She strolls away, with the contented feeling of having done her part in the church decoration; but it is a couple of hours later before Peggy follows her example. It is nearly eight o'clock when, with stiff arms and tired legs, she enters the hall--embowered in spring blossoms, like the church she has just left--of the Red House. As she comes in Prue springs to meet her. 'Oh, Peggy, Peggy! have you heard?' The elder sister's heart leaps. Prue understands. Prue is glad--gladder than she had had any conception that she would have been. Kind little Prue! 'Yes,' she falters, grateful surprised tears at her sister's sympathy rushing to her eyes; 'yes, I have heard. Oh, Prue, how nice of you to be glad!' 'Nice of me to be glad!' repeats Prue in a tone of profound wonderment, her eyes growing round. 'Why is it nice of me? It would be very odd of me if I were not glad; but I do not see anything _nice_ about it. How did you hear? Has milady come back? Have you seen any one from the Big House? Why, I only got the letter by the second post.' 'The letter?' repeats Peggy stupidly; 'what letter?' '_What letter?_ why, _his_ letter of course, telling me that he is not going to stay up for Commemoration after all: he says that without me the balls would be Dead Sea apples to him, so he will be home a week sooner; and the Hartleys are going, and they will not find him there after all. But oh, Peggy! how could you have heard? I do not believe that you did. Why did you say you had?' The sparkle, but now as bright in Peggy's eyes as in her junior's, dies out; a cold ripple of disappointment rises, and flows over her heart. Prue was not glad for her, after all. It was her own preoccupation that had credited her sister with a knowledge and an interest of which she is quite innocent. 'You shall tell me about it at dinner,' she answers in an altered voice, turning away. And at dinner Prue does tell her all about it. Too excited to eat, she chatters through their simple repast about the beauty of Freddy's renunciation; his thoughtfulness for others; the irreparable loss that Commemoration will sustain by his absence; the bitter disappointment of Miss Hartley. Into the middle of her talk, near the close of their short dinner, comes the sound of a railway whistle, announcing the arrival of one of the few stopping trains--in this case the last train of all that touches at their little station. Peggy involuntarily puts up her hand, and cries: 'Hush!' 'The wind must be changed,' she says, reddening at the consciousness of her own motive, though she is safe indeed from having it divined, 'one hears the train so plainly; it is late to-night!' 'What of that?' cries Prue gaily; 'are you expecting a friend by it? Ah, me! how I wish that _I_ was! He came by that train last time.'