After dinner it was Rita's custom to take a siesta. She declared that
she required more sleep than most people, and that without eleven hours'
repose she should perish. So while she slept, Margaret and Peggy
arranged flowers, or Peggy would write home, with many sighs of
weariness and distress, while Margaret, sitting near her, snatched a
half-hour for some enchanting book. It sometimes seemed to her more than
she could bear, to be among so many fine books, and to have almost no
time to read. At home, several hours were spent in reading, as a matter
of course; often and often, the long, happy evening would pass without a
word exchanged between her father and herself. Only, when either looked
up from the book, there was always the meeting glance of love and
sympathy, which made the printed page shine golden when the eyes
returned to it. Here, reading was considered a singular waste of time.
Rita read herself to sleep with a novel, but Peggy was entirely frank in
her confession that she should not care if she never saw a book again.
Even the home letters were a grievous task to her, for she never could
think of anything to say. Margaret, deep in the precious pages of
Froissart, it might be, would be roused by a portentous sigh, and
looking up, would find Peggy champing the penhandle, and gazing at her
with lack-lustre eyes.

"What's the matter now, Peg of Limavaddy?"

"I can't--think--of a single thing to say."

"Child! I thought you had so much to tell them this time. Think of that
lovely drive we took yesterday; I thought you were going to tell about
that. Don't you remember the sunset from the top of the long hill, and
how we made believe the clouds were our fairy castles, and each said
what she would do when she got there? Rita was going to organise a
Sunset Dance, with ten thousand fairies in crimson and gold, and you
were going to be met by a hundred thoroughbred horses, all white as
snow, and were going to drive them abreast in a golden chariot; don't
you remember all that? Tell them about the drive!"

"I have told them," said Peggy gloomily. "I couldn't put in all that,
Margaret; it would take all day, and besides, Ma would think I was
crazy."

"Do you mind my seeing what you wrote?--oh, Peggy!"

For Peggy had written this: "We had an elagant ride yesterday."

"What's the matter?" asked Peggy. "Isn't it spelled right?"

"Oh, that isn't it!" said Margaret. "At least, that is the smallest
part. 'Elegant' ha