CHAPTER II.
MRS. PEYTON'S COMPANION
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Peyton. "Here is Patience, down off her monument, come all this way to smile at Grief! I am Grief, my dear; allow me to introduce myself. Well, Margaret, and how do you get on without your brats—I beg pardon! I mean your pets?"
"As well as could be expected," said Margaret, lightly, as she stooped to kiss the ivory forehead. Mrs. Peyton was charming, but one did not confide one's troubles to her. "We are behaving beautifully, Mrs. Peyton. Not only have we dried our tears and hung our pocket-handkerchiefs out to dry, but we have set up some new pets already."
"Not more children? Not another set of 'The Orphans of Fernley,' bound in blue denim? That would be unendurable."
"No; four-legged pets this time. We have two dogs, Mrs. Peyton; beautiful Gordon setters. I hope you are fond of dogs."
"Oh!—dogs? Yes, I like dogs. As a rule I like them better than two-legged torments. You are a two-legged torment, Margaret, when you move about the room in that exasperatingly light-footed manner. I don't suppose you actually do it to make me feel my helplessness, but it has that effect. Do sit down! you are not a bird. And don't, for pity's sake, look patient! If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is to see people look patient when I insult them. If I had only known—but John Montfort always did like to thwart me, it's his nature—if I had only known, I say, that those brats of yours were going away, I need not have set up a menagerie of my own. It's too late now, the creature's coming."
"What do you mean, Mrs. Peyton?" asked Margaret, always prepared for any whim of her whimsical neighbor. "Are you setting up a dog too?"
"No! nothing half so comfortable as a dog. A fox, or wolf, or hyena, or something of that kind. Don't be stupid, Margaret; I am not up to explanations to-day. A companion, simpleton! A Miss Fox or Miss Wolfe, I can't remember which. I don't think it was Miss Hyena, but it might be. It's an unusual name, but she is recommended as an unusual person."
"Mrs. Peyton! you said you never would try it again. And you know I am always ready to come and read to you."