downstairs. I don’t know how you can do it. I’m nervous enough about finding fault with the servants at home, but with a stranger! A man! I could never summon up courage to find fault, no matter what mistakes he made. And you are so cool about it!”

“My dear, I’m used to it. Consider the position I have had to fill these last three years in Indiah!” drawled Miss Peggy, and leant her head against the cushions of her chair with an exhausted air, which seemed to imply that she had come straight from the duties of Government House itself. Then suddenly she straightened herself, and attacked the teapot.

“I forget if you take sugar in your tea. So few people do nowadays. And cream? It’s rather strong, I’m afraid. Be sure to tell me if it’s exactly as you like.”

“Thank you!” murmured Mellicent faintly. She put the cup down on a table close at hand, and fumbled nervously with her gloves.

“P–Peggy!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Peg-gy!”

“Yes, Mellicent, what is it?”

“Oh, Peggy, I feel—I feel so uncomfortable! It’s all so strange and different from what I expected. I thought I should feel at home the moment I saw you—but I don’t, not a bit. You look so grown-up and proper, and your dress is so grand, and you have done your hair like the people in the fashion-books, and I never can make out how on earth they twist it in and out... We are the same age, but you seem ever so much older, and I don’t feel that it is you at all.”

“The inference is, that I never was proper, nor tidy, nor well-dressed in the old days! Not very complimentary to me, I must say,” began Peggy lightly, and then caught sight of a tear-drop glittering on Mellicent’s eyelashes, which sobered her very quickly. Crying? No, surely not; yet tears were there, undeniable tears, filling the blue eyes, and rolling slowly down over the pink cheeks. Peggy dropped down on her knees, and clasped her hands round the plump blue waist.

“Why, Mill, what is it? What grieves you, dear? What have I done, or said, or looked—horrid thing that I am!—to vex you within ten minutes of your arrival? I never, never meant it!”

“You haven’t done anything! It’s my own fault. 

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