red from head to foot, while her face grew pink, and
the tears rose in her eyes, and streamed unheeded down her cheeks. The
sight of her, dumb, shaking, weeping--roused the other girls to
uncontrollable mirth, and the louder they laughed, the more did Eunice
weep; the more violently did they gesticulate and prance about the room,
the closer did she hug her bedpost, the more motionless she appeared.

To be forced into laughter, real, honest, uncontrollable laughter, as
opposed to the forced guffaw of society, seemed a new experience to this
only child of busy and pre-occupied parents; and it needed only Arthur's
assurance that he had never seen the girl so bright and animated to put
the final touch to Peggy's growing liking.

On the present occasion Eunice and her mother had come to tea at the
hotel, and as Rosalind and Hector were also expected within the next
half-hour, it was quite necessary that Peggy should get her eyes in
order without delay. She was not in a mood to give a cordial welcome to
the destroyer of her brother's happiness, and, despite her efforts to
the contrary, there was a chill in her manner which Rosalind was quick
to note. It worried her, as it had worried her in the old girlish days
when Peggy Saville had refused to pay the homage which she expected from
her companions, and now, as then, she put forth all her fascinations in
order to subdue the unruly spirit. The princess in the fairy-tale
seemed again the only creature to whom to compare her as she sat
enthroned on the sofa, her lovely face alight with smiles and dimples.
Eunice Rollo looked like a little grey mouse beside her, the very colour
seeming to be absorbed from her face by the brilliancy of the contrast,
while bonnie Mellicent appeared of a sudden awkward and blousy.

"Rosalind makes every one else look a fright, the moment she comes into
a room. I shudder to think of the guy I must appear. Poor dear Arthur!
I don't wonder at his devotion. She is so lovely that she fascinates
one in spite of oneself!" sighed Peggy, trying to harden herself against
the glances of the sweet caressing eyes, and feeling her heart softening
with every moment that passed.

All her thoughts were centred on Rosalind and Arthur, and she presided
over the tea-tray with a sublime absence of mind which afforded Hector
Darcy much amusement. His own cup was filled last of all, and seating
himself beside her he gravely extracted from it six separate lumps of