Peggy was in an ecstasy of joy. To have Compadre under her own roof from Saturday to Monday would be too delightful. Brimful of her pleasurable anticipations, and more like the natural, joyous girl of former days than she had been since leaving Mrs. Harold and Polly, she flew to the piazza where her aunt, arrayed in a filmy lingerie gown, reclined in one of the big East India chairs. For a moment she forgot that she did not hold her aunt's sympathies as she held Mrs. Harold's, and cried:
"Oh, Aunt Katherine, Compadre will be here on Friday evening and will remain until Monday! Isn't that too good to believe?"
"Do you mean Dr. Llewellyn?" asked Mrs. Stewart, coldly.
"Yes, Aunt Katherine, you had no chance to know him before he went away, but you will just love him."
"Shall I?" asked Mrs. Stewart with a smile which acted like a wet blanket upon poor Peggy.
"But why do you call him by that absurd name? Why not call him Dr. Llewellyn?"
"Call him Dr. Llewellyn?" echoed Peggy. "Why, I have never called him anything else since he taught me to call him by that dear name when I was a wee little thing."
"And do you expect to cling to childish habits all your days, Peggy dear? Isn't it about time you began to think about growing up? Sit here upon this cushion beside me. I wish to have a serious talk with you and this seems a most opportune moment. I have felt the necessity of it ever since my arrival, but have refrained from speaking because I feared I might be misjudged and do harm rather than good. Sit down, dear."
Mrs. Stewart strove to bring into her voice an element of deep interest, affection was beyond her,—and Peggy was sufficiently intuitive to feel it. Nevertheless, if anything could have appealed to this self-centered woman's affection it ought surely to have been the young girl who obediently dropped upon the big Turkish cushion, and clasping her hands upon the broad arm of the chair, looked up into the steely, calculating eyes with a pair so soft, so brown, so trustful yet so perplexed, that an ordinary woman would have gathered her right into her arms and claimed all the richness and loyalty of affection so eager to find an outlet. If it could only have been Mrs. Harold, or Polly's mother, how quick either would have been to comprehend the loving nature of the girl and reap the reward of it.
Mrs. Stewart merely smiled into the wild-rose face in a way which she fondly believed to accentuate her own charms, and tapping the pretty brown hands with her fan, said: