“Do you mean to say, Sir Robin, that the whereabouts of the lady with whose name the prints and the coffee-houses are ringing; for whose sake you came near to fighting Sir Percy only last night, and did fight him in Lark Lane o’ Thursday last, ain’t known to you?” “Is she in London?” pipes the Beau, pinching the little black till he squeaks again. “That I can not tell,” responds Her Ladyship. “I do know she’s not in Kent; and she’s not at Kennaston Castle. ’Slife! Sirs,” adds she, “I pray your consideration. Guess what you will; this matter of Lady Peggy sticks me closer than you dream, and I’d give my life to know her safe at home with her mother.” Silence ensues; the disappointed fifteen get them back to the Beau’s bedside to talk over this latest development as to the mysterious Lady Peggy. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] IX _In the which Lady Peg overhears a horrible plot to murder; and wherein Mr. Incognito encountereth Sir Robin._ She herself falls into such an immediate flood of tears as shakes her well, and then up she rises from her depths, and with all the courage of her race and blood, she vows that, come another sunset she will quit Peter’s Court as if for a walk, and never return; that in small clothes, since it must be, she will journey back to Kennaston Castle, and risk all the discomfiture and disgrace her doing so may bring upon her. In point of fact, My Lady Peggy was at that state of mind when it seemed to her no degradation or humiliation, no sorrow that could be visited upon her, would be too much punishment, or enough, for the sins without number she had committed since the luckless day she took the coach for town. When she emerged from her room for dinner, ’twas to learn that Mr. Brummell had been summoned hastily to St. James’s on so important an affair as to initiate His Royal Highness into the mysteries of the new tie of Sir Robin’s own invention! and that he trusted in this audience to obtain permission to fetch Sir Robin to the Palace and present him within a few days to several august personages, etc., etc., etc. Her Ladyship, therefore, dined alone, scantily too; food choked her, wine burned her throat, and to speak truth she was heartily glad not to have to drink it, for Her Ladyship was an abstemious young lady and believed milk, Bohea and Pekoe the beverages for her sex, to the exclusion of any stronger.