"Time will show," the vicar said. "If she is nothing better than a little baggage I hope he isn't. He deserves a higher reward than the knowledge that he is affording Miss Annersley amusement."

The Errols were dining with Mr Musgrave that day; an early dinner, according to the invariable custom in Mr Musgrave's household on Christmas Day. The Musgrave party attended the morning service, at which the party from the Hall was also present. And to Mrs Errol's surprise--she had never seen him there before--Doctor Fairbridge, who had motored out from Rushleigh, was seated beside Peggy Annersley in one of the Hall pews. Subsequently he accepted Mrs Chadwick's invitation and returned with her party to the Hall.

Notwithstanding that Mrs Errol had professed scepticism of the romance her husband suspected in connection with John Musgrave and pretty Peggy, she found herself taking a greater interest in the principals in the little comedy, so that her attention wandered a good deal during the service and her watchful eyes travelled more than once from the demurely unconscious face of the girl to the strong, grave, immovable face of Mr Musgrave, which, for all its impassive expression, had once during the singing of the first hymn turned deliberately in Peggy's direction with a quickness and keenness of look which Mrs Errol described as searching. If there was anything in her husband's assumption--and she began to think there might be--John Musgrave would be well advised not to dally over his love-making, or the more energetic younger man would anticipate him in the bid for Miss Annersley's favour. Looking at the young doctor and comparing his youth with Mr Musgrave's somewhat austere middle-age, Mrs Errol formed the opinion that John's chances were not great.

After the service the opposing forces met in the churchyard and exchanged greetings. It occurred to Mrs Errol that Peggy, hedged about with a bodyguard of young men, was fairly inaccessible; nevertheless John Musgrave penetrated the group and shook hands with her. The girl, Mrs Errol observed, aided him in his purpose. She drew a little apart and remained chatting with him for some minutes--minutes during which Mr Musgrave's gaze never left the winsome face with its laughing eyes, which were raised in frank good-fellowship to his own. Whether there was any sentiment in his preference or not, the preference was undoubtedly there.

Mrs Sommers' eldest boy, John the second, aged five, broke away from his mother and flung himself upon Peggy, interrupting John the elder's tete-a-tete.

"I wish you were coming with us," he said.

"That's very sweet of you," replied Peggy, with her arm about the child.

"Persuade her to, John," said Mr Musgrave.

Peggy flashed a look at him.

"I wish I could," she said; "but..."

"Of course," he returned promptly. "I understand that it's not possible."

"Why can't you come?" urged John the second, tugging at her hand.

"Uncle John wants you, and so do I. Why can't you come?"

"Miss Annersley has her aunt's guests to entertain, John," Mr Musgrave explained. "I am afraid we can't prefer our claim."

"She isn't Miss Annersley, she's Peggy," the boy corrected. "Aren't you?"

Peggy laughed.

"Sometimes I am," she admitted. "But that's a special privilege, John."

"What's that?" asked John junior.

Mr Musgrave, with a hand on his small nephew's shoulder, undertook to answer this question.

"It is something you enjoy on account of your youth, and from which I am debarred, though I should better appreciate it, on account of my age.

Youth has advantages."

"I don't think," said Peggy, looking amused, "that he is the least bit wiser for your very able explanation."

"Perhaps," he suggested, "you can put it more plainly."

"A special privilege, John," she returned obligingly--and if she were addressing the child she looked directly at the man--"that sort of special privilege, is a favour one extends to a person one likes, in return for a similar favour. I don't think that is much clearer," she added, and suddenly felt herself blushing beneath Mr Musgrave's steady gaze.

"The definition is perfectly obvious," he replied. "But I fancy we have both been talking over John's head."

Peggy stooped abruptly and kissed the child. When she straightened herself she moved away with him and joined Mrs Sommers.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

John Musgrave Sommers was in disgrace. He had been guilty of impertinence to Eliza; worse, he had committed an assault by kicking her maliciously with intent to do bodily harm. Eliza had complained to Mr Musgrave, and had presented his nephew's conduct in the light of an enormity which she could not overlook until adequate measures had been taken to correct this infantile depravity, and so insure against a repetition of the offence.

Mr Musgrave carried the complaint to his sister and supported her with his presence, if with little else, in her attempt to bring the delinquent to a proper state of repentance. John Musgrave Sommers presented a defiant front and refused with all the obstinate inflexibility of his five years to acknowledge himself in the wrong.

"It was very wicked of you to kick Eliza," his mother insisted. "When you are in a better frame of mind you will realise that. You must go to her and tell her you are sorry."

"I'm not sorry," John returned stoutly, with a watchful eye on his uncle, whose displeasure was manifest and the quality of whose anger John, not being familiar with, was anxious to test before provoking it further with possible unpleasant results to himself.

This positive assertion of an unrepentant spirit nonplussed his elders.

Belle looked helplessly at her brother for inspiration; but Mr Musgrave avoided her eye with a care which suggested a cowardly sympathy with the offender if not with the offence. The punishment of children, while he admitted its necessity, was peculiarly distressing to him. Master John Sommers, with a child's quick intuition, began to realise that he had very little to apprehend from his uncle, but his mother was a different matter; he had had contests with her before and he could not remember ever having come out of them triumphantly.

"John," she said gravely, and with a gentleness which John did not find reassuring, because his mother was always gentle even before and after she smacked him, "you are not going to be a naughty little boy and grieve mother. You know it is very wrong to be rude to anyone, and it is dreadful to kick. I insist on your telling Eliza you are sorry. You _must_ be sorry."

"I'm not," John persisted.

Belle appealed to her brother direct.

"Uncle John, what is to be done with this very naughty little boy?"

Mr Musgrave flushed and looked almost as uncomfortable as though he were being reprimanded for the kicking of Eliza instead of the chubby, unrepentant little sinner before him. He stared at the culprit and frowned.

"Perhaps," he suggested hopefully, "if you let him run away and think about it he will change his mind."

"No," said Belle firmly, having grasped the fact that she would get no help in this quarter; "he has got to change his mind now. If you won't say you are sorry, John, you will be punished--severely."

John began to look sulky, but he showed no indication of a proper sense of his own wickedness. He had kicked Eliza deliberately, and had experienced immense satisfaction in the knowledge that he had thereby got a bit of his own back. Eliza was always annoying him and locking him out from the kitchen. He liked the kitchen. Martha gave him cakes when he found his way there; but Eliza baulked him in his purpose whenever she could by closing the door in his face.

"But I'm not sorry," muttered John obstinately. "And you told me I mustn't tell stories."

It occurred to Mr Musgrave that the situation had come to a deadlock.

He did not see how his sister would confute this argument. Clearly if John was not sorry he ought not to be compelled to make a false admission. To frighten a child into telling a lie was mistaken discipline.

Whether Mrs Sommers' diplomacy would have proved equal to coping with the difficulty remained an undetermined point, for at this moment Mr Sommers entered the room, and his wife, manifestly relieved at his opportune arrival, shifted the responsibility of parental authority to his shoulders. Mr Sommers, while he appreciated the enormity of the offence, admitted in his own mind--though he would not have allowed his son to suspect it--extenuating circumstances. Had he been thirty years younger he would probably have acted in a similar manner. Eliza would exasperate any small boy into committing an assault.

"Come here," said Charlie Sommers. He seated himself in a chair, and drew his son towards him and held him firmly between his knees. "Why did you kick Eliza?"

"Because she's a disagreeable cat," replied John.

"It is very rude to call people names," his father said with a severity he was far from feeling, his opinion coinciding with his son's. "And it is very rude to your uncle to behave in this way in his house. I expect he will not invite you again. Don't you know it is very wrong to kick?"

John deliberated this. He knew very well that it was wrong, but he had a strong disinclination towards admitting it. His father waited for an answer.

"Yes," he acknowledged grudgingly.

"And aren't you sorry for doing wrong?"

"No," the culprit replied with less hesitation this time.