“You’re looking bonnier for the trouble, Peggy, left here or not.”
“Old trick o’ yours, Reuben. Your arm was ever lithe to slip about a lass’s waist, and your tongue to grasp a lie.”
They looked at each other, and Priscilla of the Good Intent was far away from Reuben.
“Could slip an arm about your waist this minute, Peggy.”
“Doubtless—if I’d let you.”
She stood away from him, alert, secure, yet with a careless touch of invitation in her glance.
“What is your errand, Peggy?” he asked after a pause.
“I’m taking a sitting of eggs to Hill End Farm. Folk fight rather shy of mother and me, Reuben, but they seem to know where to come when they want a clutch of Black Minorca eggs.”
He fell into step beside her, and Peggy only shrugged her shoulders. It was natural, and like old times, that Gaunt should ask no leave.
“Carrying my eggs all in one basket,” she said, by and by, after he had helped her over a clumsy stile. “Always did, Reuben, if ye call to mind. ’Tis a failing of the Mathewsons, I’ve heard tell. They don’t look to see if the basket is strong and well-found—they just take a daft fancy to the look on’t, and pop the whole clutch in.”