And then Peter felt he was to be congratulated.
“I shan’t marry him myself,” thought Leonore, “but I won’t have my friends married off right under my nose, and you can try all you want, Mrs. Rivington.”
So Peter’s guardianship was apparently bearing fruit. Yet man to this day holds woman to be the weaker vessel!
CHAPTER LIV.
OBSTINACY.
The next morning Peter found that his prayer for a rainy day had been answered, and came down to breakfast in the pleasantest of humors.
“See how joyful his future Excellency looks already,” said Watts, promptly recalling Peter to the serious part of life. And fortunately too, for from that moment, the time which he had hoped to have alone (if two ever can be alone), began to be pilfered from him. Hardly were they seated at breakfast when Pell dropped in to congratulate him, and from that moment, despite the rain, every friend in Newport seemed to feel it a bounden duty to do the same, and to stay the longer because of the rain. Peter wished he had set the time for the Convention two days earlier or two days later.
“I hope you won’t ask any of these people to luncheon,” Peter said in an aside to Mrs. D’Alloi.
“Why?” he was asked.
Peter looked puzzled, and finally said weakly, “I—I have a good deal to do.”