"Yes, dear, I know you will! I know you will!" he said, answering the unspoken promise, and looking down at her with one of his sweet, kindly smiles. "It will be a comfort to my wife as well as myself. She is very nervous about you. She was upstairs three times in the night to satisfy herself that you were well after your fright, and is too tired herself to come downstairs this morning. She is always bright and cheery, but she is not very strong. You would be sorry to make her ill."
No answer, only another grip of the hand, and a sudden straightening of the lips as if they were pressed together to avoid an involuntary trembling. There is something especially touching in the sight of restrained emotion, and as the Vicar thought of his own two daughters, his heart was very tender over the girl whose parents were separated from her by six thousand miles of land and sea.
"Well, now, dear, I have said my say and that is an end of it. I don't like finding fault, but my dear wife has thrown that duty on my shoulders by being too tender-hearted to say a word of blame even when it is needed. Her method works very well, as a rule, but there are occasions when it would be criminal to withhold a just reprimand." The Vicar stopped short and a spasm of laughter crossed his face. Peggy's fingers had twitched within his own as he spoke those last two words, and her eyes had dilated with interest. He knew as well as if he had been told that she was gloating over the new expression, and mentally noting it for future use. Nothing, however, could have been sweeter or more natural than the manner in which she sidled against him, and murmured—
"Thank you so much. I am sorry! I will truly try," and he watched her out of the room with a smile of tender amusement.
"A nice child—a good child—feels deeply. I can rely upon her to do her best."
Robert was hanging about in the passage, ready, as usual, to fulfil his vows of support, and Peggy slid her hand through his arm and sauntered slowly with him towards the schoolroom. Like the two girls, he had been at no loss to understand the reason of the call to the study, and would fain have expressed his sympathy, but Peggy stopped him with uplifted finger.
"No, no—he was perfectly right. You must not blame him. I have been guilty of reprehensible carelessness, and merited a reprimand!"
(To be continued.)
