"Robin—!" Prue glanced at Sir Geoffrey, and turned scarlet. Then her eyes danced with mischief. "Tell us all about it, Peggie; Sir Geoffrey may as well enjoy the joke." Margaret hesitated, and would have changed the subject, but Prue, wilful as usual, would not be denied. "’Tis too good to keep," she laughed. "You must know, Sir Geoffrey, that I am desperately in debt; ’tis no secret, though no one but Peggie knows how I have been driven and harried by my creditors. Well, in utter despair, I hit upon a most original way of paying my debts. I decided to be the widow of Robin Freemantle, who is condemned to be hanged next Monday." "The widow of Robin Freemantle!" he exclaimed, with evident mystification. "Pray, how can you be a widow without first being a wife?" "That was the only difficulty," cried Prue, with a mock-serious air, "so I persuaded Peggie to go to Newgate and ask Robin to marry me. Did he consent, Peggie? Did he make terms and demand a bribe, or am I forestalled by some fair Molly of the Minories, and must I pine in the Fleet, or marry good Mr. Aarons?" Sir Geoffrey, who was, perhaps, a little deficient in sense of humor, could not dissemble his perplexity. He had passed the afternoon at the feet of his capricious mistress, or rather under the high heels of her dainty slippers, for she had laughed at his vows and persisted in turning his poetic rhapsodies into coldest prose. Even her joy over the arrival of her trunks and the duchess’ invitations, had not improved matters, for she took little pains to conceal that the prospect of returning to the field of her former triumphs had reawakened a thirst for further conquest, which might prove disastrous, both to his matrimonial views and his rash wager. It was certainly disconcerting to hear his betrothed calmly discussing her possible marriage with this one and that one, while he was racking his brain to devise some means of marrying her without burdening himself with the debts she must needs bring in her little hand. And Sir Geoffrey had already discovered that Prudence was never so likely to be serious, as when she appeared most frivolous. "Miss Moffat has been to Newgate?" he exclaimed, grasping that one fact out of a bewildering array of vague possibilities. "What an extraordinary adventure! And did you really see the miscreant?" "I saw him," replied Peggie, "and for a miscreant, he was really quite inoffensive, and even agreeable;" she smiled furtively, as she thought of the two kisses he had stolen, "and if Prue will choose that way out of her troubles, she may; for he’s ready to marry her to-morrow, if she will provide the priest and the ring." Prue glanced at her suitor, and observing his downcast eyes and the thoughtful frown upon his brow, thought the joke had been carried far enough, even for her perverse humor.