“Umph! Isn’t it good! I’m stifling for a blow. My lungs are sore for want of exercise. I was longing—longing to get out. Robert, do you realise it? We have won the prize! Can you believe it? It is almost too good to be true. It’s the best present of all. Now you can buy your microscope, and get on with your work as you never could before!” “Yes, and it’s all your doing, Mariquita. I could not have pulled it off without your help. If I make anything out of my studies it will be your doing too. I’ll put it down to you, and thank you for it all my life.” “H—m! I don’t think I deserve so much praise, but I like it all the same. It’s very soothing,” said Peggy reflectively. “I’m very happy, and I needed something to cheer me up, for I felt as blue as indigo this morning. We seem to have come to the end of so many things, and I hate ends. There is this disappointment about Arthur which spoils all the old plans, and the break-up of our good times here together. I shall miss Oswald. He was a dear old dandy, and his ties were quite an excitement in life, but I simply can’t imagine what the house will be like without you, Rob!” “I shall be here for some weeks every year, and I’ll run down for a day or two whenever I can. It won’t be good-bye altogether.” “I know—I know! but you will never be one of us again, living in the house, joining in all our jokes. It will be quite a different thing. And you will grow up so quickly at Oxford, and be a man before we know where we are.” “So will you—a woman at least. You are fifteen in January. At seventeen girls put their hair up, and wear long dresses. You will look older than I do, and give yourself as many airs as if you were fifty. I know what girls of seventeen are like. I’ve met lots of them, and they say ‘That boy!’ and toss their heads as if they were a dozen years older than fellows of their own age. I expect you will be as bad as the rest, but you needn’t try to snub me. I won’t stand it.” “You won’t have a chance, for I sha’n’t be here. As soon as my education is finished I am going out to India to stay until father retires and we come home to settle. So after to-day——” “After to-day—the deluge! Peggy, I didn’t tell you before, but I’m off to-morrow to stay in town until I go up to Oxford on the fourteenth. The pater wants to have me with him, so I sha’n’t see you again for some months. Of course I am glad to be in town for most things, but——” “Yes, but!” repeated Peggy and turned a wan little face upon him. “Oh, Rob, it _is_ changing quickly. I never thought it would be so soon as this. So it is good-bye! No wonder I felt so blue this morning. It is good-bye for ever to the old life. We shall meet again, oh yes! but it will be different. Some day when I’m old and grown up I will see in a newspaper the name of a distinguished naturalist and discoverer, and say, ‘I used to know him once. He was not at all proud. He used to pull my hair like any ordinary mortal. But he doesn’t recognise me now——’”