your work as you never could before!"

"Yes, and it's all your doing, Mariquita. I could not have pulled it
off without your help. If I make anything out of my studies, it will be
your doing too. I'll put it down to you, and thank you for it all my
life."

"H-m! I don't think I deserve so much praise, but I like it. It's very
soothing," said Peggy reflectively. "I'm very happy about it, and I
needed something to make me happy, for I felt as blue as indigo this
morning. We seem to have come to the end of so many things, and I hate
ends. There is this disappointment about Arthur, which spoils all the
old plans, and the break-up of our good times here together. I shall
miss Oswald. He was a dear old dandy, and his ties were quite an
excitement in life; but I simply can't imagine what the house will be
like without you, Rob!"

"I shall be here for some weeks every year, and I'll run down for a day
or two whenever I can. It won't be good-bye."

"I know--I know! but you will never be one of us again, living in the
house, joining in all our jokes. It will be quite a different thing.
And you will grow up so quickly at Oxford, and be a man before we know
where we are."

"So will you--a woman at least. You are fifteen in January. At
seventeen, girls put their hair up and wear long dresses. You will look
older than I do, and give yourself as many airs as if you were fifty. I
know what girls of seventeen are like. I've met lots of them, and they
say, `That boy!' and toss their heads as if they were a dozen years
older than fellows of their own age. I expect you will be as bad as the
rest, but you needn't try to snub me. I won't stand it."

"You won't have a chance, for I shan't be here. As soon as my education
is finished I am going out to India, to stay until father retires and we
come home to settle. So after to-day--"

"After to-day--the deluge! Peggy, I didn't tell you before, but I'm off
to-morrow to stay in town until I go up to Oxford on the fourteenth.
The pater wants to have me with him, so I shan't see you again for some
months. Of course I am glad to be in town for most things, but--"

"Yes, but!" repeated Peggy, and turned a wan little face upon him. "Oh,
Rob, it is changing quickly I never thought it would be so soon as this.
So it is good-bye. No wonder I felt so blue this morning. It is
good-bye for ever to the old life. We shall meet again, oh yes! but it
will be different. Some