Peggy Stewart at School | Page 6

gradually faded as she advanced until, when the steps were reached, it had been transformed into a most disapproving frown.
To Peggy the reason was a mystery, for she had not overheard her aunt's comments upon the occasion of the drive from the railway station three days before. Of course Jess had, and they had been freely circulated and keenly resented in the servants' quarters, but no whisper of them had been carried to the young mistress. Nevertheless, Peggy was beginning to discover that a good many of her actions, and also the order of things at Severndale, had brought a cloud to her Aunt's brow, and a little sigh escaped her lips as she wondered what the latest development would prove. It seemed so easy for things to go amiss nowadays, when heretofore nearly everything had seemed, as a matter of course, to go right. Then the self-elected dictator spoke:
"Peggy, dear, are you not to drive with me?"
"Thank you, Aunt Katherine, but I always ride, and I have several errands to do which I can better attend to if I am mounted."
"Well, it can hardly be necessary for you to have three saddle horses at once. It seems to me unnecessarily conspicuous, and in very bad taste for a young girl to go tearing about the country, and especially into Annapolis--the capital City of the State--in the guise of a traveling circus."
A slight smile curved Peggy's lips as she answered:
"Annapolis is not New York, Aunt Katherine. What might be out of place in such a city would be regarded as a matter of course in a little town where everybody knows everybody else, and they all know me, and the Severndale horses. Nobody ever gives us a thought. Why should they? I'm nothing but a girl riding into town on an errand."
"You are extremely modest, I must say. Is it quite native or well--we'll dismiss the question, but I must ask you to do me the favor of leaving your bodyguard behind today; it may not seem conspicuous for you to play in a Wild West Show, but I must decline to be an actor. You are growing too old for such mad pranks, and are far too handsome a girl to invite observation."
Peggy turned crimson.
"Why, Aunt Katherine, I never regarded it as a prank in the least. I have ridden this way all my life and no one has ever commented upon it. Daddy Neil knows of it--he has ridden with me hundreds of times himself--and never said one word against it. And you surely do not think I do it to invite observation? Why, there isn't anything to observe. I am certainly no better looking than hundreds of other girls; at least, you are the only one who has ever commented upon my personal appearance. But I beg your pardon; you are my guest. I am sorry. Bud, please call Shelby to take Star and Roy back; I don't dare trust them to you."
The little negro boy who had brought Shashai to the doorstep, and who had been staring popeyed during the conversation, dashed away toward the paddock, to rush upon Shelby with a wild tale of "dat lady f'om de norf was a-sassin' Missie Peggy jist scan'lous and orderin' Shelby fer to come quick ter holp her."
"What you a-talking about, you little fool nigger?" demanded Shelby. Then gathering that something was amiss with the little mistress whom all upon the estate adored, he hastened to the house, his face somewhat troubled, for hints of the doings up there had penetrated even to his quarters.
"Shelby, please take Star and Roy back to the paddock and be sure to fasten them in."
"Ain't they a-goin' with you, Miss Peggy?"
"Not this morning, Shelby."
The man looked from the girl to the lady now settling herself in the carriage. Toinette still stood upon the piazza waiting to be lifted up to her mistress, too fat and too foolish to even go down the steps alone. As Shelby stepped toward the horses Mrs. Stewart waved her hand toward the dog and said to him:
"Lift Toinette into the surrey."
Shelby paid no more attention to her than he paid to the quarreling jays in the holly trees, and the order was sharply repeated.
"Oh, are you a-speakin' to me, ma'am?" he then said.
"Certainly. I wish my dog handed to me."
Shelby looked at the pampered poodle and then at its mistress. Then with a guileless smile remarked:
"Now you don't sesso? Well, when I git back to the paddock with these here horses what can't go 'long with Miss Peggy, I'll send a little nigger boy up here for ter boost your dog up to you, but I tend horses on this here place."
The man's dark skin grew several shades darker owing to the blood which flooded his cheeks,