Last year she and Arthur had spent Christmas with their mother; now both parents were away in India, and everything was strange and altered. As Peggy sat gazing into the heart of the big gloomy fire, it seemed to her that the year that was passing away would end a complete epoch in her brother's experiences and her own, and that from this hour a new chapter would begin. She herself had come back from the door of death, and had life given, as it were, afresh into her hands. Arthur's longed-for career had been checked at its commencement, and all his plans laid waste. Even the life in the vicarage would henceforth take new conditions, for Rob and Oswald would go up to Oxford at the beginning of the term, and their place be filled by new pupils. There was something solemnising in the consciousness of change which filled the air. One could never tell what might be the next development. Nothing was too unexpected to happen--since Arthur's success had ended in failure, and she herself had received Rosalind's vows of love and friendship. "Good things have happened as well as bad," acknowledged Peggy honestly; "but how I do hate changes! The new pupils may be the nicest boys in the world, but no one will ever--ever be like Rob, and I'd rather Arthur had been a soldier than anything in the wide world. I wish one could go on being young for ever and ever. It's when you grow old that all these troubles and changes come upon you." And Peggy sighed and wagged her head, oppressed with the weight of fifteen years. It was a relief to hear the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the sound of voices in the hall, which proved that the church-goers had returned home. Mr and Mrs Asplin had been driven home from church by Lord and Lady Darcy, and the next moment they were in the room, and greeting Peggy with demonstrative affection. "We couldn't go home without coming to see you, dear," said Lady Darcy fondly. "Rosalind is walking with the rest, and will be here in a few minutes. A merry Christmas to you, darling, and many, many of them. I've brought you a little present which I hope you will like. It's a bangle bracelet--quite a simple one that you can wear every day--and you must think of me sometimes when you put it on." She touched the spring of a little morocco case as she spoke, and there on the satin lining lay a band of gold, dependent from which hung the sweetest little locket in the world--heart-shaped, studded with pearls, and guarding a ring of hair beneath the glass shield. Lady Darcy pointed to it in silence--her eyes filling with tears, as they invariably did on any reference to Rosalind's accident, and Peggy's cheeks flushed with pleasure.