And so Peggy keeps her tidings to herself. Perhaps if she had had some one to impart them to they would not have made her so restless. As it is, she cannot settle to any occupation. The wheels that will roll him from the station to his inn must pass her door; and through all the trickle of Prue's talk her ear is pricked to catch them. But it is market night, and from the many vehicles noisily passing by, her hearing is incapable of disentangling his. He must have reached the Roupell Arms by now. Is Mrs. Bates setting a very unappetising dinner before him, so unappetising that it will, in accordance with Mrs. Evans's pious aspiration, drive him prematurely away? 'How fidgety you are!' cries Prue, surprised at her sister's unusual restlessness. 'I should have thought that you would have been thankful to sit down, after being on your legs all day.' 'So should I,' replies Peggy, again blushing, and sitting down; 'and I have been upon them since ten o'clock in the morning, have not I?' 'It is quite disgraceful the way in which the Evanses put everything upon you!' cries Prue indignantly; 'though indeed'--with an accent of remorse not very common to her--'I do not think that they are much worse than the rest of us. Why does everybody put everything upon you, Peggy? You do everything for everybody, and nobody ever does anything for you.' Peggy's eyes brim up at this unexpected recognition of her services by the seventeen-years sovereign of them. Are all good things to come to her together? CHAPTER XXVI It is Whit-Sunday. The morning service is over. The parish has had an opportunity of admiring Peggy's nosegays, and of having their nostrils comforted by the scent of her lilac branches and sweet nancies, and of the Hartleys' giant gardenias. Among them a stranger has knelt. Strangers are not very apt to be allured to Roupell Church by the fame of Mr. Evans's sermons; and, indeed, to-day he has preached the same sermon as he did last Whit-Sunday. It would have passed among his flock for a new one, had it not been for an unusual phrase which they remember and recognise. But since they recognise it with pleasure, as an old friend, there is no harm done. 'Did you see that he was in church?' cries Mrs. Evans, hurrying breathlessly out after Peggy, and joining her before she has reached the lych-gate. 'Did you ever hear of anything so barefaced? It never occurred to me that he would come to church. Oh, here are the children! now we shall learn whether _she_ has arrived too.' As she speaks the little Harboroughs, who apparently have hitherto been kept at bay by their nurses, are seen--having broken away from them--to be elbowing their vigorous small way through the press of country people, who smilingly make way for them. In another second, both, with entire disregard of the Vicaress's blandishments, have flung themselves upon Peggy.