"Oh-h! I didn't know it was you; I thought it was one of the girls. I'm sorry I kept you waiting." Mrs Asplin gave a glance around. The gas-fire was lit, but the chair beside it stood stiffly in the corner, and the cushion was uncrushed. Evidently, the girl had not been sitting there. The work-basket was in its accustomed place, and there were no cottons or silks lying about-- Peggy had not been sewing at Christmas presents, as she had half hoped to find her. A towel was thrown over the writing-table, and a piece of blotting-paper lay on the floor. A chair was pushed to one side, as if it had been lately used. That looked as if she had been writing letters. "Peggy dear, what are you doing all by yourself in this chilly room?" "I'm busy, Mrs Asplin. I lit the fire as soon as I came in." "But a room does not get warm in five minutes. I don't want you to catch cold and be laid up with a sore throat. Can't you bring your writing downstairs and do it beside the others?" "I would rather not. I can get on so much better by myself." "Are you writing to India--to your mother?" "N-no, not just now." "Then really, dear, you must come downstairs! This won't do! Your mother wished you to have a fire in your room, so that you might be able to sit here when you wanted to be alone, but she never meant you to make it a habit, or to spend all your spare time alone. It isn't healthy to use a room night and day, and to burn so much gas, and it isn't sociable, Peggy dear. Mellicent has just been complaining that you are hardly ever with them nowadays. Come along, like a good girl; put the writing away and amuse yourself downstairs. You have done enough work for one day. You don't do me credit with those white cheeks." Peggy stood with her eyes fixed on the carpet without uttering a word. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say, "Oh, do let me stay upstairs as much as I like for a day or two longer. I have a piece of work on hand which I am anxious to finish. It is a secret, but I hope to tell you all about it soon, and I am sure you will be pleased." If she had done so, she knew perfectly well how hearty and pleasant would have been Mrs Asplin's consent; but there are some states of mind in which it is a positive pleasure to be a martyr, and to feel oneself misunderstood, and this was just the mood in which Peggy found herself at present. She heard Mrs Asplin sigh, as if with anxiety and disappointment, as she left the room, and shrugged her shoulders in wilful indifference.