t, Peg! For the credit of the family, your pupil shall not be
allowed to fall back into her old ways. I'll do my duty towards her."

"Mind you do!" cried Peggy, and flopped down on her seat with a soft
explosion of laughter. "Ha! ha!" she cried aloud. "Ha! ha!" and
flourished her magazine in triumph.

The next moment she became aware that an old lady seated in the opposite
corner was regarding her with glances of apprehension, and stealthily
fumbling for her umbrella as a possible means of defence.

"She thinks I am mad!" quoth Miss Peggy to herself, "How truly
gratifying! I must foster the delusion." She turned her magazine
ostentatiously upside down, smiled vacantly at the pictures, and
feigning to fall asleep, watched beneath her eyelashes the compassionate
glances with which she was regarded, shaking the while with inward
laughter!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

A week after her return to Yew Hedge, Peggy was on her way to tea at the
vicarage, when she was joined by Rob Darcy, who jumped over a wall at
her approach, and exhibited an extraordinary amount of surprise at
seeing her, considering how long he had been on the outlook for just
such an event.

"Where are you going, my pretty maid?" he demanded, "and--"

"I'm going to the vicarage, sir," she said promptly, with an
accompaniment of old-fashioned curtsey which brought the twinkle into
Rob's eyes.

However solemn he might be, he never could resist a smile at Peggy's
saucy ways, and to-day indeed he did not appear solemn at all, but
unusually beaming and radiant.

"Then I'll go with you, my pretty maid, for I've been asked too, in a
breathless note from Mellicent, with neither beginning nor ending, nor
comma nor full stop. If any one else had written in such a state of
agitation, I should have thought something thrilling had occurred, but
Mellicent is guaranteed to go off her head on the slightest provocation.
Probably it is nothing more exciting than a cake or a teacloth which is
to be used for the first time. She said that I _must_ come, whatever
happened, for it was dreadfully important, but I have really not thought
much about what it could be, for I am accustomed to receiving violent
summonses which mean nothing at all. The first time I ran nearly half
the way, and arrived with a purple face and such a stitch in my side as
nearly finished my mortal career, and she said: `Oh, have you come? I
didn't think you would. I want to show you my new h