"Troubles? Oh, no! I assure you, when Eliza Dishart and I drink tea together, there is no talk of troubles. We are very grand. We talk about the Court, and freights, and the possibility of Union between the Established Kirk and the Free. But trouble--oh, dear, no! Once only did we consent to be informal. That was one wild night in December two years ago. Half the chimney-pots in London were flying about in the air, and she knew that his ship was in the Channel, homeward bound. She came chapping at my door about ten o'clock, just as I was going to bed, and asked me if I would let her sit here for the night. Indeed, I was very glad of her company. I remember I managed to pick out the tune of the 'Hymn for Those at Sea' for her on my piano, and we sang it together. Very ridiculous we must have looked. We have never mentioned the occurrence since." During this narrative Peggy sat silent and preoccupied. Finally she said:-- "It must be a great relief to be able to unload your worries on to some one else. A girl has just been unloading hers on to me." Jean regarded her friend's averted face curiously. "Indeed?" she replied. "Yes. A man--" Miss Leslie nodded. "Quite so," she remarked drily. "She has presumed too far, and he won't come back." Peggy looked up. "Now you are getting romantic again," she said reprovingly. "No, it is nothing of the kind. My friend has had to be rather brutal to a man, and she feels sorry for him, and she is afraid he must think rather badly of her--that's all." "Has she been flirting with the poor creature?" demanded Jean Leslie, in a voice of thunder. "No. She is not that sort of girl." "Then where does the brutality come in? There is no brutality in putting a man in his place, provided you do it in time. As soon as a woman sees that a man is preparing to fall in love with her--and she can usually tell about five minutes after she has made his acquaintance--and she doesn't feel like wanting him, she should get him at arm's length at _once_! Have--has your friend not been overlong in adopting that precaution?" "She couldn't do it before," explained Peggy, rather eagerly. "They were thrown together in a very unusual way. She saw it coming, but could not do anything to prevent it. And now the man has gone away; and I'm--she is sure he thinks--" Jean Leslie handed her guest a fresh cup of tea. "Are you certain," she enquired, "that this friend of yours _wanted_ to keep the young man at arm's length?" Peggy twisted her long fingers together. "I rather fancy, from what she said, that she cared for him a bit," she admitted. "Then why send him away?" demanded Miss Leslie. Peggy summoned up a troubled smile. "Dear old Jean," she said, "you are so practical!"