“Not that she loved him, but that she might,” he continues with sadness, as his eyes follow Peg on her almost royal progress about the drawing-rooms. “’Tis a proper fellow, enough, and I’d always heard he was a fright and a coward.” Kennaston presently took heart of grace and crossed to pay his duty to Lady Diana, who, ’twas plain to be seen by every other than this bashful swain, was by no means the indifferent to him she would feign play off. Her color came and went as Kennaston, blushing to match his lady, ventured to spout his ode to her; and, leaving the pair to gallop on this pleasant path, Sir Percy at a distance unconsciously followed Lady Peggy, at least with his gaze. Peggy meantime, denying right and left the story of her prowess, with quips and jests and ogles of the fair, still kept her eye on Percy. Not yet had she seen him approach Lady Diana; yet hold! even now, catching her own gaze fixed upon him, he turned and was presently bending over the little beauty’s fingers. A pang shot through Peg’s heart, and the tears were like to force their way; she made an excuse and left the long drawing-room, taking refuge in a small apartment where the tables were ready for cards. She sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. The candles were not yet lighted and she was totally unobserved. Dashing the salt drops from her lashes with her hand,— “What am I!” she cried in her bitterness, “that I can not abide to even see him a-bending over her hand! Ain’t you no spirit, Peg? No pride? He’s not thinking of you, my dear; didn’t he say plain, if Sir Robin was the better man he’d give up to him! What kind of a suitor’s that, Peg? Lud! I’d not give up him to any one, whether they were my betters or no!” Could My Lady but have postponed her exit for a few brief moments she would have beheld Sir Percy, at a word in his ear from a footman, quit Lady Diana’s side with but the smallest ceremony, dash out into the vestibule, seize with a vice-like grip the man who stood there pale and trembling, and gasp out: “At last! the letter, the letter?” Grigson shook his head and got even whiter. “No letter?” Percy says in a dazed way. “Only your own, Sir Percy,” handing back the missive. “Her Ladyship was from home, Sir.” “Well, what of that! you infernal, damned rascal, did I not command you seek her, if ’twere at the other end of the world!” “Aye, Sir, and the quickest way of settin’ about findin’ Her Ladyship was for me to get back to town, Sir, as fast as the cursed beast I was cheated into hirin’, Sir, would fetch me.” “Speak out, for God’s sake! Is Her Ladyship up in London?” asked Sir Percy, actually shaking with impatience and astonishment. Grigson nods and without more ado proceeds to give an exact if somewhat rambling account of his entire experiences, from the moment he had quitted his master until the present.