“I’m thankful to hear it! I admire small women,” said Peggy promptly, seating herself on a corner of the window seat, and staring critically at the tall figure of the visitor. She would have been delighted if she could have persuaded herself that her height was awkward and ungainly, but such an effort was beyond imagination. Rosalind was startlingly and wonderfully pretty; she had never seen anyone in real life who was in the least like her. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue, with curling dark lashes, her face was a delicate oval, and the pink and white colouring, and flowing golden locks gave her the appearance of a princess in a fairy tale, rather than an ordinary flesh and blood maiden. Peggy looked from her to Mellicent who was considered quite a beauty among her companions, and oh dear me! how plain, and fat, and prosaic she appeared when viewed side by side with this radiant vision! Esther stood the comparison better, for though her long face had no pretensions to beauty, it was thoughtful and interesting in expression. There was no question which was most charming to look at; but if it had come to a choice of a companion, an intelligent observer would certainly have decided in favour of the Vicar’s daughter. Esther’s face was particularly grave at this moment, and her eyes met Peggy’s with a reproachful glance. What was the matter with the girl this afternoon? Why did she take up everything that Rosalind said in that hasty, cantankerous manner? Here was an annoying thing—to have just given an enthusiastic account of the brightness and amicability of a new companion, and then to have that companion come into the room only to make snappish remarks, and look as cross and ill-natured as a bear! She turned in an apologetic fashion to Rosalind, and tried to resume the conversation at the point where it had been interrupted by Peggy’s entrance. “And I was saying, we have ever so many new things to show you—presents, you know, and things of that kind. The last is the nicest of all; a really good, big camera with which we can take proper photographs. Mrs. Saville—Peggy’s mother—gave it to us before she left. It was a present to the schoolroom, so it belongs equally to us all, and we have such fun with it. We are beginning to do some good things now, but at first they were too funny for anything. There is one of father where his boots are twice as large as his head, and another of mother where her face has run, and is about a yard long, and yet it is so like her! We laughed till we cried over it, and father has locked it away in his desk. He says he will keep it to look at when he is low-spirited.” Rosalind gave a shrug to her shapely shoulders.