'Come and sit on the settle by me,' cries Prue restlessly; 'we can talk more comfortably so, and I can rest my head on your shoulder. It is such a nice roomy shoulder.'

'Yes, darling—yes.'

There is a pause. The moon looks in from the garden. A startle-de-buzz booms by on the wings of the night, and once an elfin bat sweeps past on the congenial dusk.

The night is in Margaret's soul too, and not such a bland white night as that spread outside for elves to dance in.

'I am going to say such a silly thing,' says Prue presently, heralding her speech by a fictitious laugh. 'If it were not rather dark, I do not think that I should dare to say anything so foolish. I am going to ask you such a stupid question; I am sure you will not consider it worth answering. Do you think it possible—ha! ha! I really am idiotic to-night—that he might ever—not now, of course—if you had seen how distressed, how heart-broken he was to-day at my crying, you would not have thought there was much danger of its happening now—but,' her speech growing slow, and halting with quick feverish breaths between, 'do you think it is just possible that sometime—many years hence—twenty—thirty—he—might grow—a little—tired of me? There! there!' her utterance waxing rapid and eager again; 'do not answer! Of course, I do not mean you to answer!'

Peggy is thankful for the permission to be silent thus accorded to her; but she does not long profit by it.

'I think I had rather that you did answer, too,' says Prue, with a quick uneasy change of mind. 'It seems senseless to ask questions and get no answer to them; and, after all, there can be but one answer to mine.'

Peggy shivers. There can indeed be but one answer; but how dare she give it?

'Why do not you speak?' cries Prue, growing restless under her sister's silence. 'Did not you hear me say that I should like you to answer me after all? I believe you are asleep!'

'How can I answer, dear?' replies Peggy sadly. 'I have so little acquaintance with men and their ways; and I am not sure,' with a small bitter laugh, 'that what I do know of them is very much to their credit.'