“Right you are!” said Robert, laughing. “I’ll steer clear of the rocks! And as it happens I have got a piece of news that will put your doings into the background at one fell swoop. Rosalind is going to give a party! The Earl and Countess of B—— are coming down to the Larches the week after next, and are going to bring their two girls with them. They are great, lanky things, with about as much ‘go’ in the pair as in one of your little fingers; but this party is to be given in their honour. The mater has asked everyone of a right age within a dozen miles around, and the house will be crammed with visitors. Your card is coming to-morrow, and I hope you will give me the honour of the first round, and as many as possible after that.” “The first with pleasure; I won’t promise any more until I see how we get on. It doesn’t seem appropriate to think of your dancing, Bob; there is something too heavy and serious in your demeanour. Oswald is different; he would make a charming dancing-master. Oh, it will be an excitement! Mellicent will not be able to eat or sleep for thinking of it; and poor Mrs. Asplin will be running up seams on the sewing-machine, and making up ribbon bows from this day to that. I’m glad I have a dress all ready and sha’n’t be bothered with any trying on! You don’t know what it is to stand first on one leg and then on the other, to be turned and pulled about as if you were a dummy, and have pins stuck into you as if you were a pin-cushion! I adore pretty clothes, but every time I go to the dressmaker’s I vow and declare that I shall take to sacks. Tell them at dinner, do, and they will talk about it for the rest of the evening!” Peggy’s prophecy came true, for the subject of Rosalind’s party became a topic of such absorbing interest as left room for little else during the next few weeks. New dresses had to be bought and made for the girls, and Peggy superintended the operations of the village dressmaker with equal satisfaction to herself and her friends. Rosalind appeared engrossed in preparations, and two or three times a week, as the girls trudged along the muddy roads, with Fräulein lagging in the rear, the jingle of bells would come to their ears, and Rosalind’s two white long-tailed ponies would come dashing past, drawing the little open carriage in which their mistress sat, half-hidden among a pile of baskets and parcels. She was always beautiful, and radiant, and, as she passed, she would turn her head over her shoulders and look at the three mud-bespattered pedestrians with a smile of pitying condescension which made Peggy set her teeth and draw her eyebrows together in an ominous frown. One day she condescended to stop and speak a few words from her throne among the cushions. “How de do? So sowwy not to have been to see you! Fwightfully busy, don’t you know. We are decowating the wooms, and don’t know how to furnish in time. It’s going to be quite charming!”