f it's necessary, I'll get up at five, and if I can't find
bits to suit all the stupid old things, I'll--I'll write some myself!
There! Why shouldn't I? I often make up things in my head, and you
wouldn't believe how fine they are. I think of them days afterwards,
and ask myself, `Now where did I read that?' and then it comes back to
me. `Dear me; I made it up myself!' If we get very short, Rob, there
wouldn't be any harm in writing a few sentences and signing them
`Saville,' would there?"

"Not if they were good enough," said Rob, trying to suppress the laugh
which would have hurt Peggy's feelings, and looking with twinkling eyes
at the little figure by his side, so comically unprofessional, with her
lace collar, dainty little feet, and pigtail of dark brown hair.

"You mustn't get up too early in the morning and overtire yourself. I
can't allow that!" he added firmly. "You have looked like a little
white ghost the last few days, and your face is about the size of my
hand. You must get some colour into your cheeks before the holidays, or
that beloved Arthur will think we have been ill-treating you when he
comes down."

Peggy gave a sharp sigh, and relapsed into silence. It was the rarest
thing in the world to hear her allude to any of her own people. When a
letter arrived, and Mrs Asplin asked questions concerning father,
mother, or brother, she answered readily enough, but she never offered
information, or voluntarily carried on the conversation. Friends less
sympathetic might have imagined that she was so happy in her new home
that she had no care beyond it, but no one in the vicarage made that
mistake. When the Indian letter was handed to her across the
breakfast-table, the flush of delight on the pale cheeks brought a
reflected smile to every face, and more than one pair of eyes watched
her tenderly as she sat hugging the precious letter, waiting until the
moment should come when she could rush upstairs and devour its contents
in her own room. Once it had happened that mail day had arrived and
brought no letter, and that had been a melancholy occasion. Mrs Asplin
had looked at one envelope after another, had read the addresses twice,
thrice, even four times over, before she summoned courage to tell of its
absence.

"There is no letter for you to-day, Peggy!" Her voice was full of
commiseration as she spoke, but Peggy sat in silence, her face
stiffened, her head thrown back with an assumption of c