t week after week. They say there were so many competitors; but
that's no consolation, for it makes our chance less. I do hope it may
be out next week. But, at any rate, I didn't get my ten pounds in time,
and there I was, you see, with little money and practically no hands--
a--er--a most painful contingency, which I hope it may never be your lot
to experience. You must take the will for the deed."

"Oh, I will!" agreed Arthur promptly. "I'll take the will now, and you
can follow up with the deed as soon as you get the cash. But no more
journeys up to London, my dear, if you love me, and don't use such big
words before seven o'clock in the morning, or you'll choke. It's bad
for little girls to exert themselves so much. Now I'm going to skate
about in the bath for a bit, and tumble into my clothes, and then I'll
come back and give you a lift downstairs. You are coming down for
breakfast, I suppose?"

"Rather! On Christmas morning! I should just think I was!" cried Peggy
emphatically; and Arthur went off to the bathroom, calling in at Max's
room _en route_, to squeeze a sponge full of water over that young
gentleman's head, and pull the clothes off the bed, by way of giving
emphasis to his, "Get up, you lazy beggar! It's the day after
to-morrow, and the plum-pudding is waiting!"

Peggy was the only one of the young folks who did not go to church that
morning; but she was left in charge of the decorations for the
dinner-table, and when this was finished there was so much to think
about that the time passed all too quickly.

Last year she and Arthur had spent Christmas with their mother; now both
parents were away in India, and everything was strange and altered. As
Peggy sat gazing into the heart of the big gloomy fire, it seemed to her
that the year that was passing away would end a complete epoch in her
brother's experiences and her own, and that from this hour a new chapter
would begin. She herself had come back from the door of death, and had
life given, as it were, afresh into her hands. Arthur's longed-for
career had been checked at its commencement, and all his plans laid
waste. Even the life in the vicarage would henceforth take new
conditions, for Rob and Oswald would go up to Oxford at the beginning of
the term, and their place be filled by new pupils. There was something
solemnising in the consciousness of change which filled the air. One
could never tell what might be the next development.