"Come, there are worse ways of being buried than that," cried Peggie, brightening up. "A fig for Sir Geoffrey's croaking, if there be nothing else to fear. Now tell me where you have been all the evening; with the duchess, of course, as she brought you home?"
"Not all the time. First I found the necklace. Then I took it to the duchess and together we returned it to the queen. And now, Peggie, bring down your eyebrows out of your hair and don't open your mouth wide enough to engulf me, and I'll tell you everything that has happened to me, if you will undress me, for I am too tired to move a finger."
Peggie most gladly set to work and had her cousin unlaced and unpinned and comfortably tucked in bed, long before the history of the evening's events had been expounded. From her, Prue hid nothing; in fact she was craving to pour her confidence into that kindly ear and receive such ungrudging sympathy and shrewd advice as the circumstances prompted.
When Peggie had exhausted the vocabulary of astonishment, admiration, congratulation and anticipation—had shuddered at Prue's danger, laughed at her wily devices, marveled incredulously at her passionate avowal of love, and rejected all possibility of fear for Robin's safety, she withdrew reluctantly, declaring that she should not close an eye that night—and was fast asleep almost before her head reached the pillow.
Prue was less fortunate, and for an hour or two tossed and turned, vainly trying every soothing device to calm her racked nerves and woo repose.
While Peggie the optimistic was beside her, Robin's escape appeared more than probable; she could almost persuade herself that it was an accomplished fact. But it looked less certain, now her blood ran cool, and her high spirit flagged in the darkness and silence of night. Her faith in his courage and resource could not entirely resist the paralyzing touch of fear, and even her confidence in the value of the pledge she had extracted from the duchess was shaken by the unmistakable coolness of the queen, who had listened in silence to the explanations of her former favorite and reserved all her praises and expressions of satisfaction for Prue, to whom she had been cordiality itself.
Toward morning she slept so long and heavily, that Peggie came and went a dozen times before the long lashes lifted and the sweet blue eyes smiled drowsily up at her. And even when she woke she was loath to rise, and fain to rest more than once during the tedious process of her toilet, interrupted as it was by an obsequious procession of mercers and modistes, eager to make their peace with the restored favorite by the most pressing and disinterested services.
But a curious change had come over the wilful beauty, and instead of throwing herself heart and soul into the entrancing discussions of hoops and pouffes, sarsenet and tabbinet, plumes and perfumes, she declined the counsel of this one and the coaxing of that one, and sent the sycophant crowd away wondering what had happened to turn the most extravagant of court butterflies niggardly. The most bewitching "head," the richest farthingale, won but a passing glance and a word of careless criticism, and when Peggie, almost as dissatisfied as the rejected tradesfolk, remonstrated against such a blind neglect of opportunity, Prue lay back wearily in her chair and dropping her arms loosely at her side, said impatiently:
"Cousin, Cousin—I am sick to death of it all!"
"All of what?" cried Peggie briskly. "All you have lost for a whole year and won back in less than a week?"