Presently, however, he had her telling of her school. "It begins again to-morrow."
"Do you like it?"
"Teaching? No. But I love the children."
"Do you teach Peggy?"
"Yes. She is too young, really, but she insists upon going."
"There used to be a schoolhouse across the road from my grandfather's. A red brick school with a bell on top."
"There is still a bell. I always ring it myself, although the boys beg to do it. But I like to think of myself as the bell ringer."
It was while they sat there that Eric Brand came in through the kitchen-way to the hall. He stood for a moment looking into the lighted front room where Eve still danced with Philip Meade, and where the young man with the eye-glasses talked with the Dutton-Ames. Anne instinctively kept silent. It was Peggy who revealed their hiding place to him.
"Oh, Eric," she piped, "are you back?" She went flying down the stairs to him.
He caught her, and holding her in his arms, peered up. "Who's there?"