“I’m a pig! I’m a horrid little pig,” Peg always repented as enthusiastically as she did everything else. “I’ll go and tell Mrs. Benderby so right now. I was perfectly snippy to her about coddling your eggs this morning, but she can coddle away just as she wants to, as long as she gets them right. You’ve got to have them right though, and, please, I’d so much rather plan what you’re going to have for meals. I can do it better. Honestly I can.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it,” said Archibald. “Plan away—only don’t grudge Mrs. Benderby the cook stove and the dish pan.”
All went smoothly after that. There was more time for the neighboring expeditions, for long walks and drives, for picnics, in which Jimmy Dawes was usually included. He was Pegeen’s humble slave, although he would have suffered tortures rather than admit it. He haunted the shack; but, ostensibly, his devotion was for Archibald and the offerings he laid at that amused young man’s feet were many. He brought Archibald pailfuls of red raspberries. Pegeen adored red raspberries. He presented Archibald with bunches of pink roses from Grandmother Dawes’ garden. Pegeen was daft about pink roses. He caught fish for Archibald’s breakfast. Fish was the thing Pegeen liked best for breakfast. But to Peg, herself, the boy was painstakingly off-hand and brusk, giving her plainly to understand that she was only a girl and must be kept in her place. She submitted meekly and wound him around her finger, after the immemorial fashion of girls, even of very small girls.
She wound Archibald around the same slim finger. He was what Peg would have called “lonesomey” round the heart, during these long summer days, and Pegeen was good for lonely hearts. A world in which she loved and petted and companioned and made merry couldn’t be such a very forlorn place; and making her happy was a consoling and satisfactory occupation.
The child’s thin little face had filled out. The old anxious look had gone from her eyes. The promise of beauty was fast finding fulfilment.
“Have you noticed how lovely Peggy is, now-a-days?” Nora Moran asked Archibald one afternoon, when he and she met in the Village store, while Peg waited outside on Zip.
“She was always lovely.”
The Smiling Lady laughed at his quick protest.
“Always,” she agreed, “but she’s getting lovelier by the minute. One of these days she will be wonderfully beautiful. There’s an exquisite delicacy about her.”
“But she’s perfectly strong and well.”