Peggy was on the stone landing almost as soon as she emerged from the coach,--eager to peep inside, anxious to sit at last in her own home. Although she had already seen all that there was to see, and had spent many days previous to the marriage in arranging and planning the interior so as to have all in readiness for their return on this day, still she seemed to manifest a newer and a livelier joy, so pleasant and so perfect did all appeal. "Oh, General! Isn't this just delicious?" And she threw her arms around his neck to give him a generous hug. "Are you happy now?" he questioned. "Perfectly. Come let us sit and enjoy it." She went to the big chair and began to rock energetically; but only for a minute, for she spied in the corner of the room the great sofa, and with a sudden movement threw herself on that. She was like a small boy with a host of toys about him, anxious to play with all at the same time, and trying to give to each the same undivided attention. The massive candelabra on the table attracted her, so she turned her attention to that, fixing one of its candles as she neared it. Finally, a small water color of her father, which hung on the wall a little to one side, appealed to her as needing adjustment. She paused to regard the profile as she straightened it. The General observed her from the large chair into which he had flung himself to rest after the journey, following her with his eyes as she flitted about the great drawing-room. For the moment there was no object in that space to determine the angle of his vision, save Peggy, no other objective reality to convey any trace of an image to his imagination but that of his wife. She was the center, the sum-total of all his thoughts, the vivid and appreciable good that regulated his emotions, that controlled his impulses. And the confident assurance that she was happy, reflected from her very countenance, emphasized by her every gesture as she hurried here and there about the room in joyous contemplation of the divers objects that delighted her fancy, reanimated him with a rapture of ecstasy which he thought for the moment impossible to corporeal beings. The mere pleasure of beholding her supremely happy was for him a source of whole-souled bliss, illimitable and ineffable. "Would you care to dine now?" she asked of him as she approached his chair and leaned for support on its arms. "I'll ask Cynthia to make ready." "Yes, if you will. That last stage of the trip was exhausting." And so these two with all the world in their possession, in each other's company, partook of their first meal together in their own dining-room, in their own private home. II "'Thou hast it now,--king, Cawdor, Glamis, all----'" remarked Arnold to his wife as they made their way from the dining-room into the spacious hallway that ran through the house. "Yet it was not foully played," replied Peggy. "The tourney was fair." "I had thought of losing you."