"Tut, tut!" said Peggy pleasantly. She looked at the three scowling, embarrassed faces, and the mocking light danced back into her eyes. "So they were all anxious to have me, were they? How nice! I'm gratified to hear it. Is there any little thing I can do for your honourable self now, Mr Darcy, before I dress for dinner?" Robert looked across the room at Mellicent with an expression which made that young person tremble in her shoes. "All right, young lady, I'll remember you!" he said quietly. "I've warned you before about repeating conversations. Now you'll see what happens. I'll cure you of that little habit, my dear, as sure as my name is Robert Darcy--" "The Honourable Robert Darcy!" murmured a silvery voice from the other side of the fireplace. Robert turned his head sharply, but Peggy was gazing into the coals with an air of lamb-like innocence, and he subsided into himself with a grunt of displeasure. The next day Mrs Saville came to lunch, and spent the afternoon at the vicarage. As Maxwell had said, she was a beautiful woman; tall, fair, and elegant, and looking a very fashionable lady when contrasted with Mrs Asplin in her well-worn serge, but her face was sad and anxious in expression. Esther noticed that her eyes filled with tears more than once as she looked round the table at the husband and wife and the three tall, well-grown children; and when the two ladies were alone in the drawing-room she broke into helpless sobbings. "Oh, how happy you are! How I envy you! Husband, children,--all beside you. Oh, never, never let one of your girls marry a man who lives abroad. My heart is torn in two; I have no rest. I am always longing for the one who is not there. I must go back,--the major needs me; but my Peggy,--my own little girl! It is like death to leave her behind!" Mrs Asplin put her arms round the tall figure, and rocked her gently to and fro. "I know! I know!" she said brokenly. "I _ache_ for you, dear; but I understand! I have parted with a child of my own--not for a few years, but for ever, till we meet again in God's heaven. I'll help you every way I can. I'll watch her night and day; I'll coddle her when she's ill; I'll try to make her a good woman. I'll _love_ her, dear, and she shall be my own special charge. I'll be a second mother to her."