it for
that moment. Colonel and Mrs Saville were talking contentedly
together, Arthur was engrossed with Eunice, Rob--ah, where was Rob? Had
he made up his mind never to enter Yew Hedge again? Peggy turned her
conversational gift to account, and led the subject so subtly in the way
she would have it go, that presently Hector found himself explaining the
cause of his brother's absence, believing that that explanation was
entirely of his own offering.

"Rob is busy writing a paper for some magazine or review, and can think
of nothing else. You know what he is when he once gets mounted on his
hobby! He would have thought it a terrible waste of time to have left
his papers to come out to dinner."

Well, well, the time had been when Rob would not have thought it waste
of time to spend an evening with his friend; when not even an article
for a review would have prevented him from witnessing the completion of
an enterprise in which his partner was interested.

It was a very woe-begone Peggy who crept into bed that evening. Her
arms were stiff and sore from their long pressure, there were the deep
red marks on her shoulders where the seams had pressed into the flesh,
but the ache in her heart was worse to bear than either one or the
other. She burrowed her little brown head into the pillow, and the salt
tears trickled down her nose.

"Nobody loves me!" she sobbed. "Nobody loves me! Mellicent was right.
He loves beetles better than me!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

A week later Arthur's picnic came off under circumstances of unusual
_eclat_. The extravagant fellow had arranged everything on so luxurious
a scale that Mellicent sat in a dream of happiness, building castles in
the air, in which she continually drove about in dog-carts, travelled in
reserved carriages, and ate luncheons provided by Buzzard. Her plump
face assumed quite a haughty aspect, as she mentally acknowledged the
salutations of the crowd, and issued orders to flunkies, gorgeous in
powder and knee-breeches. It was enough happiness just to sit and think
of it, and munch the delicious chocolates which Arthur dispensed among
his guests.

It was a pretty scene--that group of young people in the Pullman
carriage, the girls in their white dresses, the tall, handsome men, the
cheery little chaperon in the centre. The professor and Esther sat by a
window whispering earnestly together, for having been separated for a
weary length of ten whole days,