_Which sets forth how My Lady Peggy recovers
of her illness—gets once more into
hoops and petticoats—and puts
a very fine and noble young
gentleman into an
earthly paradise._
Until midsummer he rides over to Kennaston twice each day, morning and
night, to find out how it fares with her, and ’twas not until then that
the Earl gave him hopes he might see her, perhaps within the se’ennight.
Notes there had been, daily, as soon as Chockey had let him know that
her mistress was in her head once more, and the two surgeons, down from
London, had pronounced Her Ladyship on the mend; notes, and flowers and
fruits, and game and fish to tempt her appetite; a little dog from
Pomerania; a Persian boy to wait upon her whims; a mare, as white as
milk; sweetmeats from the Indies; damasks from China and France; shells
and curious beadwork slippers from the American Colonies—whither, it is
needless to say, a certain good ship had sailed, leaving a certain young
gentleman behind—all these things, and many more besides, were offered
up at Her Ladyship’s shrine, but never yet had she been able to bring
herself to scribble one line to her suitor, or to send any message, save
polite civilities by Chockey.
’Twas only after the buxom damsel (having the night previous heard from
Grigson that his master was like to die of suspense, and having imparted
the same to Her Ladyship), together with the Lady Mother and the Earl,
had argued and preached into her the great and chivalrous devotion of
Sir Percy, that Peggy at last had brought her mind into a condition of
acquiescing in his coming up to her morning-room on the Thursday (being
St. James’s Day) after the sixth Sunday after Trinity; which same she
carefully marked in her prayer-book with a dab of the crimson her mother
sent in to beautify her pale cheeks with, against Sir Percy’s advent.
“Oh, slitterkins! Madam,” cries the Abigail under her breath, “and
asking Your Ladyship’s pardon, but how can I do up Your Ladyship’s hair
an’ it no longer than the peltry of a meadow-mouse!”
“True enough, Jane Chockey,” replies her mistress, contemplating her
countenance in the mirror. “Of a fact, I resemble nothing so much as one
of those weazen little vermin; my nose is sharp, too, and my cheeks—”
“Stay, My Lady,” says Chock, taking up the rouge, and putting on layer
after layer. “Who’ll say Your Ladyship ain’t handsome now? Lawk, Madam!
You look like an angel! What a blessing of Providence the French is with
their nostrums!”
Peggy regards herself.
“Now, My Lady,” cries Chockey, “would you but borrow your Lady Mother’s
worked head, a cup of powder, and Her Ladyship’s pink feathers atop of
it! What a sight would you be for Sir Percy to behold!”
Peggy shakes her head. The three feet of wire, wool, pommade, frizz and
plumage the hand-maiden suggests, even causes her to laugh aloud as she
figures it above her own face.
“Nay, Chock, none o’ that!” says she, “I’ll do as I am. Sir Percy has
seen my cropped head; faith, he ’twas, you tell me, that fetched the
tail of my locks to Kennaston in his saddle-pocket, or tied upon him
somewhere?”
“Aye, My Lady, Mr. Grigson says never, since Adam and Eve began courtin’
under the fig-tree, has any young nobleman been seen in such a frenzy as
Sir Percy about Your Ladyship. Lawk, Lady Peggy! When a young gentleman
goes off his feed, ceases swearin’ and cursin’ his man, and stops down
in the country nigh three months in the season, a-readin’ loud to his
deaf aunt, there ain’t no sort of doubt as to the quality of his
passion!”
Her Ladyship smiles as she spreads her train and glances at it over her
shoulder.
“Chock,” says she, “look you, now, while I cross the room; does the
paduasoy stand out well over my hoop?”
“Like the dish-clout, My Lady, when I spreads it to dry over one of the
biggest hen-coops. ’Tis monstrous fine, finer, I should swear, than
anything Lady Diana could have!” Chockey sighs, lost in admiration.
“Though belike Lord Kennaston wouldn’t think so.”
“And, Chock, look again.” Her Ladyship crosses back to the divan. “’Tis
thus the town ladies give the true quality sweep to their trains. Give
me the trinket Sir Percy sent me last night.” Peggy takes a fan of most
beautiful feathers from a mother-of-pearl box and waves it back and
forth. “’Tis so, Chock, the London fine ladies flutter the fan, as ’tis
called, and every wriggle hath a different meaning!”
“Oh!” Chockey is well-nigh speechless as she watches her mistress
sidling, bridling, agitating the fan back, forth, hither, and yon.
“Madam, ’tis amazin’ grand! A glass of port now, My Lady, as by the
orders of the surgeons?”
“Nay,” says Peggy, “I ain’t in need of such.”
“A mug of ale? cider? milk?”
“I’ll none of ’em, Chock,” returns Her Ladyship, seating herself on the
divan, and spreading out the paduasoy as ’twere a tail and she the
peacock owning it.
“Set my _étui_ beside me on the stand; place that large chair far off
yonder by the window for Sir Percy, that he may not disturb my
furbelows, and—”
“Hark, Madam! Hoofs!”
“Lud!” cries Her Ladyship, “his new horse’s hoofs! I’ve learned the ring
of ’em as well as I once knew that of the poor long roan.” Peggy sighs;
she has heard much during her convalescence by way of Mr. Grigson and
the Abigail.
“Go you down, Chock, and, after a suitable period of waiting,—I mean
such decent few minutes,” cries she after the girl, “as may be occupied
in dutiful greetings to Dad and Her Ladyship, you may send Sir Percy up
to see me.”
She hears his voice in the hall greeting her father and mother; she
glances over at the mirror, and, snatching her pocket-napkin from her
bag, Peggy tips it to the top of the essence-bottle and rubs the red
from her cheeks; she flings the fan down, draws in her splendid train to
a crumpled heap about her, gives the hoop as smart a thrust as her
feeble strength will permit, hears a footstep, and promptly buries her
shamed face in the cushions of the divan.
She does not answer the light rap on the half-open door, nor does her
lover wait; he enters, and in a second, kneeling at her feet, his two
arms about her, he raises her sweet face and lays his yearning lips on
Her Ladyship’s own beautiful mouth.
“Ah, Peggy, my adored one,” says he, devouring her pale face with his
happy eyes, stroking her cropped head with caressing fingers.
“Oh, Percy!” says she, with real roses blooming in her cheeks.
[Illustration: Ah, Peggy, my adored one...]
“I know a deal,” whispers he, “but one thing I must ask. You’ll tell me
at once, will you?”
“What is’t?” says she, smiling, as she leaves her two hands in the hold
of one of his.
“Why did you adventure so much? for what, for whom, whose sake?
Wherefore?” The young man’s voice is feverish with anxiety.
She hangs her head; raises it proudly; wishes she had him at a distance,
and so, leave to swing her train and use her fan indifferent.
“My beloved,” cries he, “answer me! ’Tis your own Percy, him that
worships the ground you tread upon; who has never had a thought apart
from you; to whom every other lady on God’s earth’s but a puppet—that
asks—eh, Peg, for whom, who?” coaxes he with eyes, lips, hands,
heart-beats.
“For your sake, Sir, and none other,” she answers. “’Twas because I knew
I’d done wrong and sent you from me careless; I would not give in; but,
you up in town, Ken writin’ me as he did—I could abide it no longer—and
I went.”
“Now the God above us, bless you,” says he, taking her in his arms, and
at the same instant pulling from his waistcoat pocket the scrap of a
note she’d written him in the eye of the scaffold.
“Peg, Peg! I’m not worthy to mate with you, and when I learned of all
your hairbreadth ’scapes, your twice saving of my life—when I read this,
’slife! My Lady, what’s a man like me to such as you!”
“I’ll tell you,” says she, laying her head on his shoulder, “he’s the
man she loves.”
“Will you marry me in a fortnight, Peggy?” asks he, rapturous.
“Nay!” answers she, laughing. “I’ve another suitor to consider, Sir.”
“And who is he?”
“Sir Robin McTart! He was over yesterday to ask my hand from Daddy.”
“The devil!”
“Nay, Sir, not enough courage for that!”
“Peggy, sweetlips, will you be mine the Tuesday after Transfiguration?”
“Lud! No, Sir Percy! that will I not!”
“When will you, then, love?”
“Next Christmas.”
“Split it,” cries he, imploringly, “make it the first quarter of the
October moon?”
“Well,” she answers, looking up to where her father and mother stand in
the doorway, “an Daddy and my Lady Mother consent, you shall have your
way, Sir.”
The young man glances up, following Peggy’s eyes, springs to his feet,
raises her from the old divan and leads her before them.
“My Lord and Your Ladyship,” says he, “will you consent, as Peggy has,
to our being made man and wife on October the fifth? and will you give
My Lady and my unworthy self your blessing?”
They kneel down and the Earl puts out his hands above their heads; the
words stumble, for there are drops in his old eyes, as he looks and
beholds about their faces that most splendid of all aureoles, the light
of love and faith, honor with youth, and hope and wholesome minds to
guide.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A FEW OF
GROSSET & DUNLAP’S
Great Books at Little Prices
NEW, CLEVER, ENTERTAINING.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GRET: The Story of a Pagan. By Beatrice Mantle. Illustrated by C.M.
Relyea.
The wild free life of an Oregon lumber camp furnishes the setting for
this strong original story. Gret is the daughter of the camp and is
utterly content with the wild life—until love comes. A fine book,
unmarred by convention.
OLD CHESTER TALES. By Margaret Deland. Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
A vivid yet delicate portrayal of characters in an old New England town.
Dr. Lavendar’s fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of
all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine,
healthful and life giving. “Old Chester Tales” will surely be among the
books that abide.
THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY. By Josephine Daskam. Illustrated by F.Y. Cory.
The dawning intelligence of the baby was grappled with by its great
aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something at
which even the infant himself winked. A delicious bit of humor.
REBECCA MARY. By Annie Hamilton Donnell. Illustrated by Elizabeth
Shippen Green.
The heart tragedies of this little girl with no one near to share them,
are told with a delicate art, a keen appreciation of the needs of the
childish heart and a humorous knowledge of the workings of the childish
mind.
THE FLY ON THE WHEEL. By Katherine Cecil Thurston. Frontispiece by
Harrison Fisher.
An Irish story of real power, perfect in development and showing a true
conception of the spirited Hibernian character as displayed in the
tragic as well as the tender phases of life.
THE MAN FROM BRODNEY’S. By George Barr McCutcheon. Illustrated by
Harrison Fisher.
An island in the South Sea is the setting for this entertaining tale,
and an all-conquering hero and a beautiful princess figure in a most
complicated plot. One of Mr. McCutcheon’s best books.
TOLD BY UNCLE REMUS. By Joel Chandler Harris. Illustrated by A.B. Frost,
J.M. Conde and Frank Verbeck.
Again Uncle Remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another
little boy to that non-locatable land called “Brer Rabbit’s Laughing
Place,” and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play
their parts, for the edification of a small but appreciative audience.
THE CLIMBER. By E.F. Benson. With frontispiece.
An unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman’s soul—a woman who believed
that in social supremacy she would find happiness, and who finds instead
the utter despair of one who has chosen the things that pass away.
LYNCH’S DAUGHTER. By Leonard Merrick. Illustrated by Geo. Brehm.
A story of to-day, telling how a rich girl acquires ideals of beautiful
and simple living, and of men and love, quite apart from the teachings
of her father, “Old Man Lynch” of Wall St. True to life, clever in
treatment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------