Meg was everything a girl could possibly be. She was sweet, she was lovely, she was clever, she was a darling dear, she was splendid. She was an angel, she was a duck. She was Lady Margaret, she was dear old Meggums. And never a day passed but she was at the cottage or Gracie was over at Knoyle.
They rode and walked and bathed and read together. They slept together at times, and talked half through the night because the days were not long enough for the innumerable confidences that had to pass between them.
And Eager rejoiced in their close communion, for he had never met any girl whose friendship he would have so desired for Gracie. And he went about his duties, storming and persuading, fighting and tending, with new fires in his heart which shone out of his eyes, and his people all acknowledged that he was "a rare good un," even when he was scarifying them about manure-heaps and stinks, which they suffered as tolerantly as they did his vehemence, and as though such a thing as typhus had never been known in the land.
And what times they all had when the holidays came round!
A little shyness, of course, at first, while the various parties took stock of the changes in one another. For Gracie was growing so tall--"quite the young lady," as Mrs. Jex said; and such a change from the fellows at school, as Jack and Jim acknowledged to themselves.
Girls--as girls--were somewhat looked down upon at school, you know. But this was Gracie, and quite a different thing altogether.
When the first shyness of these meetings wore off she was apt to be somewhat overwhelmed by their effusive worship. They were her slaves, hers most absolutely, and their only difficulty was to find adequate means for the expression of their devotion.
For their first home-coming, each of them, unknown to the other, had saved from the wiles of the tuck-shop such meagre portion of pocket-money as strength of will insisted on, and brought her a present; Jack, a small volume of Plutarch's Lives, the reading of which gave himself great satisfaction; and Jim, a pocket-handkerchief with red and blue spots, which seemed to him the very height of fashion, and almost too good for ordinary use by any one but a princess--or Gracie.
"You dear boys!" said the Little Lady, and opened Plutarch and sparkled--although for Plutarch, simply as Plutarch, she had no overpowering admiration; and put the red and blue spots to her little brown nose in the most delicate and ladylike manner imaginable. "But you really shouldn't, you know!" And they both vowed internally that they would do it again next time and every time, and each time still better.
And, so far, the fact that they were two, and that there was only one Gracie, occasioned them no trouble whatever.