"Never! I was ablaze with patriotism before I left, and I have been growing worse and worse all the time I have been abroad. And it will _not_ be dreary! What is the use of imagining disagreeable things? You might just as well imagine nice ones while you are about it. Now _I_ imagine that it is going to be a perfect summer--clear, and fine, and warm, with the delicious warmth which is so utterly different from that dreadful India scald. And father and I are going to turn gardeners, and trot about all day long tending our plants. Did I tell you that we were going to have a garden? Oh yes--a beauty!--with soft turf paths, bordered with roses, and every flower that blooms growing in the borders. We will have an orchard, too, where the spring bulbs come up among the grass; and I've set my heart on a moat. It has been the dream of my life to have a moat. `Mariquita of the Moated Grange!'... Sounds well, doesn't it? It would be good for me to have an address like that, for I possess a strong instinct of fitness, and make a point of living up to my surroundings." Peggy lay back in her seat and coughed in the languid, Anglo-Indian fashion which was her latest accomplishment. "I suppose you don't happen to know the sort of house that would suit us?" "Within half an hour of London? No! That is too much to ask. It's a Chateau en Espagne, Peggy, and not to be had in Middlesex. You will have to do like the rest of the world, and settle down in a red brick villa, with a plot of uncultivated land out of which to manufacture your garden. There will be neither green sward nor festoons of roses; but, on the other hand, the house will contain every modern convenience, and there will be hot and cold water, electric light--" "Don't!" cried Peggy hastily. She lifted her hand with a gesture of entreaty, and Hector was startled to see how seriously she had taken his jesting words. "Don't laugh at me! I've been dreaming of it so long, and it's such a dear, dear dream. Do you realise that in all my life I have never had a permanent home? It has been a few years here, a few years there, with always the certainty of another change ahead; but now we mean to find a real home, where we can take refuge, with all our possessions around us. Mother and I have talked about it until we can _see_ every nook and corner, and it is waiting for us somewhere--I know it is! So don't be sceptical, and pretend that it is not! We won't talk about houses any more, but you shall tell me your own news. It is four years since I saw Rob and Rosalind, as they were abroad for the year before I left England. But you have been home since then, I know."