“Another, Chock,” vouchsafes her mistress. “Sweet, sweet Sir Robin McTart!”
“Oh, My Lady!” cries the girl, vainly endeavoring to conceal a smile.
“Aye, Chock,” proceeds Peggy, “I say again, a sweet and most entrapping young man.”
“Madam, a squint eye, a wry nose, an underlip that hangs, a pair of fox-teeth, and a chin that’s gone a-huntin’ for his throat!”
“Tut, tut! Chock,” laughs Lady Peggy, leaning back in her leafy bower, “what’s all that to a nimble wit, a galloping conversation, and a faithful heart?” Lady Peggy’s tone is as light as the May breeze blowing her soft locks about her lovely blooming face, full of mockery, witchery,—and then a bit of a sigh, low as flowers’ whispers, and up with her drooped head higher than before, as in the half mannish tone her twinship and long play-fellowship with her brother have given her, she adds curtly—
“D’ye see aught coming yet, Chock?”
“No, My Lady, not yet,” answers the girl ruefully.
Peggy bites her lips until they hurt.
“As I was a-sayin’, Chock, your mistress cuts short her visit, sends word to her lover she’ll be home o’-Thursday, and, as I live! to-day’s the Monday after, and him still on the way! See him!” Peggy’s white teeth close tight, and her eyes flash, and her little hands clench. “Not I! Let him come now an’ he goes again faster than he ever traveled. The vain coxcomb! the deceitful, cozening, graceless poppet! He’ll ne’er set eyes on her he used to call his Peg again, or I die for’t.” And Peggy jumped to the ground.
“Madam! Madam!” exclaims Chockey, pointing joyfully to a cloud of dust far up the highway. “Look! Yonder comes Sir Percy! Don’t I know? Ain’t I watched his long roan any day this twelve month a-turnin’ by the lodge?”