"It should have come three days ago," Peter glibly lied. "Miss Carter give me a lot o' them to deliver; this one must have slipped down the crack between the cushions an' got overlooked. We come across it this mornin' when we was washin' the buckboard, so I drove over with it on me way home from the marketin'. I hope that it ain't important, and that ye won't feel called upon to tell Miss Carter? It would get me into trouble, ma'am." Her face had cleared slightly during this recital; it was evident that she knew about the garden party, and had entertained emotions over the absence of her own invitation. She saw fit now to work off her stored-up anger upon the delinquent. Peter knew his place, and respectfully swallowed the scolding, but he did it with a cordial assent to Miss Ethel's description of the lady's character. She ended by bidding him wait for an answer. He heard her say, as she swept down the veranda: "Excuse me a moment while I answer this note. It's from Ethel Carter, Jerome Carter's daughter, you know"--evidently this was a name to conjure with--"an invitation to meet Lord Kiscadden. It should have come three days ago, but their man stupidly forgot to deliver it. He is begging me not to report him, though I feel that such carelessness really ought to be punished." She rustled on into the house, and Peter sat for twenty minutes flicking the flies from Trixy's legs. "An' she's a daughter o' Tim McGarrah!" he repeated to himself. There had been nothing snobbish about Tim; he was hail-fellow-well-met with every voter east of Broadway. "She's ashamed of him now," Peter reflected, "and won't let on she ever heard the name; but the old man was ten times more a gentleman than his daughter is a lady, for all his saloon!" His cogitations came to an end as Mrs. Booth-Higby rustled back, a delicately tinted envelope in her hand and a more indulgent smile upon her lips. "There are to be theatricals?" she inquired, in a note of forgiveness. "I believe so, ma'am." "Is Lord Kiscadden to take part?" "Can't say, ma'am." Peter, as scene-shifter, had had ample opportunity to study Lord Kiscadden's interpretation of the character of George Washington--his lordship, with a fine sense of humour, had himself selected the rôle--but at mention of the name, Peter's face was blank. "Is he to remain much longer at Jasper Place?" she persisted. "Haven't heard him say, ma'am." She abandoned her pursuit of news, handed him the note, and graciously added ten cents. Peter touched his hat gravely, murmured, "Thank ye, ma'am," and drove away. At the foot of the lawn the Booth-Higby peacock--supposedly a decoration for the Italian garden, but given to wandering out of bounds--trailed its plumage across his path. Peter shied his ten cents at the bird's head, with the muttered wish that the coin had been large enough really to accomplish damage.