Let there be no
engagement--merely an understanding. The girl was pretty,
charming, good, Miss Ramsbotham felt sure; but--well, a little
education, a little training in manners and behaviour would not be
amiss, would it? If, on returning at the end of six months or a
year, Mr. Peters was still of the same mind, and Peggy also
wishful, the affair would be easier, would it not?
There followed further expressions of eternal gratitude. Miss
Ramsbotham swept all such aside. It would be pleasant to have a
bright young girl to live with her; teaching, moulding such an one
would be a pleasant occupation.
And thus it came to pass that Mr. Reginald Peters disappeared for a
while from Bohemia, to the regret of but few, and there entered
into it one Peggy Nutcombe, as pretty a child as ever gladdened the
eye of man. She had wavy, flaxen hair, a complexion that might
have been manufactured from the essence of wild roses, the nose
that Tennyson bestows upon his miller's daughter, and a mouth
worthy of the Lowther Arcade in its days of glory. Add to this the
quick grace of a kitten, with the appealing helplessness of a baby
in its first short frock, and you will be able to forgive Mr.
Reginald Peters his faithlessness. Bohemia looked from one to the
other--from the fairy to the woman--and ceased to blame.
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