When she gathered the child into her arms, tossed it high before cuddling it close against her shoulder, and went on her way as swiftly and lightly as though unburdened, the watcher sighed with satisfaction.
He was still thinking of her as he leaped the wall into his own meadow and swung his cap over his head, in answer to the greeting waved to him by a little figure in the doorway of the shack.
“Not so much beautiful,” he summed up, “as made up of beauties. She’d never drive a man mad, but, holy smoke, what a delight she might be to him in his sane moments.”
III
“Peggy,” said John Archibald, leaning his elbows on the breakfast table, “sit down and let me talk to you.”
The girl who was headed toward the kitchen turned back promptly and sat down across the table from him.
Then she waited tranquilly for him to talk to her. What he had to say might be unimportant. It usually was, but she liked his talk. As she had already explained to the Smiling Lady, it was “so sort of foolish and snarky.”
To-day, however, he seemed inclined to seriousness.
“We’ve got to put things on a business basis, child,” he said firmly.
“Yes, sir,”—Pegeen’s tone was docile but vastly indifferent.