She lifted her face to his in the old mischievous fashion, and Rob studied it with a thoughtful gaze. If she hoped to receive a compliment in reply to her question, she was disappointed. It was not Rob's way to pay compliments, and there was, if anything, a tinge of sadness in the tone in which he said: "You have changed! It's inevitable, I suppose, but I have always thought of you as I saw you last, and don't seem to recognise the new edition. You have grown-up, but you've grown-up very small! There seems less of you than ever. Was the climate too much for you out there? I should have liked to have seen you looking stronger, Peg!" "Oh, I'm a wiry little person!" said Peggy lightly. "You needn't be anxious about me;" but she coughed as she spoke, and lay back against the cushions, for really it was rather nice to have Rob anxious about her, and to see the troubled tenderness in his eyes! She fluttered her fan to and fro in a feeble, exhausted fashion, while Rob continued to stare and to frown. "You look too much like the rest of 'em. That's what I complain of!" he said discontentedly, eyeing the details of her dress, and pointing with a long brown finger to the bracelets on her wrist. "All these fixings- up! Have you grown into a fashionable young lady, by any chance, Mariquita? Are you going to join the social treadmill, and spend your time in a rush after gaiety and enjoyment? or are you the same little girl I used to know, who had an ideal of her own, and wanted to do something grand and noble with her life? Which of the two is it? I can't decide!" "Oh, Rob!" cried Peggy piteously, and clapped her hands together. "Oh, Rob, it's both! I do want to be good more than anything else in the world. That wish is always there, at the very bottom of my heart, and at any moment, if I were called upon to choose, I would give up anything--anything! to do what was right. But I want to enjoy myself too, and to have some fun, and go about to everything that is going on, and wear pretty clothes, and be--be admired, and praised, and flattered! There! I couldn't say so to any one else, but I always did confide in you, Rob; and you won't be shocked. I seem to have two separate sides, and the worst side is often the strongest. Do you think it is very wrong of me, Rob? I'm so young, you see, so young, and so fond of amusement!"