“What’s the meaning of this, Peppy?” demanded Mr Stuart with a frown.
“My dear George,” said Miss Peppy, bustling about actively, “I really am sorry, but you know things can’t always be just as one would wish, and then when things do turn out occasionally as one would not wish, and as one had no expectation of, and, so to speak, without consulting one at all, (dear me, where is that key?)—and when one can’t help things turning out so, you know, it’s really too much to—to—you know what I mean, brother; come now, be reasonable.”
“I do not know what you mean, Peppy,” (the lady’s name when unabbreviated was Penelope, but as she never was so named by any one, she might as well not have had the name at all), “and,” continued Mr Stuart, emphatically, “I would advise you to be reasonable and explain yourself.”
“Dear George, how can you,” said Miss Peppy, who talked with great volubility, and who never for a moment ceased to bustle about the room in a series of indescribable, as well as unaccountable, not to say unnecessary, preparations for the morning meal, which had already been prepared to perfection by Mrs Niven; “you surely don’t forget—things do happen so surprisingly at times—really, you know, I can not see why we should be subjected to such surprises. I’m quite sure that no good comes of it, and then it makes one look so foolish. Why human beings were made to be surprised so, I never could understand. No one ever sees pigs, or horses, or cows surprised, and they seem to get through life a great deal easier than we do, at all events they have less worry, and they never leave their children at their neighbour’s doors and run away—what can have got it?—I’m quite sure I put it there last night with the thimble and scissors.”
Miss Peppy thrust her right hand deep into that mysterious receptacle of household miscellanies her pocket, and fingered the contents inquiringly for a few moments.
“What are you looking for?” inquired her brother impatiently.
“The key of the press,” said Miss Peppy with a look of weariness and disappointment.
“What key is that in your left hand?” said Mr Stuart.
“Why, I declare, that’s it!” exclaimed his sister with a laugh; “there is no accounting for things. My whole life is a series of small surprises and perplexities. I wonder what I was born for! It seems to me so ridiculous that so serious a thing as life should be taken up with such little trifles.”
“What’s that you say about trifles, aunt?” asked Kenneth, who entered the room at the moment, and saluted Miss Peppy on the cheek.