"I should call her very well protected," said Dr. Llewellyn mildly.
"Oh, yes, in a way. You are here off and on, and the servants all the time, but look at the life she leads, man. Not a girl friend. Nothing that other girls have. I tell you it's bad navigating and she'll run afoul rocks or shoals. It isn't natural. For the Lord's sake DO something. If I could be here a month longer I'd start something or burst everything wide open. It's simply got to be changed." And Neil Stewart got up from his big East India chair to pace impatiently up and down the broad piazza, now and again giving an absent-minded kick to a hassock, or picking up a sofa pillow to heave it upon a settee, as though clearing the deck for action. He was deeply perturbed.
Peggy glanced toward him, and quick to notice signs of mental disturbance, left her charge to Tzaritza's care and came running toward the piazza. As she ran up the four steps giving upon the lawn she asked half laughingly, half seriously:
"Heavy weather, Daddy Neil? Barometer falling?"
Neil Stewart paused, looked at her a moment and asked abruptly:
"Peggy, how would you like to go to a boarding school?"
"To boarding school!" exclaimed Peggy in amazement. "Leave Severndale and all this and go away to a SCHOOL?" The emphasis upon the last word held whole volumes.
Her father nodded.
"I think I'd die," she said, dropping upon a settee as though the very suggestion had deprived her of strength.
Her father's forehead puckered into a perplexed frown. If Peggy were sent to boarding school the choice of one would be a nice question.