Randy, coming in, gave a clear-cut impression of strength and youth.

“Mother sent some wine jelly for Mrs. Waterman,” he said to Oscar.  “It was made from an old recipe, and she thought it might be different.  And there were some hundred-leaved roses from our bush.  I gave them to your man.”

Oscar brightened.  He was grateful for the kindness of these queer neighbors of his who would have nothing to do with him and his wife when they were well, and who had seemed to care not at all for his money.  But who, now that sickness had come and sorrow, offered themselves and their possessions unstintedly.

“I’ll go and see that Flora gets them,” he said.  “She hasn’t any appetite.  She’s—­it’s rather discouraging——­”

Randy, left alone with Dalton, was debonair and delightful.  George, looking at him with speculative eyes, decided that there was more to this boy than he would have believed.  He had exceedingly good manners and an ease that was undeniable.  There was of course good blood back of him.  And in a way it counted.  George knew that he could never have been at ease in old clothes in the midst of elegance.

It was Randy who spoke first of Becky.  Dalton’s heart jumped when he heard her name.  Night after night he had ridden towards Huntersfield, only to turn back before he reached the lower gate.  Once he had ventured on foot as far as the garden, and in the hush had called softly, “Becky.”  But no one had answered.  He wondered what he would have done if Becky had responded to his call.  “I am not going to be fool enough to marry her,” he told himself, angrily, yet knew that if he played the game with Becky there could be no other end to it.

Randy said, quite naturally, that Becky was going away.  To Nantucket.  He asked if George had been there.

“Once, on Waterman’s yacht.  It’s quaint—­but a bit spoiled by summer people——­”

“Becky doesn’t know the summer people.  Her great-grandparents were among the first settlers, and the Merediths have never sold the old home.”

“She is a pretty little thing,” George said.  “And she’s buried down here.”

“I shouldn’t call it exactly—­buried.”

George, with his eyes on the peacock, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Randy smiled and his eyes, too, were on the peacock.  He was thinking that there were certain points of resemblance between the gorgeous bird and Dalton.  They glimmered in the sunlight and strutted a bit——­

He came back to say easily, “Has Becky told you of our happiness——­”

George gave him a startled glance.  “Happiness?”

“We are to be married when she comes back—­at Christmas.”

“Married——­”

“Yes,” coolly, “it was rather to be expected, you know.  We played together as children—­our fathers played together—­our grandfathers—­our great-grandfathers.”

A cold wave seemed to sweep over George.  So this young cub would have her beauty!