"It's worth while taking a walk up this way," he remarked appreciatively.
"Now confess," laughed the old lady, "confess that I am not the adventure you are seeking this afternoon!"
"I wasn't seeking one at all," disclaimed Peter, "but I couldn't refuse a divine accident." And as she shook a chiding head at his flattery, he went on firmly: "It's the wayside adventures like this which have long since decided me to start out with none in view. The gods presiding over a wayfarer's destiny always offer him something better than he could have provided for himself!"
"Oh, Peter! Peter!" protested the old lady, "what a book of pretty speeches you are!" But the two smiled at each other with the happy understanding of friends to whom disparity of years was no barrier.
"And how does your garden grow, Mistress Mary?" Peter presently inquired.
Mrs. Caldwell looked out upon her trim flower beds where bloomed tulip and crocus in April festival. "My silver bells and cockle shells grow very well," she answered, in the spirit of the rhyme, "but"—and her delicate old face quivered into an anxious quickening of life—"but, Oh, Peter! I fear my pretty maid grows too fast for her own good."
"Sheila? Then you've seen?" And Peter sat up eagerly, shedding the garment of his indolence.
"Then you've seen!" returned Mrs. Caldwell. "But what have you seen, Peter? What do you think of her?"
"I think," said he slowly, "that she has the most delightful mind I've ever encountered."
Pride leapt into Mrs. Caldwell's eyes, but, as if to make quite certain of him, she demurred: "She's only a little girl, Peter—only a little twelve-year-old girl."