n rearranging the fat boy's tie while
the professor cautiously retraced his steps towards her.

A few days later Peggy scrambled her possessions together to prepare for
her visit to the vicarage. Carter, Mrs Saville's maid, had departed to
pay a visit to her relatives in the country, and in her absence her
young mistress complacently folded her dressing-gown on top of muslin
dresses, pressed a jewel-box over a chiffon bodice, and remarked, with a
sigh of satisfaction, that it was a blessing to be able to wait on
oneself, and to be beholden to no outsider; after which she straight-way
left her keys on the dressing-table, and drove off to the station in
blissful unconsciousness. Mellicent was divided between grief at
leaving dear, beautiful, exciting London and anticipation of the
reflected glory with which she would shine at home as the restorer of
Peggy to the household; and in the vicarage itself all was excitement
and expectation, the old cook concocting every dainty she could think of
in a kitchen heated up to furnace-heat; Mr Asplin mowing the lawn in
hot haste, because the daisies _would_ spring up in impertinent fashion
in the hot dry weather; Mrs Asplin flying from one room to another,
patting cushions into shape, and artfully placing little tables over
worn spots on the carpet; and Miss Esther laying out clean towels, and
flicking infinitesimal grains of dust from the chairs and tables. The
sight of disorder was a positive pain to Esther's orderly eyes. It was
reported of her that in the midst of a Latin examination she had begged
to have a blind put straight, since its crooked condition distracted her
mind; and therefore it may be surmised that on the present occasion
Robert Darcy met with no very cordial reception, when he was discovered
stamping about the newly swept rooms in a pair of dusty shoes,
scattering fragments of leaves and stubble behind him.

"Bless the child, it will seem all the more home-like to her if it's not
all spick and span! Don't pick them up, Esther. I like to see them.
It was good of you to come over, Rob, for I'm not myself at all without
a boy in the house, and it does me good to see your dear dirty boots,"
cried Mrs Asplin, and blinked her eyes, trying hard to keep down the
tears which _would_ rise at the thought of Max in his far-off home, and
all the train of mischievous, happy-hearted lads who had been under her
care, and who were now fighting the world for themselves. Ever