_“I am Sir Robin McTart! Who, the devil, are you?”_ _Page 278_ _“Ah, Peggy, my adored one,” says he, devouring her pale face with his happy eyes._ _Page 336_ [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ENVOI When gay postillions cracked their whips, And gallants gemmed their chat with quips; When patches nestled o’er sweet lips At choc’late times; and, ’twixt the sips, Fair Ladies gave their gossips tips; Then, in Levantine gown and brooch, My Lady Peggy took the coach, For London Town! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: MY LADY PEGGY GOES TO TOWN] _In the which My Lady Peggy sends off her lover broken-hearted and promptly falls into a swoon._ Kennaston Castle lies in Surrey. The Earl of Exham is master of the picturesque old pile and of the estate, and decidedly the slave of the very considerable number of debts which were up to His Lordship’s ears when he came of age, some four and fifty years ago, and by this time have reached almost to the crown of his head. He is also father to his son and heir, Kennaston of Kennaston, and to the heir’s tall twin, My Lady Peggy. My Lady Peggy at this particular moment sits a-swinging on the top branch of a plum tree at the foot of the kitchen garden whence she commands a tolerable view of the highway. “Impertinent sun!” cries Peggy, shading her handsome eyes with her hand as she stares off along the dusty road. “How is’t you dare shine when there’s no fine gentleman a-comin’ from the east; no gallant with disheveled locks, powdered shoulders, disordered mien, distracted looks, spurs a-digging into his beast, lips apart, heart beating like spent rabbit’s, and ‘Peggy, lovely Peggy,’ the clapper to his eager tongue at every jolt of his saddle, every rut of his way? Go cloud yourself, I say! since Sir Percy tarries. I’d have the skies weep, even if I can’t.” A peal of merriest laughter concludes this sally, and an apronful of plums comes tumbling down all over the other young woman who stands under the tree in waiting on her mistress. “Is His Lordship not yet in sight, My Lady?” asks this one. “Nay! that is not he, Chockey, and whisk me! but when His Lordship does come, he’ll find a very sorry entertainment. I swear, as dad says, I’ll not see him when he does appear, that will not I. Nay, shake not your head, girl. Is’t not true that Lady Peggy had once a lover?” “’Twere truer say a dozen of that sort of gentry, Madam,” replies the buxom Chockey, as she sorts the plums, the best in her bonnet, the flaws over the wall where the chickens and hens cackle to the refuse.