By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of "A Girl in Springtime," "Sisters Three," etc.

THE INTRODUCTION. (See CHAP. III.)

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CHAPTER I.

The afternoon post had come in, and the Vicar of Renton stood in the large 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 history and 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, in his white boating flannels. 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 little lines about the eyes were caused by the hundred and one little worries of every-day 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 wicker-work basket swayed to and fro on a rickety gipsy table, and the Vicar's wife walked hurriedly 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, little 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 very 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 and well 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