"Go straight upstairs and take a dose of ammoniated quinine. Turn on the fire in your room. Max! Robert! Oswald! Esther! Mellicent! will everyone please look after Peggy in the future, and see that she does not run out in her slippers!" cried Mrs. Asplin in a despairing voice, and Peggy bolted out of the door in haste, to escape before more reproaches could be hurled at her head.
But an alarm of a more serious nature than a threatened cold was to take place before the evening was over. The young people answered briefly, Mrs. Asplin turned back to her book, and silence settled down upon the occupants of the drawing-room. It was half-past eight, the servants had carried away the dinner things, and were enjoying their evening's rest in the kitchen. The Vicar was nodding in his easy-chair, the house was so quiet that the tick of the old grandfather clock in the hall could be heard through the half-opened door. Then suddenly came the sound of flying footsteps, the door burst open, and in rushed Peggy once more, but such a Peggy, such an apparition of fear, suffering, and terror as brought a cry of consternation from every lip. Her eyes were starting from her head, her face was contorted in spasmodic gaspings for breath, her arms sawed the air like the sails of a windmill, and she flew round and round the room in a wild, unheeding rush.
"Peggy, my child! my child! what is the matter? Oh, Austin—oh! What shall we do?" cried Mrs. Asplin, trying to catch hold of the flying arms, only to be waved off with frenzied energy. Mellicent dissolved into tears and retreated behind the sofa, under the impression that Peggy had suddenly taken leave of her senses, and practical Esther rushed upstairs to search for a clue to the mystery among the medicine bottles on Peggy's table. She was absent only for a few minutes; but it seemed like an hour to the watchers, for Peggy's face grew more and more agonised, she seemed on the verge of suffocation, and could neither speak, nor endure anyone to approach within yards of her mad career. Presently, however, she began to falter, to draw her breath in longer gasps, and as she did so there emerged from her lips a series of loud whooping sounds, like the crowing of a cock, or the noise made by a child in the convulsions of whooping-cough. The air was making its way to the lungs after the temporary stoppage, and the result would have been comical if any of the hearers had been in a mood for jesting, which, in good truth, they were not.
"Thank heaven! She will be better now. Open the window and leave her alone. Don't try to make her speak. What in the world has the child been doing?" cried the Vicar wonderingly; and at that moment Esther entered, bearing in her hand the explanation of the mystery—a bottle labelled "Spirits of Ammonia," and a tumbler about an eighth full of a white milky-looking fluid.
"They were in the front of the table. The other things had not been moved. I believe she has never looked at the labels, but seized the first bottle that came to her hand—this dreadfully strong ammonia which you gave her for the gnat bites when she just came."
A groan of assent came from the sofa on which Peggy lay, choking no longer, but ghastly white, and drawing her breath in painful gasps. Mrs. Asplin sniffed at the contents of the tumbler, only to jerk back her head with watery eyes and reddened lids.
"No wonder that the child was nearly choked! The marvel is that she had ever regained her breath after such a mistake. Her throat must be raw!" She hurried out of the room to concoct a soothing draught, at which Peggy supped at intervals during the evening, croaking out a hoarse, "Better, thank you!" in reply to inquiries, and looking so small and pathetic in her nest of cushions that the hearts of the beholders softened at the sight. Before bedtime, however, she revived considerably, and her elastic spirits coming to her aid, entertained the listeners with a husky but dramatic account of her proceedings. How she had not troubled to turn the gas full up, and had just seized the bottle, tilted some of the contents into a tumbler in which there was a small portion of water, without troubling to measure it out, and gulped it down without delay. Her description of the feelings which ensued was a really clever piece of word painting, but behind the pretence of horror at her own carelessness, there rang a hardly-concealed note of pride, as though, in thus risking her life, she had done something quite clever and distinguished.
Mrs. Asplin exhausted herself in "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of sympathy, and had nothing harsher to say than—
"Well, now, dearie, you'll be more careful another time, won't you?" But the Vicar's long face grew longer than ever as he listened, and the lines deepened in his forehead. Peggy was inexperienced in danger signals, but Esther and Mellicent recognised the well-known signs, and were at no loss to understand the meaning of that quiet "A word with you in the study, Mariquita, if you please!" with which he rose from the breakfast-table next morning.
Peggy's throat was still sore, and she fondly imagined that anxiety on its behalf was the cause of the summons, but she was speedily undeceived, for the Vicar motioned towards a chair, and said, in short grave sentences, as his manner was when annoyed—