"I'd already promised the same to Annie, so ye needn't be takin' too much credit to yerself fer me conversion." IX MRS. CARTER AS FATE As the summer wore to an end, the course of affairs between Peter and Annie became a matter of interested comment among the other servants. They had all seen Peter recover from many incipient attacks of love, but this they unanimously diagnosed as the real thing. Joe and his wife talked the matter over upon his return from the hospital, and decided that the time had definitely come for the livery stable; Peter, in all fairness, had served as groom long enough. They would move out of the coachman's cottage the following spring, and give the young people a chance. Thus was the way open for a happy conclusion, and everyone was preparing to dance at the wedding, except Peter and Annie themselves. They alone were not certain as to the outcome. Neither was quite comfortably sure that the other was in earnest, and when it came to the point they were both a little shy. Annie, with laughing eyes, tempted Peter at every point, but when he showed a disposition to control matters himself, she precipitously fled. The two were standing on the back veranda one moonlight night, and Annie was engaged in pointing out to Peter the lady in the moon. Peter was either stubborn or stupid; he frankly declared that he saw no "loidy," and didn't believe there was one. In her zeal in the cause of astronomy, Annie unwarily bent her head too near, and while her eyes were turned to the moon, Peter kissed her. She slapped him smartly, as a well-brought-up young woman should, and fled into the house before he could catch her. Peter, strong in his new-found courage, waited about in the hope that she would reappear; but she did not, and he finally took himself off to his room over the carriage-house, where he sat by the window gazing out at the moonlight for two hours or more before he remembered to go to bed. The slap had hurt neither him nor his feelings; he liked her the better for it. She wasn't really mad, he reflected happily, for she had laughed as she banged the door in his face. The next morning Peter went about his work with a singing heart and many a glance toward the kitchen windows. He swashed water over the stable floor and rubbed down the horses with a mind happily intent upon what he would say to Annie when he saw her. About ten o'clock Mrs. Carter ordered the victoria, but as the carriage horses were at the shop being shod, Joe sent Peter in to ask if Trixy and the phaeton would do as well.