Before the butler could answer there was the sound of a quick, light footstep in the hall, and then the portières were pushed aside.
Mrs. Macallister looked approvingly at her granddaughter. Peggy was more like her father’s people, and her grandmother’s heart had warmed to her from the moment the motherless little baby had been placed in her tender care. The young father, never very strong, had not long outlived his girl-wife. Since then Peggy and her grandmother had lived alone in the old-fashioned residence, which her grandfather Macallister had bought years before when coming to live in Washington on the expiration of his third term as Governor of Pennsylvania.
“Well, Granny, am I very late?” giving Mrs. Macallister a warm hug. She had never stood in awe of her formidable grandmother, but with all the passionate feeling of her loving nature, she looked up to and adored her.
“My dear, five o’clock is five o’clock, not twenty minutes past,” retorted Mrs. Macallister, smoothing her silvery hair, which had been decidedly ruffled by Peggy’s precipitancy.
“I declare, Granny, you are as bad as Nana; if it is three minutes past five she says its ‘hard on six o’clock.’ I had an awfully good time at the luncheon, and stayed to talk things over with Maud. She has asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, you know.”
“Did you hear the news there?”
“News? What news?”
“Mrs. Trevor has been murdered!”
“Mrs. Trevor—murdered!” Peggy nearly dropped her teacup on the floor.
“I really wish, Peggy, you would stop your habit of repeating my words. It’s very uncomfortable living with an echo under one’s nose.”