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.