as to which of the local talent must be invited to contribute, and which may be, without giving too much offence, left out; but the larger part has been spent in a confederate consultation as to how best to prevent Mrs. Evans from singing 'Love, the Pilgrim.'
The matter is arranged at last; and Peggy puts on her hat and gloves again to depart. As she repasses the nursery door she finds that an entire change of decoration has taken place. Instead of the young cynic defiantly buttoning her boots in the teeth of the law, she sees a little pious figure in a white nightgown, kneeling by its nurse's side. The instant, however, that the saintly little form catches sight of her it is up on its bare legs, and rushing towards her.
'Oh, Miss Lambton, do let me say my prayers to you! it would be so pleasant! – No, Franky,' with a disposition to hustle her little brother, who is putting in a like claim; 'you are too little; you can say yours to Nanny!'
As she speaks she pulls Peggy by the gown into the room; and, placing her in a chair, kneels down at once – so that there may be no chance of her escaping – beside her, with hands devoutly folded, but a somewhat roving eye.
'Which shall I say?' asks she, with a wriggle of the back and an air of indifference: '"Our Father" or "Gentle Jesus"?'
'Say whichever you please,' replies Margaret gently; 'only attend and make up your mind which.'
'Oh, then,' with another wriggle, 'I will say "Gentle Jesus."'
After a pause:
'Do you think that there would be any harm in my praying for John Talbot?'
Margaret gives a little jump. It is, then, an hereditary passion! But she answers drily:
'Not the least.'
Another pause. The wriggling has ceased.
'Only,' pursues Peggy, quite determined not to supply the form of petition for Talbot's welfare, 'only you must say it out of your own head. I am not going to tell you what to say.'
'Oh, then,' with an air of resolution, 'I had better say, "God bless John Talbot; and I am glad he is here."'
She has pronounced this last somewhat eccentrically-worded supplication rather loud, and at the end of it her wandering eye takes in an object which makes her spring from her knees as hastily as she had done before.
'Oh! there is John Talbot!' cries she, tearing out barefoot into the passage, and flinging herself into his arms.
'I have been praying for you!' cries she, hugging him. 'Miss Lambton said that I might.'
At this unexpected colouring given to her reluctant permission Peggy reddens.
'I said that there was no harm in it,' explains Peggy hurriedly; 'there is no harm in praying for any one.'
'And the more they need it the greater charity it is,' replies he, looking at her with so sad and deprecating a humility that her anger against him melts.
CHAPTER IX
'God Almighty first planted a Garden. And indeed it is the Purest of Humane pleasures. It is the Greatest Refreshment to the Spirit of Man; Without which Buildings and Pallaces are but Grosse Handy-works: And man shall ever see that when Ages grow to Civility and Elegancie they come to Build Stately, sooner than to Garden Finely: as if Gardening were the Greater Perfection.'
I do not know whether Peggy had ever read Bacon, but she certainly endorsed his opinion.
'The garden is the only really satisfactory thing,' she says to herself, three days after that on which she had conducted Miss Harborough's devotions, as she stands beside her carnation-bed, and notes how many fat buds have, during the night, broken into pale sulphur and striped and blood-red flowers.
To few of us, I think, has not at one time or other of our lives the doubt presented itself, whether the people we love are not a source of more pain than pleasure to us, what with their misfortunes, their ill-doings, and their deaths. But despite frost, and snail, and fly, and drought, and flood, the joy in a garden must always enormously exceed the pain. The frost may shrivel the young leaves, but the first sun-kiss brings out green successors; the drought may make the tender herbs bow and droop, but at the next warm rain-patter they look up again. The frost that nips our human hearts often no after-sunbeam can uncongeal; and the rain falls too late to revive the flower that the world's cruel drought has killed.
'Did you find out how soon they are going?' asks Prue breathlessly, running down the road to meet her sister on her return from the Manor, in her eagerness to get her tidings.
It has been the one thought that has filled her mind during the three hours of Margaret's absence. Peggy shakes her head despondently.
'Milady did not know.'
'I suppose that they had gone out riding before you got there.'
This is not a question, so Margaret thinks herself exempted from the necessity of answering it.
'Had they gone out riding before you got there?' repeats Prue, with feverish pertinacity.
It is a question now, so she must make some reply. She only shakes her head.
'Then you saw them set off?' – very eagerly. 'How did she look? beautiful, I am sure!'
'I did not see them.'
It is a moment before the younger girl takes in what the last sentence implies; then she says in a changed low key:
'You mean to say that they did not go out riding at all?'
'No,' replies Peggy, softly putting her arm round her sister's shoulders, as if she would ward off the imminent trouble from her by that kind and tender gesture; 'they did not go out riding at all; they sat in the park together instead.'
There is a short silence.
'Then he threw me over for nothing?' says Prue, in a choked whisper.
'Yes,' in a whisper too.
Prue has snatched herself out of Peggy's arms, and drawn up her small willowy figure.
'He shall not have the chance of playing fast and loose with me again in a hurry,' she says, her poor face burning.
Alas! he would have the chance next day, if he chose to take it; but he does not even take the trouble to do that. Two whole days pass, and nothing is either seen or heard of him. And through these two long days Prue, with flagging appetite and fled sleep, rejecting occupation, starting at the sound of the door-bell, watches for him; and Peggy watches too, and starts, and is miserable for company.
During those weary two days Prue's mood changes a hundred times, varying from pitiful attempts at a dignified renunciation of him, always ending in a deluge of tears, to agonised efforts at finding excuses for his neglect, and irritation at her sister for not being able to say that she thinks them sufficing ones.
'He is so hospitable,' she says wistfully, as the sun sets upon the second empty day; 'he has almost exaggerated ideas of what he owes to his guests. And after all, there is no one else to entertain them. Milady does not trouble her head about them; he has such good manners; he is so courteous! Come now, prejudiced as you always are against him, you yourself have often said, "How courteous he is!"' Then, as Peggy makes but a faint and dubious sign of acquiescence, she adds irritably: 'Whether you own it or
