nday! Isn't that too good to believe?"

"Do you mean Dr. Llewellyn?" asked Mrs. Stewart, coldly.

"Yes, Aunt Katherine, you had no chance to know him before he went away,
but you will just love him."

"Shall I?" asked Mrs. Stewart with a smile which acted like a wet
blanket upon poor Peggy.

"But why do you call him by that absurd name? Why not call him Dr.
Llewellyn?"

"Call him Dr. Llewellyn?" echoed Peggy. "Why, I have never called him
anything else since he taught me to call him by that dear name when I
was a wee little thing."

"And do you expect to cling to childish habits all your days, Peggy
dear? Isn't it about time you began to think about growing up? Sit here
upon this cushion beside me. I wish to have a serious talk with you and
this seems a most opportune moment. I have felt the necessity of it ever
since my arrival, but have refrained from speaking because I feared I
might be misjudged and do harm rather than good. Sit down, dear."

Mrs. Stewart strove to bring into her voice an element of deep interest,
affection was beyond her,--and Peggy was sufficiently intuitive to feel
it. Nevertheless, if anything could have appealed to this self-centered
woman's affection it ought surely to have been the young girl who
obediently dropped upon the big Turkish cushion, and clasping her hands
upon the broad arm of the chair, looked up into the steely, calculating
eyes with a pair so soft, so brown, so trustful yet so perplexed, that
an ordinary woman would have gathered her right into her arms and
claimed all the richness and loyalty of affection so eager to find an
outlet. If it could only have been Mrs. Harold, or Polly's mother, how
quick either would have been to comprehend the loving nature of the girl
and reap the reward of it.

Mrs. Stewart merely smiled into the wild-rose face in a way which she
fondly believed to accentuate her own charms, and tapping the pretty
brown hands with her fan, said:

"I am growing extremely proud of my lovely niece. She is going to be a
great credit to me, and, also, I foresee, a great responsibility."

"A responsibility, Aunt Katherine?" asked Peggy, a perplexed pucker upon
her forehead. "Have I been a responsibility to you since you came here?
I am sorry if I have. Of course I know my life down here in the old home
is quite different from most girls' lives. I didn't realize that until I
met Mrs. Harold and Polly and then, later, went up to New London and saw
more of o