Peggy glanced toward him, and quick to notice signs of mental disturbance, left her charge to Tzaritza’s care and came running toward the piazza.  As she ran up the four steps giving upon the lawn she asked half laughingly, half seriously: 

“Heavy weather, Daddy Neil?  Barometer falling?”

Neil Stewart paused, looked at her a moment and asked abruptly: 

“Peggy, how would you like to go to a boarding school?”

“To boarding school!” exclaimed Peggy in amazement.  “Leave Severndale and all this and go away to a school?” The emphasis upon the last word held whole volumes.

Her father nodded.

“I think I’d die,” she said, dropping upon a settee as though the very suggestion had deprived her of strength.

Her father’s forehead puckered into a perplexed frown.  If Peggy were sent to boarding school the choice of one would be a nice question.

“Well, what shall I do with you?” demanded the poor man in desperation.

“Leave me right where I am.  Compadre will see that I’m not quite an ignoramus, Harrison keeps me decently clad and properly lectured, and Mammy looks to my feeding when I’m well and dosing when I’m not, which, thank goodness, isn’t often.  Why Daddy, I’m so happy.  So perfectly happy.  Please, please don’t spoil it,” and Peggy rose to slip her arm within her father’s and “pace the deck” as he called it.

“But you haven’t a single companion of your own age or station,” he protested.

“Do I look the maiden all forlorn as the result?” she asked, laughing up at him.

“You look—­you look—­exactly like your mother, and to me she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” and Peggy found herself in an embrace which threatened to smother her.  She blushed with pleasure.  To be like her mother whom she scarcely remembered, for eight years had passed since that beautiful mother slipped out of her life, was the highest praise that could have been bestowed upon her.

“Daddy, will you make a truce with me?”

Her father stopped to look down at her, doubtful of falling into a snare, for he had wakened to the fact that his little fourteen-year-old daughter had a pretty long head for her years.  Peggy’s white teeth gleamed behind her rosy lips and her eyes danced wickedly.

“What are you hatching for your old Dad’s undoing, you witch?”

“Nothing but a truce.  It is almost the first of September.  Will you give me just one more year of this glorious freedom?  I shall be nearly sixteen then, and then if you still wish it, I’ll go to a finishing school, or any other old school you say to be polished off for society and to do the honors of Severndale properly when you retire.  But, Daddy, please, please, don’t send me this year.  I love it all so dearly—­and I’ll be good—­I truly will.”

At the concluding words the big dark eyes filled.  Her father bent down to kiss away the unshed tears.  His own eyes were troublesome.