John feels a dull red rising to his brow; but he will not let his eyes sink: they meet Peggy's full and straight. She shall see that this time, at all events, he has been neither ashamed nor afraid to proclaim his visit to her.

Peggy has gently unclasped the child's arms from about her neck.

'What a dear little doggy!' cries Lily, chattering on, and deceived by Mink's manner, as all strangers are, into the belief that he has conceived a peculiar fancy for her. 'What is his name?'

'Mink.'

'And what kind of dog is he?'

'That is what no one—not even himself—has ever been able to make out,' returns Margaret, with a smile. 'Sometimes he thinks that he is a Yorkshire terrier, and sometimes he does not. I bought him at the Dogs' Home, because he was the most miserable little dog there, and because I was quite certain that if I did not, nobody else would. He has grown so uppish now that sometimes I have to remind him of his origin—have not I, Minky?'

'Mammy had a Yorkshire terrier once,' says Miss Harborough thoughtfully—'John Talbot gave it her—but he died. She had him stuffed: he looks horrid now!'

Talbot writhes. It seems to him as if he had never before tasted the full degradation of his position. He makes a clumsy plunge at changing the conversation by inquiring after Prue.

'She is lying down,' replies Peggy, while he sees a furrow come upon her white forehead. 'The heat tries her; at least'—her eye meeting his with a sort of appeal—'she is very easily tired; and she has been waiting all afternoon with her habit on. She was engaged to go out riding at three, and now it is five; people ought not to make engagements if they are not prepared to keep them!'

'I am afraid he had forgotten all about it,' answers Talbot sadly.