Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/298

 Lady Peggy, Mr. Triggs, even to Miss Sikkum. In due course answers arrived; but in only Miss Sikkum's letter was there any reference to Bowen, a gush of sentiment about "how happy you must be, dear Miss Brent, with Lord Bowen running down to see you every other day. I know!" she added with maidenly prescience. Patricia laughed.

Mr. Triggs committed himself to nothing more than two and three-quarter pages, mainly about his daughter and "A. B.," Mr. Triggs was not at his best as a correspondent. Lady Tanagra ran to four pages; but as her handwriting was large, five lines filling a page, her letter was disappointing.

Lady Peggy was the most productive. In the course of twelve pages of spontaneity she told Patricia that the Duke and the Cabinet Minister had almost quarrelled about her, Patricia. "Peter has been to lunch with us and Daddy has told him how lucky he is, and how wonderful you are. If Peter is not very careful, I shall have you presented to me as a stepmother. Wouldn't it be priceless!" she wrote. "Oh! What am I writing?" She ended with the Duke's love, and an insistence that Patricia should lunch at Curzon Street the first Sunday after her return.

Patricia found Lady Peggy's letter charming. She was pleased to know that she had made a good impression and was admired—by the right people. Twenty-four hours, however, found her once more thrown back into the trough of her own