"I took on an entirely new character the day I was fourteen. I became very sedate and dignified, and changed my name from Peg to Peggy. Do you expect to do that?"
"I think perhaps I shall," Elizabeth said. "I guess my character does need improving."
She expected some retort from her grandfather at this, but he only held out his hand for her plate, and heaped it high with roast lamb and tender green peas from the kitchen garden.
"I envy you the scrumptious things you have to eat all the time over here. We bring our fat cook down with us. She cooks all right in town in the winter, but she always sulks on Cape Cod, and we have a dreadful time getting anything. We're not lucky enough to have Judidy."
"Don't!" that flattered young lady protested. "Land, think of anybody feeling lucky to have me! I kin cook, though, whenever Mis' Swift is willing."
"Mother, she don't let our help do much work. She's afraid they'd get the habit, and kinder get in her way whenever she wanted to make a day of it. When she's cooking, Judidy she generally sets down and reads the newspaper."
"I'm so fat," Judidy explained, "that I kinder make hard work getting around."
To Elizabeth's surprise, Peggy Farraday went off into peals and spasms of laughter at this.
"They are such loves," she explained. "They are such darlings! I adore the way they do things. Grandmummy—I call her that, because she was jealous of Granddaddy for a name—is a lot like the Peterkins in her domestic arrangements."
"I ought to be like Elizabeth Eliza. That's my name." Elizabeth was glad that she had read the "Peterkin Papers" with Buddy the summer before. She had never met any other girl who was familiar with them.