She and Faith were like a couple of children getting the house in order; Peg had not much taste, and she adored bright colours. She would have had a rainbow drawing-room if it had been left for her to decide, but Faith was determined to be mistress in her own house as far as its arrangement went, and on that subject she and her husband were for once agreed.
It was rather a charming house, with a long garden, shut in by a high wall, and the first night they were established there Faith found Peg leaning out of her bedroom window, which overlooked it, her elbows resting on the stone sill, and a look of gloomy despondency in her handsome eyes.
Faith slipped an arm round her.
"What's the matter, Peg?" she asked. She was very fond of Peg and quick to recognize her varying moods. Peg answered gruffly, without her usual cheeriness.
"I'm fed up! I don't belong here! What right have I got to be in a house like this, and sleeping in a room like this?"
She turned round sharply, her blue eyes taking in every detail of the expensively furnished room behind them.
She had chosen its wallpaper herself, which was too bright, and a mass of extraordinary looking birds. She had chosen the carpet, too, which was a curious mixture of greens and yellows, with a satin quilt on the bed to match.
The furniture was white enamel, and both the big chairs in the room had a brilliant cushion of peacock green.
"It looks—uncommon," so Faith had said slowly, when she was first introduced to the finished result, but neither she nor the Beggar Man really liked it, as Peg had been quick to perceive.
"At any rate, I've got to sleep in it, and nobody else," she said in defiance.