ontemplation of the garden.

"Do you know what I'd do if I was his wife?" she asked. "Well, I'd make
it so jolly nice for him here at home that he'd never want to go out to
his other friends and their wives. I'd let him see that I could
entertain every bit as properly as they can. I'd...."

"You've changed, haven't you?" Faith said bitterly. "It's only two
months ago that you were calling him every name you could think of, and
telling me that I was a fool to have married him."

"I know I was," Peg admitted calmly, though she flushed. "And I think
p'raps I was the fool, after all."

She turned again suddenly.

"Faith, why do you call him the 'Beggar Man'? You've done it once or
twice lately."

"Have I?" Faith did not raise her eyes. "Well, he really gave himself
the name," she explained reluctantly. "It was--was the first time I met
him--he asked if I'd got any people, and I said yes--I told him
about--about mother and the twins...." She caught her breath with a long
sigh. What years and years ago now it all seemed! "And he said
that--that I was richer than he, because I'd got people to love me, and
that he'd got only money. He said that I was Queen ... Queen somebody or
other, and he was the Beggar Man. It was a fairy story or something, I
think--he said he'd tell me about it some day ... but he hasn't."

She looked past Peg to the silent garden. It hurt somehow to speak of
that day so long ago now, and remember how different Forrester had
seemed then to what he did now. Did she seem different to him, too? she
wondered.

"I've read the story," Peg said triumphantly. "It was King Cophetua and
the Beggar Maid. He married her and made her his queen, and took her to
share his golden throne with him, and all the courtiers came and knelt
before her and kissed her hand." She was off again, lost in the realms
of her romantic, novel-fed soul.

Faith gave a curt little laugh.

"Well, nobody has knelt before me and kissed my hand, if that's what you
mean," she said.

Peg stared at her.

"I know somebody who'd like to kiss you--if you'd let him," she said
shrewdly. "And----" She broke off as the maid knocked at the door.

"There's a gentleman for the master, please, ma'am--a Mr. Digby," she
said to Faith. "He's come a long way to see him he says, and that if he
might wait he'd be glad, as it's very important." She hesitated. She
knew how shy Faith was, and how as a rule she avoided seeing anybody.
"He asked if I th