The next two weeks passed away all too quickly. The latter part of the voyage had been chill and stormy, so that when Marseilles was reached, Hector Darcy was seized with a conviction that it would be injudicious for him to risk the dangers of an English spring, and that wisdom pointed out a preliminary sojourn in the sunny South. This being the case, it was only natural that he should betake himself to the hotel where his friends the Savilles were located, and so make a convenient fourth in their excursions. It would have been difficult to find a pleasanter party with whom to travel, for father, mother, and daughter were all in holiday mood, rejoicing in the prospect of home, and a reunion with that redoubtable Arthur, whose exploits and excellences were detailed a dozen times a day. They were so happy together, moreover, and there was so friendly an understanding between them, that they made an agreeable contrast to those numerous family parties who reduce a stranger to a condition of misery by their mutual bickerings. So far from labouring under the impression that any manners were good enough for the members of their own family, the Saville trio were even more punctiliously courteous to each other than to strangers, and that despite the fact that parents and child were on terms of much greater intimacy than is usual in such relationships. Peggy's pride in her father was beautiful to behold, and in the presence of strangers she paid him a respect so profound that those same strangers would have been vastly surprised if they could have seen her rumpling his hair in private, and tying his moustache in a neat little festoon round his nose, while mother and daughter never seemed to outgrow the joy of being together again after the years of separation. "Oh, my Peg, what should I do without you?" Mrs Saville would cry on those too frequent occasions when a recurrence of the weary Indian fever came upon her, and Peggy nursed and comforted her as no hired attendant could ever do. "Oh, my Peg, what should I do without you? What _shall_ I do, when you leave me to fly away to a home of your own? You have spoiled me so much during these last years that I don't know what will become of me without you, darling." "I shall never marry, dear," returned Peggy comfortably. "I'll stay at home like a good little girl, and wheel my mammie in a Bath chair. Marriage is a luxury which is forbidden to an only daughter. Her place is to stay at home and look after her parents!" But at this Mrs Saville looked alarmed, and shook her head in emphatic protest.