Lady Peggy seizes Chockey’s arm, and runs breathless to the house; in, a-scrambling up the broad stairs to her chamber; a-pulling out of drawers from their chests; a-hunting of ribbons and fallals, combs, brushes, kerchiefs, perfumes, patches, powder, whatever else besides!
“Hurry, Chock, do my hair as he likes it!” urges Lady Peggy.
“Lawk, Madam! I thought you swore just now you’d never set eyes on Sir Percy again?”
“You thought! Bless you, Chock, never be a-wastin’ your time a-thinking where a woman’s concerned. When her heart steps up and lays hold the reins, the steed gallops to the goal; she’s always time to think after she’s acted.”
“Yes, Madam,” concurs Chockey, with a mental reservation back of her mouthful of pins. “There, My Lady, Your Ladyship’s hair is lovely; your Levantine gown becomes you like a pheasant do its plumage, and your eyes is a-shinin’ with love and—”
“Tut, girl! It’s anger, wrath, temper,—so!” Peggy marches up and down before the mirror, tossing her lovely head. “Thus attired, Chock, a lady can flout, deride, harass, and madden one of the opposite sex, as can she not do in cotton frock and fruit-stained apron. Give me my comfit box, I pray. Tell me how long Sir Percy now hath been cooling his heels in the drawing-room?”
“But little lacking the hour, Madam.”
“Good! I’d keep him there until Thursday, an I could. Now go tell him I’ll be with him presently.”
Chockey went.
Lady Peggy stood at the door ajar; she heard the impatient footsteps of her lover below, but yet she tarried, tapping her high red heel on the sill.