It proves to be not a drawing-room after all--to have more of the character and informality of a little sitting-hall; a room where dogs may jump on the chairs with as valid a right as Christians; a room with an oak settle by the chimney-corner, and a great cage full of twittering finches in a sunny window, and into which half the flowers of the field seem to have walked, and colonised its homely vases; a room with nothing worth twopence-halfpenny in it, and that yet is sweet and lovable. He has not many minutes in which to make his explorations, for she is promptly back with her appliances, and silently binding round his finger her bit of linen that smells of lavender. As she stoops over his hand he can look down on the top of her head, and admire her parting--a thing which not many ladies possess nowadays. Hers is as straight as a die; and on each side of that narrow white road rises the thick fine hair, bright and elastic. It is many years since Betty has owned a parting. On the other hand, she has two very nice toupets--a morning and an evening one. Talbot has once or twice seen one of these toupets off duty, and has regretted his knowledge that it came off and on. Well, there is nothing about Peggy that comes off and on. How quickly and daintily she has dressed his wound, and--oh! if here is not Prue already back again! 'Have you shut him safely in?' looking up from her nearly finished task. 'Yes.' 'And given him his dinner?' 'Yes; but he will not eat it. I think he is seriously vexed; he tried to bite me, too!' Talbot laughs. 'What could have made you choose such a pet?' 'We did not exactly choose him,' replies Margaret gravely; 'he was sent to us; all the rest of the litter were killed. He was the only one the huntsman could save. He brought him to show us. He was a mere ball of fluff then. One could not turn away a poor little orphan ball of fluff from one's door, could one?' 'He was a very tiresome orphan then, as he always has been since,' says Prue drily. 'No one but Peggy would have been bothered with him; he was far more trouble than a baby. She had him,'--turning towards Talbot--'to sleep in her room for a whole fortnight, and got up every two hours all through the night to feed him.' Margaret reddens. 'He would have died else!' 'But no other person on earth would have had the patience, would they?' cries Prue, warming with her theme. 'Prue!' says Peggy severely, 'is my trumpeter dead, and are you applying for the situation?' At this moment the door opens, and one of the three neat maids whom John has already seen careering about the pleasure-grounds in pursuit of the fox, enters with a tea-tray. The sight of a covered dish of hot cakes recalls to Talbot the original object of his visit. 'Oh, by the bye, I was forgetting! I have a message for you from Lady Roupell.' 'Have you?' She is standing, straight and lithe as a young poplar, by the tea-table, brandishing a brown teapot in her hand.