While Peggie the optimistic was beside her, Robin’s escape appeared more than probable; she could almost persuade herself that it was an accomplished fact. But it looked less certain, now her blood ran cool, and her high spirit flagged in the darkness and silence of night. Her faith in his courage and resource could not entirely resist the paralyzing touch of fear, and even her confidence in the value of the pledge she had extracted from the duchess was shaken by the unmistakable coolness of the queen, who had listened in silence to the explanations of her former favorite and reserved all her praises and expressions of satisfaction for Prue, to whom she had been cordiality itself. Toward morning she slept so long and heavily, that Peggie came and went a dozen times before the long lashes lifted and the sweet blue eyes smiled drowsily up at her. And even when she woke she was loath to rise, and fain to rest more than once during the tedious process of her toilet, interrupted as it was by an obsequious procession of mercers and modistes, eager to make their peace with the restored favorite by the most pressing and disinterested services. But a curious change had come over the wilful beauty, and instead of throwing herself heart and soul into the entrancing discussions of hoops and pouffes, sarsenet and tabbinet, plumes and perfumes, she declined the counsel of this one and the coaxing of that one, and sent the sycophant crowd away wondering what had happened to turn the most extravagant of court butterflies niggardly. The most bewitching "head," the richest farthingale, won but a passing glance and a word of careless criticism, and when Peggie, almost as dissatisfied as the rejected tradesfolk, remonstrated against such a blind neglect of opportunity, Prue lay back wearily in her chair and dropping her arms loosely at her side, said impatiently: "Cousin, Cousin—I am sick to death of it all!" "All of what?" cried Peggie briskly. "All you have lost for a whole year and won back in less than a week?" "Aye, all that and more; sick of court and courtiers, sick of idle men and vapid women, sick of myself most of all—" Then she sprang to her feet and burst out laughing. "What a fool I am, Peg, and what a fool you look standing there, open-mouthed, drinking in my vaporings as though you never had heard me grumble before! Did you think I was in earnest? Why, I was never so happy in my life. Did not the queen kiss me on the cheek, and the duchess swear to give me whatever I might ask of her; even the first choice of the places she has no longer to dispose of and the royal favors that she can no longer influence? Am I not invited to Windsor as lady-in-waiting on probation and lauded to the skies as a heroine by—" "Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert wishes to know if your ladyship will receive him."