“Come sit down, and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Harriet, giving her cousin a squeeze. “Don’t be afraid, Peggy. I promise not to teach any lesson. I should not dare to. But oh!” she laughed gleefully. “I shall never forget how you looked. You’ll be the death of me yet, little cousin.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE TURN OF THE WHEEL
“From every valley and hill there come
The clamoring voices of fife and drum;
And out in the fresh, cool morning air
The soldiers are swarming everywhere.”
—“Reveille,” Michael O’Connor.
“But first, Harriet, do take off that bonnet, and let me see thee as thou art really; with thy hair about thy face. So.” Peggy reached over and untied the bow as she spoke, then removed the prim little bonnet from her cousin’s head. “How beautiful thee is,” she commented gazing at the maiden with admiring eyes. “I think thee grows more so every time I see thee. That bonnet doth not become thee.”
Harriet shook back her chestnut ringlets, and laughed gaily. Her wonderful eyes, dancing with mirth, were starry in their radiance.
“One would think that I did not make a good Quakeress, Peggy, to hear you talk. Now confess,” pinching Peggy’s cheek playfully, “you did not dream that I was aught other than Truelove Davis; did you?”