"But you haven't a single companion of your own age or station," he protested.

"Do I look the maiden all forlorn as the result?" she asked, laughing up at him.

"You look--you look--exactly like your mother, and to me she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," and Peggy found herself in an embrace which threatened to smother her. She blushed with pleasure. To be like her mother whom she scarcely remembered, for eight years had pa.s.sed since that beautiful mother slipped out of her life, was the highest praise that could have been bestowed upon her.

"Daddy, will you make a truce with me?"

Her father stopped to look down at her, doubtful of falling into a snare, for he had wakened to the fact that his little fourteen-year-old daughter had a pretty long head for her years. Peggy's white teeth gleamed behind her rosy lips and her eyes danced wickedly.

"What are you hatching for your old Dad's undoing, you witch?"

"Nothing but a truce. It is almost the first of September. Will you give me just one more year of this glorious freedom? I shall be nearly sixteen then, and then if you still wish it, I'll go to a finishing school, or any other old school you say to be polished off for society and to do the honors of Severndale properly when you retire. But, Daddy, please, please, don't send me this year. I love it all so dearly--and I'll be good--I truly will."

At the concluding words the big dark eyes filled. Her father bent down to kiss away the unshed tears. His own eyes were troublesome.

"I sign the truce, sweetheart, for one year, but I want a detailed report every week, do you understand?"

"You shall have it, accurate as a ship's log."

Five days later he had joined his ship and Peggy was once more alone, yet, even then, over yonder under the shadow of the dome of the chapel at the Naval Academy the future was being shaped for the young girl: a future so unlike one those who loved her best could possibly have foreseen or planned.

CHAPTER IV

IN OCTOBER'S DAYS

September slipped by, a lonely month for Peggy as contrasted with August. At first she did not fully realize how lonely, but as the days went by she missed her father's companionship more and more. Formerly, after one of his brief visits she had taken up her usual occupations, fallen back into the old order of things, and been happy in her dumb companions. But this time she could not settle down to anything. She was restless, and as nearly unhappy as it was possible for Peggy Stewart to be. She could not understand it. Poor little Peggy, how could she a.n.a.lyze it? How reason out that her life, dearly as she loved it, was an unnatural one for a young girl, and, consequently, an unsatisfactory one.

Dr. Llewellyn was troubled. Tender, wise and devoted to the girl, he had long foreseen this crisis. It was all very well for the child Peggy to run wild over fields and woodland, to ride, drive, paddle, sail, fish or do as the whim of the moment prompted, happy in her horses and her dogs.

Mammy and Harrison were fully capable of looking to her corporal needs and he could look to her mental and spiritual ones, and did do so.

Situated as Severndale was, remote from the other estates upon the river and never brought into social touch with its neighbors, Peggy was hardly known. When Neil Stewart came home on leave he was only too glad to get away from the social side of his life in the service, and the weeks spent with his little girl at Severndale had always been the delight of his life. They took him into a new world all his own in which the small vexations of the outer service world were entirely forgotten.

And how he looked forward to those visits. He rarely spoke of them to his friends, mentioned Severndale to very few and hardly a dozen knew of Peggy's existence. It was a peculiar att.i.tude, but Neil Stewart had never been reconciled to the cruel fate which had taken from him the beautiful wife he had loved so devotedly, and the thought of guests at Severndale without her there to entertain them as she had been accustomed to, was peculiarly abh.o.r.ent to him. He became almost morbid on the subject and did not realize that he was growing selfish in his sorrow and making Peggy pay the penalty.

But something in the way of an awakening had come to him during his recent visit, and it had shocked him. The child Peggy was a child no longer but a very charming young girl on the borderland of womanhood. In a year or two she would be a young woman and ent.i.tled to her place in the social world. Poor Neil Stewart, more than once upon retiring to his bedroom after one of his delightful evenings spent with Peggy, desperately ran his fingers through his curly hair and asked aloud: "What under the sun AM I to do? I can't leave that child vegetating here any longer, yet who will come to live with her or where shall I send her?"

But the question was still unanswered when he left Severndale and now Peggy was beginning to experience something of her father's unrest.

October came. Her work with Dr. Llewellyn was resumed. Each Sunday she drove into Annapolis to old St. Ann's with Harrison; a modest, un.o.btrusive little figure who attended the service and slipped away again almost unnoticed. Indeed, if given a thought at all she was vaguely supposed to be some connection of the eminently respectable elderly woman accompanying her. Harrison was a rather stately imposing body in her black taffeta, or black broadcloth, as the season demanded.

People did not inquire. It was not their affair. The rector on one or two occasions had spoken to Harrison, but Harrison had been on her dignity. She replied politely but did not encourage intimacy and, if the truth must be confessed, Dr. Smith, rather piqued, decided that he had done his duty and would make no further advances. This had happened some time before the beginning of this story.

In October, as usual, a number of colts were disposed of. Some were sold to people in the adjacent towns or counties, others sent to remote purchasers who had seen them in their baby days, followed their up- bringing and training, and waited patiently for them to arrive at the stipulated age, four years, before becoming their property. No colt was ever sold under four years of age. This was an inviolable law of Severndale, mutually agreed upon by Dr. Llewellyn, the business manager, Shelby, the foreman, and Peggy, the mistress.

"Ain't going to have no half-baked stock sent off THIS place if I have the say-so," had been Shelby's fiat. "I've seen too many fine colts mined by being BRUCK too young and then sold to fools who don't seem to sense that a horse's backbone's like gristle 'fore he's turned three.

Then they load him down fit to kill him, or harness him in a way no horse could stand, or drive him off his legs, and, when he's played out, they get back at the man who sold him to them, and like as not there's a lawsuit afoot that the price of the colt four times over couldn't square, to say nothing of a reputation NO stock-farm can afford to have."

Shelby's sense was certainly very sound horse-sense and was rigidly abided by. Consequently, the colts which left Severndale were in the pride and glory of their young horsehood, and this year they were a most promising lot. There were eleven to be disposed of, and, thanks to Peggy's care and training, as fine a bunch of horseflesh as could be found in the land. She had trained--not broken, she could not tolerate that word--every one and each knew his or her name and came at Peggy's call as a child, loving and obeying her implicitly. Among them were two exceptionally beautiful creatures--a splendid chestnut with a white star in the middle of his forehead, and a young filly, half-sister to the chestnut and little Boy. The chestnut was called Silver Star, the filly Columbine, for the singular gentleness of her disposition. She was a golden bay, slender and lithe as a fawn, with great fawn-like brown eyes full of gentleness and love for all, and for Peggy in particular. She had been sold, under the usual conditions during the previous year and was soon to be sent to her new home.

One morning, the second week in October, Peggy opened a letter which held unusual interest for her. It was from a lady whose home was in Wilmot Hall in Annapolis. Wilmot Hall was the hotel near the Naval Academy and mostly patronized by the officers and their families. The letter was from the wife of a naval officer who wished either to hire or purchase a riding horse for her niece who would spend the winter with her. She stated very explicitly that the horse must be well broken ("Yes, broken!" fairly snorted Peggy. "Broken! I wonder if she would want a literally 'broken' horse? Why will they never say trained!") and gentle, as her niece had ridden very little. The letter then went on to ask if Mrs. Harold might call some day and hour agreed upon. But what amused Peggy most, and caused her to laugh aloud as she took a spoonful of luscious sliced peaches, was the manner in which the letter was addressed.

Old Jerome who was serving her in the pretty delft breakfast-room took an old retainer's privilege to ask:

"What 'musin' you, honey-chile?"

"Didn't know I was an esquire, did you, Jerome? Well I am, because this letter says so. It is addressed to M. C. Stewart, Esq. As I am the only M. C. Stewart I must be the esquire to boot. Wonder what the lady will think when I sign myself Margaret C. Stewart," and Peggy's silvery laugh filled the room.

"Don' yo' mind what dey calls yo', baby. How dey gwine know yo's our young mist'ess? Don' yo' let dat triflin' trebble yo' pretty haid," said the faithful old soul, fearful lest his mistress' pride might be touched, and hastening to serve the second course of her breakfast in his best "quality style."

"It doesn't trouble me even a little bit, Jerome. It's just funny. I'm going to answer that letter right after breakfast, and I wish I could see my correspondent's face when she finds that her 'esquire' is one of her own s.e.x. But I'll never dare let her guess I'm just a girl."

"Jes' a gurl! Jes' a gurl," sputtered Jerome. "Kyant yo' just give her a hint dat yo's a yo'ng lady and we-all's mistiss?"

"'Fraid not, Jerome. She will have to learn that when she comes out here to see Silver Star, if she really comes. I'd let her have Columbine if she were not sold. If that girl, who ever she is, could not ride Columbine she would fall out of a rocking chair. But Star is a darling and never cuts pranks unless Shashai sets him a bad example. I fear Shashai will never forget his colt tricks," and Shashai's mistress wagged her pretty head doubtfully.

"Shas'ee's all right, Miss Peggy. Don' yo' go fer ter 'line him. When I sees yo' two a kitin' way over de fiel's an' de fences, I says ter ma sef, Gawd-a-mighty, Je'ome, yo's got one pintedly hansome yo'ng mistess AN' she kin ride for fair."

"And that same young mistress is in a fair way to be spoiled by your flattery that is pretty certain," laughed Peggy, rising from the breakfast table and gathering up the pile of letters she had been reading.

"Huh, Huh. Spiled nothin'," protested Jerome as she disappeared into the adjoining library.

Seating herself at her very business-like desk she wrote in a clear, angular hand:

Severndale, Round Bay Station.

October 20, 19--

Mrs. G. F. Harold, Wilmot Hall, Annapolis, Md.

Dear Madam:

Your favor of October eighteenth has been duly received and contents noted. In reply would say that I shall be very glad to have you call and inspect our stock.

We have one colt, a four-year old, sired by the Emperor, dam the Empress, which I shall be glad to show you. There are also others, but I am considering pedigree, disposition and gait since you state that you wish a horse for an inexperienced rider.

Would suggest that you run out to Round Bay Station, via B. A. Short Line R. R. on Sat.u.r.day, October the twenty-third, 1.30 P. M. weather permitting, where I shall meet and convey you to Severndale.

Awaiting your pleasure I am

Very truly yours,

Margaret C. Stewart

How little it often requires to change our whole future. Little did Peggy guess as she wrote that letter in Dr. Llewellyn's most approved form, that it was destined to entirely revolutionize her life, introduce her to a hitherto unknown world and round out her future in a manner beyond the fondest hopes of "Daddy Neil."

This is a big world of little things.