'_Peggy_, then. Personally, I prefer _Peg_; but it is a matter of opinion. Peggy, are you aware that you have been poaching?' 'I do not know what you mean.' But she does. 'Her ladyship did not much like it, I can tell you,' continues he delightedly. 'She manifested distinct signs of uneasiness. I could not keep her quiet, though I went through all my little tricks for her. She _would_ make those ridiculous noises; and she whipped him off pretty quickly, did not she? Ah, Peggy'--tenderly--'you would have done better to have kept to me! _I_ would not have left you in the lurch.' To this she deigns no answer. 'Where is Prue?' asks he, a moment later, with an easy change of topic. 'What have you done with Prue?' 'I have done nothing with her,' rather sadly. 'You have sent her home with her nurse to bed, I suppose?' suggests he reproachfully. 'I sometimes think that you are a little hard upon Prue.' _Hard upon Prue!_ She, whose one thought, waking and sleeping, is how best to put her strong arm round that fragile body and weakling soul, so as to shield them from the knocks of this rough world! This, too, from him, who has introduced the one element of suffering it has ever known into Prue's little life. 'Am I?' she answers quietly; but her cheek burns. 'There is no one that suits me so well as Prue,' says the young man sentimentally, looking up to the sky. '"She's like the keystone of an arch, That doth consummate beauty; She's like the music of a march, That maketh joy of duty!"' Peggy's eye relents. He may mean it--may be speaking truth--it is not likely, as he seldom does so; but after all, the greatest liars must, during their lives, speak more truth than lies. One is prone to believe what one wishes, and he _may_ mean it. 'There is no one that I am so fond of as I am of Prue,' pursues he, with a quiver in his voice. 'You have an odd way of showing it sometimes,' says she, in a softened tone. 'Are you alluding to _that_?' asks he, glancing carelessly over his shoulder at the kiosk. 'Pooh! I hated it. I shall get milady to pull it down some day. I was so glad when you and Talbot came up: it was so dark, and I felt the earwigs dropping on my head.' 'Then why did you go there?' inquires she. He bursts into a laugh, from which sentiment and quiver are miles away. 'The woman tempted me; at least' (seeing his companion's mouth taking a contemptuous upward curve at this mode of expression)--'at least, she seemed to expect it. I always like to do what people seem to expect.' And Margaret's heart sinks. CHAPTER V 'To one that has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to gaze upon the fair And open face of heaven--to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament.'