But John Musgrave did send the gloves. He drove into Rushleigh himself for the purpose of matching the torn glove in his possession, and, failing to do this, posted it to London, and received a similar pair by return. He posted this pair to Peggy with a brief note of apology, which, when she had read it, Peggy, for some unexplained reason, locked away in a drawer. The note read as follows: "Dear Miss Annersley,-- "You will, I trust, pardon me for having destroyed in a moment of abstraction the glove you dropped in my garden. I believe I have succeeded in matching it, and hope that the pair enclosed will serve as well as that which my awkwardness ruined. I apologise for my carelessness, and the consequent delay in returning your property. "Yours faithfully,-- "John Musgrave." "But he hasn't returned my property," mused Peggy, with the new pair of gloves in one hand and Mr Musgrave's note in the other. "I wonder what he has done with it?" CHAPTER FOURTEEN. With the approach of Christmas Mr Musgrave's quiet home took on the air of an over-populated city. A strange woman in a nurse's uniform swelled the party in the kitchen when she was not in the nursery with the two youngest members of Mrs Sommers' family. She was a young, nice-looking woman, and her presence, though welcomed by the other servants, was bitterly resented by Eliza. In Mrs Sommers' nurse Eliza beheld a rival, though where rivalry came in in a field that admitted no competition it were difficult to say. When Eliza had condescended to fill the position of housemaid in a bachelor establishment she had not allowed for this objectionable practice of family gathering. Clearly Mr Musgrave should spend Christmas in his sister's home and not introduce an entire family into his house to the inconvenience of his servants. It was very inconsiderate.