"And Uncle John!" said Margaret.
"And Hugh!" said Peggy. "I wish they hadn't gone."
"Oh, no, you don't, Peggy!" said Margaret. "It was such a great chance, to have the day on that wonderful yacht. Just think what a good time they are having! I only wish you could have gone too, but it is a bachelor party, you see."
"Of course! Oh, I want them to have the fun, and it was very good of Captain Storm to let Uncle John take them all. Yes, they will have a glorious time; only—well, we miss them so horribly. Dear me, Margaret, isn't it strange that you should get to know people so well in such a short time? Why, I seem to know Gerald and Phil as well—better, in some ways, than I know Hugh. But then, I never feel as if I understood Hugh, he is so—he knows so much. Margaret, dear, it makes me happy all through to have you and Hugh know each other, and be such friends."
"Indeed, it cannot make you so happy as it does me, Peggy," said Margaret, smiling. "He is a wonderful person, that brother of yours. Yes, he does know a most amazing amount, but he never makes one uncomfortable with his knowledge, as some clever people do. He is like a delightful book, that you can read when you want to, and when you don't it stays quiet on its shelf. When I want to know about anything, and Uncle John is somewhere else, or is busy, I just turn over a page of Hugh, and there I have it. Oh, by the bye, Grace, what was that stanza he was quoting to you this morning, just before he went away? Don't you remember? we were coming through the orchard, he and I, and we met you, and he said this. I have been trying all day to recall it."
"Keats!" said Grace, briefly.
"Yes, I know that; it was from 'La Belle Dame sans Merci,' but I cannot get the whole stanza. Won't you repeat it? I know you have almost the whole of Keats by heart."
Grace hesitated, and murmured something about "a time for everything," but finally, half-reluctantly, she repeated the stanza:
"'I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.'"
"Yes," said Margaret. "Well—thank you, Grace! I just wanted to hear it in your voice; what I was thinking of was, that Hugh always knows just what to say about everything and everybody. He has the whole Golden Treasury in his head, and he always turns the right page. Do you remember the other day, when Michael was so stupid!"