'There is nothing that I want to hide,' replies Peggy with dignity, though the blood careers under the pure skin to cheek, and brow, and lily throat; then, with a sudden change of tone to utmost tender deprecation, 'Oh, Prue, you do not mind? You are not vexed? It will not make any difference to you!' Prue is silent. 'It will make no difference to you,' repeats Peggy, rather faltering at the total dumbness in which her tidings are received. 'Of course you will go on living with me just as you have always done.' For all answer, Prue bursts into a passion of tears. 'Oh, do not say so!' she cries vehemently. 'You talk as if I never were going to have a home of my own! Oh, it would be too cruel, too cruel!' Her sobs arrest her utterance. She has collapsed upon the settle, and sits there a disconsolate heap, with its hands over its face. Peggy stands beside her; a sudden coldness slackening the pulsations of her leaping heart. 'You will not care any longer about him and me,' pursues Prue weepingly. 'You will have your own affairs to think of. Oh, I never thought that I should have to give up _you_. It was the last thing that ever would have entered my head. Whatever happened, I always counted upon having _you_ to fall back upon!' The dusk is deepening. Peggy still stands motionless and rigid. 'I know that I am not taking it well,' pursues Prue a minute later, dropping the fingers wetted with her trickling tears, and wiping her eyes; while her breath still comes unevenly, interrupted by sobs. 'I know that I ought to pretend to be glad; but it is so sudden, such a surprise--he is such a stranger!' The cold hand at Peggy's heart seems to intensify its chill. Is there not some truth in her sister's words? Is not he indeed a stranger? Has not she been too hasty in snatching at the great boon of love that has been suddenly held out to her--she, whose life has not hitherto been furnished with over-much of love's sweetness? 'I know that you must think me very selfish,' continues the younger girl, still with that running commentary of sobs. 'I _am_ selfish, though he says that I am not--that he never knew any one who had such an instinct of self-abnegation; but then he always sees the best side of people. Yes, I _am_ selfish; but I will try to be glad by and by--only,' with a redoublement of weeping, 'do not expect it of me to-night.' And, with this not excessive measure of congratulation, poor Peggy has to be content, on the night of her betrothal. She goes to bed with the cold hand still at her heart; but in the morning it has gone. Who can have a cold hand still at her heart when she wakes at early morning at lilac-tide, to find a little round wren, with tiny tail set on perfectly upright, singing to her from a swaying bough outside her casement, with a voice big enough for an ostrich, and to know that a lover is only waiting for the sun to be well above the meadows to lift the latch of her garden-gate.