The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-03
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Continued from Last Sundays News.)
CHAPTER XI.

CONTINUED from Last Sundays News.)
CHAPTER XI.
THE GENERAL MAKES PROVERBS.
In those few days next to follow
Pegs tantrum of the chair, like those
several to precede it, I was given no
more than meager pictures of her
should perhaps beg forgiveness for the
name "tantrum," which is a byword or
term of slang, but search as / may,
1 find nothing so good wherewith to tell
the story of that rootless wrath of
Pegs. However, l may say 1 was at
care not to shift the chair again, but
left it to stand waiting for her in ac-
cord with her command.
Peg, on the next day after that tam
trum, and on every day, would come
for her visit with the General; but
each time she so crept by me. whether
by stealth or luck that I lost notice
of her advent and knew nothing of her
presence until she went past my door
when on her way for home. She would
create noise enough with her flight;
setting her small feet down in empha-
sis and sending a rustic along the hall
way with the swirl of her petticoats,
so that l had ample time to raise my
head and be on guard for her She
would nod slightly as she caught my
glance, but ever sustained herself with
that distance which she had seen fit to
construct between us.
When Peg flashed by my door-for,
radiant as ever, and with the motion
of a meteor flashed should be the
description of It'll was bound to OBJ
serve how her look shot straight for
her chair like an arrow. She would be
sure it was there, that chair; and l
could tell how its absence would have
become the signal for browning me with
some warm aversion of her feelings
that l shriveled like October leaves
to simply think on it. But / would
meet no risk of the sort, since l did
not entertain the hardihood to invoke it.
/ say the latter, because sooth it is,
that half in anger, half in thought to
bring her in for a talk, l once had it
on my mind to send Pegs chair again
into exile. Indeed, l did put it out of
the room. But only for a moment; the
wick of my courage burned dim, and l
fell to be in utmost haste to restore
that leathern Punishment, breathing
the while in quick, craven fashion of
respiration, lest she surprise me be-
fore the situation was repaired. Thus
1t stood; the chair and / in the room,
and both desolate, with Peg going each
day by like a Waterman on his rounds,
TO glance in and be assured.
These conditions of separation be-
tween Peg and myself, as days went
on, would give me less and less of
ease. I was forever carrying them on
the ridge of my thought, and they made
an unhappy element in life's skyline.
! stood the more in grief, since to be
out with little Peg was like a quarrel
with a child; and then, moreover, the
fault of ii was mine, for l overstepped
an obvious line of right conduct when
! went forth upon Eaton's disparage-
ment. 1t was a FOOLS work. besides;
for I might have known she would be
sharp to notice and as sharply bound
to resent; had she not already warn
ed me how disfavored Eaton, and told
me 1 was jealous? She would say
truly, she did not care for that jeal-
ousy; but that was mere laughter when
her fancy was at merriest. Also, she
had told how ! did not know her. and
never would see her true self: | be-
gan now to understand that she was
right. And yet l would have her back
and our old frank confidence returned;
for Peg, as l tell you, was only a child
"a prankish girl when all was in, and
1t made no more for my credit than
for my peace that we should be at
crosses.
1t stands a thing strangest of all.
how differently one will regard another
when the time is this or that. Peg.
as l have written, would seem ever to
me the rompish child; for my thoughts
of her were forged and beaten out
upon the stithy of those moments when.
free and playful and without restraint.
she sat alone with me. BY the same
token! / recall another score of mo-
ments where the stage was a drawing
room and strange folk framed the scene
and Peg, a beautiful woman of dignity
and grave reserve, would remind one of
no child at all. But then she would
not be Peg to me; on such times when
this proud, sufficient being made me
some sweeping, stately recognition, and
as though / had known her but
day, have stood aside to wonder was
she that playful leopard Peg whose
white mark / wore on my hand? Was
It she 10 call me slave" ana KISS the
mark, or watch dog and make me a
collar with her arms? And still 1 liked
her thus l was proud to see her proud;
and my bosom would swell to note
how when Peg, fastidious and with
her high-bred look, stepped across a
room, she seemed among the women
gathered there-and they the We're de
Neres-a greyhound among poodles, or
rather the leopard she was among a
troop of tabbies. These be crude COM
PARSONS, surely; yet there comes no
other to so fit with my thoughts of
rearward days when Peg moved an
empress in the midst of peasants, at
once the envy and despair of rivalry.