Certainly, the preceding two days had not promised much for the fulfillment of her plan. So being by no means a fool, but on the contrary, a very clever woman in her own peculiar line of cleverness, she at once set about dispelling the cloud which hung over the horizon, congratulating herself that she had had sufficient experience to know how to deal with a girl of Peggy's age. So to that end she now smiled sweetly upon her niece and remarked:
"I am afraid, dear, I almost lost control of myself. I am so attached to Toinette that I am quite overcome if any harm threatens her. You know she has been my inseparable companion in my loneliness, and when one is so utterly desolate as I have been for so many years even the devotion of a dumb animal is valued. I have been very, very lonely since your uncle's death, Peggy, dear, and you can hardly understand what a paradise seems opening to me in this month to be spent with you. I know we are going to be everything to each other, and I am sure I can relieve you of a thousand burdens which must be a great tax upon a girl of your years. I do not see _how_ you have carried them so wonderfully, or why you are not old before your time. It has been most unnatural. But now we must change all that. Young people were not born to assume heavy responsibilities, whereas older ones accept them as a matter of course. And that's just what _I_ have come way down here to try to do for my sweet niece," ended Mrs. Stewart 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' _suc_ceeds. But dere's shorely gwine be ructions 'fore yo' does, er my name ain't Jerome Randolph Lee Stewart."
"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?"