Produced by Marcia Brooks, Al Haines, Alex White & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net PEGEEN BY ELEANOR HOYT BRAINERD AUTHOR OF MISDEMEANORS OF NANCY, Etc. [Illustration] NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1915, by The Century Co. * * * * * Copyright, 1915, by The Ridgway Company * * * * * _Published, October, 1915_ TO THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER WHO, LIKE PEGEEN, HAS THE NEIGHBORING HEART, THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED PEGEEN I “Please, sir, I’ve come to see to you,” announced the Very Small Person. John Archibald turned from his easel, eyed the intruder with amazement, faintly tinged with alarm, and thought of laughing—but did not laugh. She was such a mere wisp of a child and so profoundly serious. “Oh, you have, have you?” the painter remarked feebly. There was a solemn determination about this invader of his privacy that made him uncomfortably sure she would do whatever she had come to do. “Yes, sir, I’m Pegeen O’Neill. I’ll begin in the kitchen. They say it’s a sight.” She was taking off her battered straw hat and her wet coat and rubbers, and rolling up the sleeves of her clean but much patched gingham dress. The artist liked her better without the hat, though the extraordinary mass of black tumbled curls was too heavy a frame for the thin, sensitive, little face. “I brought cleaning rags with me.” The child had an oddly efficient air. One understood that she would always bring the needed things with her. “Men never have such things around. They’re the wastingest creatures.” “Oh, but I do have rags around—often,” protested Archibald, “only I’m usually wearing them.” The weak attempt to meet the situation lightly made no impression upon her seriousness. “Never mind. I’ll keep you mended up now,” she said, with an air of brisk capability. “B-b-but,” began the painter. “You go right on with your painting,” she advised kindly but firmly. “I won’t want to come in here to-day, if that kitchen’s anything like what they say it is, ’n’ maybe it’ll clear up by to-morrow so that you can paint outdoors and not be in my way. What time do you have dinner?”