Peggy Stewart at School | Page 5

smiling with would-be fascinating coyness. The smile would have been somewhat less complacent could she have heard old Jerome's comment as he placed upon the pantry shelf the fingerbowls which he had just removed from the table.
"Yas, yas, dat's it. Yo' needn't 'nounce it. We knows pintedly what yo's aimin' ter do, an' may de Lawd have mussy 'pon us if yo' succeeds. But dere's shorely gwine be ructions 'fore yo' does, er my name ain't Jerome Randolph Lee Stewart."
CHAPTER II
RECONSTRUCTION
"I have to ride into Annapolis, this morning, Aunt Katherine. Would you like to drive in?" asked Peggy, when the unpleasant breakfast was ended.
"I should be delighted to, dear," answered Mrs. Stewart sweetly, striving to recover lost ground, for she felt that a good bit had been lost. "At what time do you start?"
"Immediately. I will order the surrey."
She left the room, her aunt's eyes following her with a half-mystified, half-baffled expression: Was the girl deeper than she had given her credit for being? Had she miscalculated the depth of the pool after all?
All through the breakfast hour Peggy had been a sweet and gracious young hostess, anticipating every want, looking to every detail of the service, ordering with a degree of self-possession which secretly astonished Mrs. Stewart, who felt that it would have been difficult for her, even with her advantage of years, to have equaled the girl's unassuming self-assurance and dignity, or have rivaled her perfect ability to sit at the head of her father's table. A moment later Mrs. Stewart went to her room to dress for the drive into town, her breakfast toilet having been a most elaborate silk negligee. Twenty minutes later the surrey stood at the door, but, contrary to Mrs. Stewart's expectations, her niece was not in it: she was mounted upon her beautiful black horse Shashai, at whose feet Tzaritza lay, her nose between her paws, but her ears a-quiver for the very first note of the low whistle which meant, "full speed ahead." On either side of Shashai, a superb bodyguard, stood Silver Star, Polly Howland's saddle horse, though he was still quartered at Severndale, and Roy, the colt that Peggy had raised from tiny babyhood, and which had followed her as he would have followed his dam, ever since the accident that had made him an orphan.
Perhaps the reader of "Peggy Stewart" will recall Mrs. Stewart's horror upon being met at the railway station by "the wild West show," as she stigmatized her niece's riding and her horses, for rarely did Peggy Stewart ride unless accompanied by her two beautiful horses and the wolfhound, and her riding was a source of marvel to more than one, her instructor having been Shelby, the veteran horse-trainer, who had been employed at Severndale ever since Peggy could remember, and whose early days had been spent upon a ranch in the far West where a man had to ride anything which possessed locomotive powers. At the present moment a more appreciative observer would have thrilled at the sight, for rarely is it given to mortal eyes to look upon a prettier picture than Peggy Stewart and her escort presented at that moment.
Given as a background a beautiful, carefully preserved estate, which for generations has been the pride of its owners, a superb old mansion of the most perfect colonial type, a sunny September morning, and as the figures upon that background a charming young girl in a white linen riding-skirt, her rich coloring at its best, her eyes shining, her seat in her saddle so perfect that she seemed a part of her mount, and you have something to look upon. To this add three thoroughbred horses and a snowy dog, an old colored servitor, for Jerome had come out with a message from Harrison, and it is a picture to be appreciated. Had the tall woman standing upon the broad piazza been able to do so, many things which happened later might never have happened at all.
Mrs. Stewart was elaborately gowned in a costume better suited for a drive in Newport than Annapolis, especially Annapolis in September. It was a striking creation of pale blue linen and Irish point lace, with a large lace hat, heavy with nodding plumes and a voluminous white lace veil floating out about it. She was a handsome woman in a certain conspicuous way, and certainly knew how to purchase her apparel, though, not above criticism in her selection of the toilet for the occasion, as the present instance evinced. She now walked to the piazza steps, and had anyone possessing a sense of humor been a witness of it, the transformation which passed over the lady's face en transit would have well nigh convulsed him, for the smile which had illumined her countenance at the door had