“I can stay till Monday or Tuesday, if you can put me up; and I came away because I—I suppose I am not quite up to the mark. My head bothers me. It aches, and I see black specks floating before my eyes. The doctor advised me to knock off for a few days, and I thought I would rather come here than anywhere.”
“I should think so, indeed. Of course we can put you up—proud and pleased to do so. Well, this is a pleasant surprise for a dull November day! You couldn’t have had a better one if you had had a hundred wishes, could you, Peggy? You won’t feel melancholy any longer?”
“I’m just enraptured! Saturday, Sunday, Monday—three whole days and two halves, as good as four days—almost a week! It’s too delicious—too utterly delicious to realise!”
Peggy drew deep sighs of happiness, and hung on to Arthur’s arm in an abandonment of tenderness which showed her in a new light to her companions. She would not loosen her grasp for a moment, and, even when seated at the table, kept her fingers tightly locked round his arm, as though afraid that he might escape.
As for Arthur himself, he was in the wildest spirits. He was as handsome a young soldier as one could wish to see, and his likeness to Peggy seemed only to make him more attractive in the eyes of the beholders.
“Hurrah!” he cried cheerily. “Hurrah, for a good old vicarage tea! Scones? that’s the style! Mary made them, I hope, and put in lots of currants. Raspberry jam! I say, mater, do you remember that solemn waitress you had, who told you that the jam was done again, and when you exclaimed in horror, said, ‘Yes, ’um, it’s not a bit of good buying raspberry jam. They like it!’ Ha, ha, ha, I’ve often thought of that! That looks uncommonly good cake you have over there. Thank you, I think I will! Begin with cake, and work steadily back to bread and butter—that’s the style, isn’t it, Peggums? Esther, I looks towards you! Mellicent, you are as thin as ever, I see. You should really do something for it. There are regular hollows in your cheeks.”
“Nasty, horrid thing! You are always teasing! How would you like it if you were struck fat yourself?” cried Mellicent, aggrieved. But, in spite of herself, her chubby cheeks dimpled with smiles as Arthur rolled his eyes at her across the table, for there was something irresistibly fascinating about this young fellow, and it was like old times to see him seated at the tea-table and to listen to his merry rattling voice.
“The dominie must grant a general holiday to-morrow,” he declared, “and we will do something fine to celebrate the occasion. We’ll have out this wonderful camera in the morning and take some groups. You and I must be taken together, Peggy, to send out to the parents. You promised to send me copies of all the things you took, but you are as false in that respect as the whole race of amateur photographers. They are grand hands at promising, but they never, by any chance—— Hallo! What’s that? My cup over? Awfully sorry, mater, really! I’ll put a penny in the missionary-box. Was it a clean cloth?”
“Oh, my dear boy, don’t apologise! I should not have felt that it was really you if you had not knocked your cup over! To see the table-cloth swimming with tea all round, convinces me that it is Arthur himself, and nobody else! Tut, tut! What does a table-cloth matter?” And Mrs. Asplin beamed upon her favourite as if she were really rather delighted than otherwise at his exploit.
It was a merry, not to say noisy, meal which followed. Peggy’s lost spirits had come back with the first glimpse of Arthur’s face; and her quips and cranks were so irresistibly droll that three separate times over Mellicent choked over her tea and had to be relieved with vigorous pounding on the back, while even Esther shook with laughter and the boys became positively uproarious.