"How can you be sure of that?" asked the terrible young woman. "There may have been some live wire in your family that went West, you know!"
To this I had no reply, for in point of fact my father's younger brother had indeed been a wild spirit who refused to enter the ministry and had vanished to the West, from which region he had never returned nor sent any token of his existence except, upon one occasion shortly after his departure, a specimen of polished redwood, which at that very moment was reposing in our curio cabinet at home. I determined, however, to make no mention of the circumstances. One is so seldom able to avoid one's relatives.
"Do you not think a simpler frock would be better for luncheon?" I asked, changing the subject. Love was rather too personal a matter on which to press just at first, but really the girl's clothing was certainly somewhere within my legitimate province. "Your gown is very beautiful. And you won't be offended, but I am sure your father expects me to tell you these things."
She looked at my own costume by way of reply; not rudely, but frankly and interestedly.
"I don't believe you know one scrap more about clothes than I do!" she said at last. "We both of us look the limit. But after all, what does it matter? You are dowdy and I am crude, but we should worry!"
"Come on down or pa will be clawing the air," was her greeting.
She left me then to my unpacking and I did not see her again for about two hours. Then she stuck her head in abruptly, without knocking. "He certainly can eat, though I don't think much of the food in the East. You ought to see the meals in California!"
There was no resisting the young giantess. With no further ado she swung me along to the parlor, where her still more gigantic parent gave me an absent-minded greeting, quite as if I had been in his employ for years. He took a sheaf of papers to the table with him, and we descended to the dining room, I vaguely wondering whether or not the young chauffeur would join us. Peaches seemed to discern my thought.
"Dick won't eat with us since pa bought him that trick suit of clothes!" she complained. "And he says he actually likes wearing them, though I know perfectly well he only does it because he thinks it gives us class."
During luncheon Mr. Pegg spoke only once.