“It will give me great pleasure, my sister,” he answered. A smile, winsome in its radiance, parted his lips, and he gazed across the valley at the distant hills. At the hills? Or did he see instead a pair of blue eyes swimming in tears through which divinest pity shone? Did he see a saucy, piquant face framed in ringlets that escaped in bewitching wilfulness from under the dainty cap of a Quakeress? Did he see—— Harriet’s voice, tremulous from a mist of tears in its laughter, broke in upon his musings.
“And oh, John Drayton’s hat,” she was saying. “You should have seen it, Peggy. When we started this morning ’twas nearly straight. Oh, not entirely! That would be impossible. Somehow I could not take my eyes from it. The harder he rode the further on the side it got. I remembered that Cousin David had said that all through the battle of Hobkirk’s Hill he had fought with it on his ear, and had been made a captain for valor. Peggy, it came to me that with him it meant confidence, and a determination to succeed. I knew that he would reach here in time so long as that hat was at a perilous angle. If he had put it straight I should have died.”
“Harriet,” said Clifford in determined tones, “I want to know why Captain Drayton was so interested? Why should he exert himself to avert an untoward fate from me?”
“Because,” answered Harriet. “Oh, because, Clifford. He did it for me. Now don’t ask questions, there’s a good fellow!”
Clifford’s face became thoughtful.
“I see, my sister,” he said gently. Harriet flashed a glance at Peggy, then laughed. Her brother’s inference was plain.
“I wonder where John is?” cried Peggy.
“He hath been asleep under a tree, my dear,” spoke the colonel’s wife. “And ’tis time for dinner. Will you ask him to come in?”
“Let me go, Peggy,” said Clifford hastily. “I would like to speak with him.” And knowing that her cousin would prefer to see Drayton alone, Peggy assented.