"What a thorough good fellow he is," thought Dopsy, charmed with an arrangement which left her comparatively free for flirtation with Mr. Hamleigh, who had taken possession of Christabel's favourite seat--a low capacious basket-chair--by the wide wood fire, and had Christabel's table near him, loaded with her books, and work-basket--those books which were all his favourites as well as hers, and which made an indissoluble link between them. What is mere blood relationship compared with the subtler tie of mutual likings and dislikings? The men all lighted their cigarettes, and the game progressed with tolerably equal fortunes, Jack Vandeleur playing well enough to make amends for any lack of skill on the part of Mopsy, whose want of the scientific purpose and certainty which come from long experience, was as striking as her dashing and self-assured method of handling her cue, and her free use of all slang terms peculiar to the game. Dopsy oscillated between the marking-board and the fireplace--sometimes kneeling on the Persian rug to play with Randie and the other dogs, sometimes standing in a pensive attitude by the chimney-piece, talking to Angus. All traces of tears were gone. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brightened by an artful touch of Indian ink under the lashes, her eyebrows accentuated by the same artistic treatment, her large fan held with the true Grosvenor Gallery air. "Do you believe that peacocks' feathers are unlucky?" she asked, looking pensively at the fringe of green and azure plumage on her fan. "I am not altogether free from superstition, but my idea of the fates has never taken that particular form. Why should the peacock be a bird of evil omen? I can believe anything bad of the screech-owl or the raven--but the harmless ornamental peacock--surely he is innocent of our woes." "I have known the most direful calamities follow the introduction of peacocks' feathers into a drawing-room--yet they are so tempting, one can hardly live without them." "Really! Do you know that I have found existence endurable without so much as a tuft of down from that unmelodious bird?" "Have you never longed for its plumage to give life and colour to your rooms?--such exquisite colour--such delicious harmony--I wonder that you, who have such artistic taste, can resist the fascination." "I hope you have not found that pretty fan the cause of many woes?" said Mr. Hamleigh, smilingly, as the damsel posed herself in the early Italian manner, and slowly waved the bright-hued plumage. "I cannot say that I have been altogether happy since I possessed it," answered Dopsy, with a shy downward glance, and a smothered sigh; "and yet I don't know--I have been only too happy sometimes, perhaps, and at other times deeply wretched." "Is not that kind of variableness common to our poor human nature--independent of peacocks' feathers?" "Not to me. I used to be the most thoughtless happy-go-lucky creature." "Until when?"