“See,” said I, “there is the hospital. I believe there is a boy in there that knows you—name of Goward.”
“Yes,” she said, rather faintly, looking down again, but not changing color.
“Peggy,” I asked, “do you still—think now, and answer truly—do you still HATE him?”
She waited a moment, and then lifted her clear blue eyes to mine. “No, Uncle Gerrit, I don't hate him half as much as I hate myself. Really, I don't hate him at all. I'm sorry for him.”
“So am I, my dear,” said I, stretching my interest in the negligible youth a little. “But he is getting well, and he is going West as soon as possible. Look, is that the boy yonder, sitting on the terrace with a fat lady, probably his mother? Do you feel that you could bow to him, just to oblige me?”
She flashed a look at me. “I'll do it for that reason, and for another, too,” she said. And then she nodded her red head, in the prettiest way, and threw in an honest smile and a wave of her hand for good measure. I was proud of her. The boy stood up and took off his hat. I could see him blush a hundred feet away. Then his mother evidently asked him a question, and he turned to answer her, and so EXIT Mr. Goward.
The end of our drive was even pleasanter than the beginning. Peggy was much interested in a casual remark expressing my pleasure in hearing that she had recently met the nephew of one of my very old friends, Stillman Dane.
“Oh,” she cried, “do you know HIM? Isn't that lovely?”
I admitted that he was a very good person to know, though I had only seen a little of him, about six years ago. But his uncle, the one who lately died and left a snug fortune to his favorite nephew, was one of my old bachelor cronies, in fact, a member of the firm that published my books. If the young man resembled his uncle he was all right. Did Peggy like him?
“Why, yes,” she answered. “He was a professor at our college, and all the girls thought him a perfect dandy!”