He took her hand and raised it and kissed it--under the mistletoe. There was in his action in doing this something so courtly and respectful, something so much more impressive in its significance than in Charlie Sommers' careless embrace, that Peggy found, herself blushing warmly, felt her cheeks glow and her eyes grow bright as Mr Musgrave very gently released her hand and stood again erect, tall and unsmiling, while he bade her farewell. She felt like one of the gentlewomen of bygone times who smiled down at her from faded frames on the walls and who would have curtsied sedately in response to this respectful salutation. Peggy had an idea that she ought to curtsey: instead she said gaily: "I'm so glad you came. It has been a ripping afternoon, hasn't, it?" Later, in the solitude of her own room, seated in a low chair before the fire, resting between the kinema entertainment of the afternoon, which had been for the young people of the village, and a similar entertainment to be held the same evening for the older inhabitants, her idle hands lying listlessly over the arms of her chair, a mischievous smile playing about her lips, she pictured the scene again, and Mr Musgrave's face, and laughed softly. A pleasing light of satisfaction shone in her eyes, the satisfaction which a woman knows when she realises the sense of her own power. "I believe," she said, half aloud, which, since there was no one present to overhear her, was immaterial, "that John is falling in love with me." The dimple at the corner of her mouth deepened and the laughter in her eyes increased. Peggy was conscious of a feeling of triumph. She liked people to fall in love with her. She experienced a distinct disinclination, however, to fall in love herself. She was a very long way, she believed, from falling in love with fossilised John Musgrave. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. With the New Year--or, rather, in advance of it--Peggy's youngest sister arrived at the Hall. Mrs Chadwick had invited the entire family; but the Midland doctor could not leave her practice, and the children of the married niece had inconveniently developed whooping-cough; so Sophy, the architect, had divided her holiday, spending Christmas with her married sister and coming on to the Hall for the finish of the festivities, which included a dance to be held on New Year's Eve and a round of somewhat dull dinners and similar entertainments wherewith the Chadwicks' guests sought to make a return of hospitality. Sophy hated dinner-parties, but she looked forward with considerable enthusiasm to the coming dance. Mrs Chadwick had provided both nieces with dresses for the occasion, and, in order that these independent young women should not feel unduly indebted, she called these her Christmas gifts.