dition of misery by their mutual bickerings.
So far from labouring under the impression that any manners were good
enough for the members of their own family, the Saville trio were even
more punctiliously courteous to each other than to strangers, and that
despite the fact that parents and child were on terms of much greater
intimacy than is usual in such relationships.

Peggy's pride in her father was beautiful to behold, and in the presence
of strangers she paid him a respect so profound that those same
strangers would have been vastly surprised if they could have seen her
rumpling his hair in private, and tying his moustache in a neat little
festoon round his nose, while mother and daughter never seemed to
outgrow the joy of being together again after the years of separation.

"Oh, my Peg, what should I do without you?" Mrs Saville would cry on
those too frequent occasions when a recurrence of the weary Indian fever
came upon her, and Peggy nursed and comforted her as no hired attendant
could ever do. "Oh, my Peg, what should I do without you? What _shall_
I do, when you leave me to fly away to a home of your own? You have
spoiled me so much during these last years that I don't know what will
become of me without you, darling."

"I shall never marry, dear," returned Peggy comfortably. "I'll stay at
home like a good little girl, and wheel my mammie in a Bath chair.
Marriage is a luxury which is forbidden to an only daughter. Her place
is to stay at home and look after her parents!" But at this Mrs
Saville looked alarmed, and shook her head in emphatic protest.

"No, no--that's a wrong idea! I want you to marry, dear, when the right
time comes. I have been too happy myself to wish to keep you single.
Marriage is the best thing that can happen to a woman, if her husband is
as good and kind and noble as your father. I'm not selfish enough to
spoil your life for my own benefit, Peggy; but when the times comes,
remember I shall be very, very particular about the man you choose."

"Where, and how, shall I earliest meet him?
What are the words that he first will say?"

chanted Peggy, with so disastrous an attempt at the correct tune that
Mrs Saville shook with laughter, despite the pain in her head, and
Hector Darcy, entering the room, demanded to know the nature of the
joke.

"I was singing a little ditty, and mother derided me, as usual. People
always laugh when I sing, and declare that the tune is wr