“Do you know,” Pegeen announced to Archibald, when an hour later they rode away, “I honestly believe I could see to Mr. Meredith after all. I never really talked to him before and he isn’t a bit the way I thought he was. He isn’t proud inside atall; and, if he wasn’t going to marry Miss Moran, so that he can’t possibly need anything, I’d think he sort of needed seeing to. There’s a lonesomey look in his eyes.”
“That’s better than a lonesomey feeling in his heart,” Archibald said with a shade of bitterness in his voice. Meredith was all right; but he didn’t care to hear Peggy praising him.
They turned into the back road as he spoke; and, far ahead, by the roadside, he saw a willow tree mourning forlornly over a tumble-down cottage. A sudden whim seized him.
“Why don’t you take him on?” the Smiling Lady had asked. Perhaps, some very strenuous neighboring would be good for this bitter mood of his.
IX
“Peg,” Archibald said, “let’s call on Ezra Watts.”
She looked surprised, a bit doubtful, but her sporting blood rose.
“All right,” she agreed promptly. “He won’t let us neighbor and I expect the dirt’s something terrible; but I’d just as soon.”
As they dismounted in front of the cottage, Ezra’s terrier came running out of the door. He was barking, but not angrily—urgently rather.
“You’d think he was inviting us in,” Pegeen said, as she watched the dog run toward the door, come back to bark eagerly, and run forward again.