Pegeen thought it over.
“Well, I don’t know that she wants to so very hard; but I guess she doesn’t mind. He’s so awfully good to her and she’s known him for years and years and her father thought a heap of him—Ellen told me that—and you know it’s nice and comfortable to have somebody looking out for you and loving you better than anything. Miss Moran gets lonesome sometimes. It’s all right about neighboring, but you do need somebody special—only it seems as if I’d like to be more excited about it, if I were going to marry anybody—and I’d want him younger. Gray hair’s elegant looking; but I think a lover ought to have brown hair, don’t you? Yellow wouldn’t be as bad as gray; but I’d choose brown.”
“Did Ellen tell you anything else about him?” Pegeen shook her head.
“Nothing much. Ellen never does talk much; but I asked her one day whether Miss Moran had known Mr. Meredith a long time and that’s how she came to tell me about her father’s thinking so much of him. I don’t believe Ellen wants them to get married.”
“Why not?” There was a note of eagerness in Archibald’s voice.
“Oh, I don’t know. She said he was a fine man and all; but that springtime was mating time; and then she folded up her lips the way she does when she doesn’t like things.”
Archibald dropped the subject, mounted his horse, and took Zip’s bridle rein.
“I’m going over to see whether Miss Moran feels like riding,” he said crisply. There was an aggressive air about him as he rode away, and Pegeen watched him with puzzled eyes until he disappeared around a bend in the road. Then she seated herself and tried to accommodate Boots and Wiggles and Spunky in her small gingham lap, all at one time.
“Wiggles,” she said seriously, “I don’t believe he liked it about Mr. Meredith. No, sir; he didn’t like it one bit. Do you suppose?—Oh, my stars, Wiggles, wouldn’t it be lovely?” She patted Boots’ back with an experienced hand until he had traveled far into Slumberland. Then she turned once more to the pup, who sat waiting with his head on one side and his intelligent brown eyes fixed on her face.
“Wiggles,” she said, “you can bite Mr. Meredith when he comes. I won’t care.”