“I surely will, but you’d better make it snappy if you don’t want to have Miss Beth worrying over what has become of her wandering sister.”
Leslie looked at her watch. There was time for a little visit only. She followed Peggy back into the attractive room with its comfortable, summer fittings.
So near the sea, the house was suitably screened from the strong winds by the pile of headland rocks with their two towers. Peggy, however, considered this a decided drawback, since there was no good view of the sea from any of the windows. “But Dad said that I would be glad sometimes not to be blown away or think that I was going to sail off with the house! He wanted it close up against the rocks, and you can see for yourself that part of the house fairly joins them. Dad has his office there and his own little library. He’s a shivery sort of man, anyhow, used to Florida in the winters, you know.”
“How would I know, sweet Peggy?”
“Probably you wouldn’t,” laughed Peggy. “That is what my own father used to call me, ‘sweet Peggy,’ after the old song.”
“Oh, then, Mr. Ives is really not your father,” said the surprised Leslie. But that accounted for some of Peggy’s rather disrespectful speeches.
“No, and I ought to be ashamed of myself for not liking him better. I can have anything I want and he doesn’t care. O Leslie, I wish that you would let me talk to you about things sometimes! You are all so happy, and we aren’t, very, here. I don’t know just what is the matter, either!”
“Why, of course you may talk to me, Peggy! It seems to me that you might be happy enough, a nice, pretty girl with everything to make you happy. Why, child, we’ve had real trouble,—well, I suppose that you have been through that, too, losing your father.”
“Yes, though I was pretty small, then. Haven’t you very much to live on, either?”
Peggy was quite frank in her question, but Leslie, to whom having money or not having it was only an agreeable or disagreeable incident, did not mind. “Not so very much, Peggy,” she answered, “but enough to get along and more than some people. Then we are always expecting to do and be something wonderful, you see!” Leslie was laughing a little, but Peggy understood.