“You’re cruel, cruel!” she sobbed out, and you bet that surprised me—­me that was comforting her for all I was worth!  I patted her on the back of the neck, and thought hard what other soothings I could squeeze out.  Then I had an idea.  “Tell you what, Peg,” I said, “it’s too darned bad of Dr. Denbigh, if he just did it for meanness, when you haven’t done anything to him.  But maybe he got riled because you begged him so to let you be engaged to him.  Of course a man doesn’t want to be bothered—­if he wants to get engaged he wants to, and if he doesn’t want to he doesn’t, and that’s all.  I think probably Dr. Denbigh was afraid you’d be at him again when you came home, so he hurried up and snatched Aunt Elizabeth.”

Peggy lifted her face and stared at me.  She was a sight, with her eyes all bunged up and her cheeks sloppy.  “You think he is engaged to her, do you, Billy?” she asked me.

Her voice sort of shook, and I thought I’d better settle it for her one way or the other, so I nodded and said, “Wouldn’t be surprised,” and then, if you’ll believe it, that girl got angry—­at me.  “Billy, you’re brutal—­you’re like any other man-thing—­cold-blooded and faithless—­and—­” And she began choking—­choking again, and I was disgusted and cleared out.

I was glad when she went off to college, because, though she’s a kind-hearted girl, she was so peevish and untalkative it made me tired.  I think people ought to be cheerful around their own homes.  But the family didn’t seem to see it; there are such a lot of us that you have to blow a trumpet before you get any special notice—­except me, when I don’t wash my hands.  Yet, what’s the use of washing your hands when you’re certain to get them dirty again in five minutes?

Well, then, awhile ago Peggy wrote she was engaged to Harry Goward, and there was great excitement in the happy home.  My people are mobile in their temperatures, anyway—­a little thing stirs them up.  I thought it was queerish, but I didn’t know but Peggy had changed her mind about loving Dr. Denbigh till she died.  I should think that was too long myself.  I was busy getting my saddle mended and a new bridle, so I didn’t have time for gossip.

Harry came to visit the family, and the minute I inspected him over I knew he was a sissy.  If you’ll believe me, that grown-up man can’t chin himself.  He sings and paints apple blossoms, but he fell three-cornered over a fence that I vaulted.  He may be fascinating, as Lorraine says, but he isn’t worth saving, in my judgments.  I said so to Dr. Denbigh one day when he picked me up in his machine and brought me home from school, and he was sympathetic and asked intelligent questions—­at least, some of them were; some of them were just slow remarks about if Peggy seemed to be very happy, and that sort of stuff that doesn’t have any foundations.  I told him particularly that I like automobiles, and he thought a minute, and then said: