ascribe a great part of the change to your beneficial influence.”

Peggy’s cheeks flushed with pleasure, for she had by no means outgrown her childish love of a compliment; but she shrugged her shoulders, and replied in a tone of would-be indifference:

“Plus the wholesome discipline of having her hair cut short. Poor Rosalind! Never shall I forget her confiding to me that she was ‘wesigned to becoming a hideous fwight,’ while all the time she was admiring her profile in the mirror and arranging her curls to hide the scar. We had been on very distant terms before that accident; but when we were both convalescent we took courage, and spoke faithfully to one another on the subject of our several failings. I told Rosalind, in effect, that she was a conceited doll, and she replied that I was a consequential minx. It cleared the air so much that we exchanged vows of undying friendship, which have been kept to the extent of some half-a-dozen letters a year. I know much more about Rosalind than I do about Rob. Please tell me all you can about Rob!”

“Oh, Rob, you know, was always a boor,” said Rob’s brother lightly, “and, upon my word, he is a boor still! He did remarkably well at Oxford, as no doubt you heard, and then went travelling about for a couple of years through a number of uncomfortable and insanitary lands. He has always been a great gardener and naturalist, and he brought home some new varieties of shrubs and flowers, out of which he makes a fair amount of money. His principal craze, however, as I understand it, was to add to his knowledge on the engrossing subject of Beetles. He has written some papers on them since his return, and they tell me he has made his mark, and will soon be considered a leading authority. I must say, however, that the whole thing seems to me of supreme unimportance. What on earth can it matter whether there are ten varieties of beetles or ten thousand? Rob is just the sort of hard-headed, determined fellow who could have made himself felt in whatever rôle he had taken up, and it seems hard luck that he should have chosen one so extremely dull and unremunerative.” Hector leant his head against the wall with an air of patronising disgust, for his own profession being one of avowed readiness to kill as many as possible of his fellow-creatures, he felt a natural impatience with a man who trifled away his time in the study of animal nature. He sighed, and turned to his companion in an appeal for sympathy. “Hard lines, isn’t it, when a fellow has society practically at his feet, that he should run off the lines like that?”

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