Prue's first remark can hardly be said to be an answer to any of these questions. She has disengaged herself from her sister, and stands staring round, as if half-bewildered. Prue does not look like herself. She has an oddly-shaped hat; there is something unfamiliar about the dressing of her hair; and can it be fatigue or dust that has made her so extremely black under the eyes. 'What a squeezy little place!' she says slowly, with an accent half of wonder, half of disgust. 'Surely it must have shrunk since I went away!' And Peggy's arms drop to her sides, and her hopes go out. CHAPTER XVIII A wretched month follows--a month of miserable misery--misery, that is, that springs from no God-sent misfortune; that has none of that fateful greatness to which we bow our heads, stooping meekly before the storm of the inevitable; but a misery that is paltry and reasonless--one of those miseries that we ourselves spin out of the web of our own spoilt lives. It seems such a folly and a shame to be miserable in the face of these yellow October days that by and by steal in, pranked out in the cheerful glory of their short-lived wealth, with such a steadfast sun throwing down his warmth upon you from his unchanging blue home; with a park full of such bronze bracken to push through at your very door; and with such an army of dahlias, ragged chrysanthemums, and 'Good-bye-Summers,' with their delicate broad disks, to greet you morning after morning as you pass in your pleasant ownership along their gossamered ranks. So Peggy feels; but that does not hinder her from being wretched to her very heart's core. The inside world may throw a sunshine on the outside one, as we all know--may make June day out of January night--'the winter of our discontent' into glorious summer; but the outside can throw no sunshine on the inside unless some is there already. So Peggy's 'Good-bye-Summers,' though they never in their lives have flowered for her so beautifully before, smile at her in vain. She has no answering gladness to give them back. It has not taken twenty-four hours from the time of her return to prove that it has become absolutely impossible to please Prue. It is nothing that, on the first evening of her arrival, she has, as it were, walked over all poor Peggy's little planned surprises without even perceiving them; that she has turned her dinner over disdainfully, and remarked how much worse Sarah cooks than when she went away. These may be but the childish fretfulnesses engendered of fatigue, and that a good night's rest will sweep away. But when twenty-four hours have passed, when a week, when a fortnight have gone by, and find her still cavilling at the smallness of the rooms, the garden's confined space, and the monotony of their lives, then, indeed, Margaret's spirits sink as they have never sunk before.