"Certainly. I wish my dog handed to me."
Shelby looked at the pampered poodle and then at its mistress. Then with a guileless smile remarked:
"Now you don't sesso? Well, when I git back to the paddock with these here horses what can't go 'long with Miss Peggy, I'll send a little nigger boy up here for ter boost your dog up to you, but I tend horses on this here place."
The man's dark skin grew several shades darker owing to the blood which flooded his cheeks, and his eyes narrowed as he looked for one second straight into Mrs. Stewart's. What possessed the woman to antagonize everyone with whom she came in touch? Shelby had never laid eyes upon her until that moment, but that moment had confirmed his dislike conceived from the reports which had come to him. He now went up to the horses. Knowing that neither of them had halters on, he had brought two with him and now slipped them over his charges' heads, saying as he did so:
"You've got to come 'long back with me and keep company manners, do you know that, you disrepu'ble gad-abouts? You ain't never had no proper eddicatin' an' now it's a-goin' to begin for fa'r. You-all are goin' ter be larnt citified manners hot off the bat. So come 'long back to the paddock an' git your fust lesson."
The horses toyed and played with him like a couple of children, but went pacing away beside him, now and again pulling at his sleeve, poking at him with their soft muzzles or mumbling at his cheeks with their velvety lips, a pair of petted, peerless creatures and as beautiful as any God had ever created. Now and again they stopped short to neigh a peremptory call, as though asking the reason of this surprising conduct.
"Are you ready, Aunt Katherine?" asked Peggy.
"As soon as Jerome takes your hound in charge. I don't care to have Toinette driven frantic with fear by the sight of her. She will grow so excited that I shall be unable to hold her."
Now the past two hours had held a good many annoyances for Peggy Stewart to whom annoyances had been almost unknown. Perhaps they constitute the discipline of life, but thus far Peggy Stewart had apparently gotten on pretty well without any radical chastening processes. Her life had been simply, but well, ordered, and her naturally sunny soul had grown sweet and wholesome in her little world. If correction had been necessary Mammy's loving old heart had known how to order it during Peggy's babyhood; Harrison had carefully watched her childhood, and her young girlhood had been most beautifully developed by her guardian, good Dr. Llewellyn, who loved her as a grand-daughter. Then had come Mrs. Harold, who had done so much for the young girl. Why could it not have gone on?
Perhaps the ordering of Peggy's life had been too smooth to develop the best in her character, so Kismet, or whatever it is which shapes the odd happenings of our lives, had stepped in to lay a hurdle or two to test her ability to meet obstacles. Since seven-thirty that morning she had met little else in one form or another, and had taken them rather gracefully, all things considered. Her breakfast had been delayed an hour; the breakfast itself had been far from the pleasant meal it usually proved; she had been needlessly criticised for her habit of riding with her beloved horses; and now poor Tzaritza, after being banished the house, was to be debarred from following her young mistress; something unheard of, since the hound had acted as Peggy's protectress ever since she could follow her. The blood flooded into the girl's face, as turning to her Aunt she said very quietly, but with a dignity which Mrs. Stewart dared not encroach upon: