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"Misery me! and himself a soldier too, with eyes staring out of every side of him!" sighed Peggy, with a doleful imitation of Mrs Asplin's Irish accent. "If this isn't a lesson to you, Mariquita Saville, there's no hope left! It's most perturbing to have one's secret faults exhibited to the public gaze. It will be quite an age before I dare put on airs to Hector, after this!"
That was all, nor through the weeks that followed did ever a word or a look in the presence of her family betray the dread that lay at Mrs Asplin's heart. Peggy, running in and out of the vicarage, would always find a smile awaiting, and a cheery word of greeting.
Each one sat with head cocked on one side, in an attitude of eager attention. The front door banged, footsteps approached, and Mrs Asplin's high, cheerful tones were heard drawing nearer and nearer. "This way, dear," she was saying. "They are longing to see you!" The listeners gave a simultaneous gulp of excitement, the door opened, and Peggy entered!
"Arthur! oh Arthur!" she gasped, and there was a pathos, a longing, an almost incredulous rapture in her voice which made the tears start in Mrs Asplin's eyes, and brought a cloud of anxiety over the new-comer's face. "Why, Peg!" he cried. "My little Peg! Is something wrong, dear? You look as melancholy as " "Peggy has not been like herself for the last few weeks.
The revelation of Mrs Asplin's danger lay like a shadow across her path, but beyond a few brief words in the train, the subject had never been mentioned between them after leaving the doctor's study. "I hope I have not been selfish, Peggy, in taking you with me to-day," Mrs Asplin had then said anxiously.
She did not like to make any protest, since Mrs Asplin's mind was evidently set on going to town, but she privately registered a determination to charter a hansom by the hour, and see that the shopping expedition was conducted in the most luxurious manner possible.
Peggy held Mrs Asplin's hand in her own as they sat waiting together in the doctor's study, and kept her seat sturdily through the interview which followed. She felt instinctively that her presence was a support to her friend, and that the consciousness of her sympathy was a support during the trying ordeal. The doctor questioned, and the patient replied.
Their triumph was almost sweeter than they had expected; but, truth to tell, they had had too much of photography during the last week, and Mrs Asplin's prophecy came true, inasmuch as it now ceased to become an occupation of absorbing interest, and assumed its rightful place as an amusement to be enjoyed now and then, as opportunity afforded.
Another woman might have apologised for the shabby dress which she had donned for a hard day's work, and felt uncomfortable at having been discovered in such guise by a young lady accustomed to move in the highest circle of London society, but that was not Mrs Asplin's way.
If she had done so, she knew perfectly well how hearty and pleasant would have been Mrs Asplin's consent; but there are some states of mind in which it is a positive pleasure to be a martyr, and to feel oneself misunderstood, and this was just the mood in which Peggy found herself at present.
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