"I never did, Peggy, I swear I never did, though I had on my peach-blow breeches and blue hose."
"Well, 'twas as bad, for thou didst look as if to see where the dust was least. Oh, I could scarce help bursting into laughter."
"The devil!" exclaimed poor Romney, looking toward his mother with despair in his eyes, but his mother only smiled.
"Tell me, thou dear, wise Mistress Huntoon, can a woman truly love and yet be fain to laugh at herself and her love and her lover?"
"Some women can, Peggy, women like thee and me; and, truth to tell, I believe their laughing love is as well worth having as the sighs of those who must pull a long face and grow pale and go about solemnly breathing out prayers and poems; but if thou wilt have my judgment in thy case, little one, I think thou art as one who uses the beads of a rosary to play marbles before the world, yet in the closet will string them once more and murmur Pater Nosters and Ave Marias as piously as any nun.
"Never mind! By and by thou wilt make a little shrine for them and they will grow more sacred, and then little by little thou wilt forget that thou couldst once laugh and make merry over them. Kiss me and say, dost not feel it so?"
No answer.
"But Romney must wait patiently for the stringing of the beads and the building of the shrine, and not try to bless the rosary till the play is over. As for thee, Peggy, trouble not thy head over the future, and for the present cease to twitch at that skein which thou art snarling past all hope of disentangling."