“It is not, I say,” returned Peg, her eyes beginning to shine with the first flavor of my opposition. “I say it is not. You had done nothing, said nothing; while I--why, then I hated you for having eyes of lead. But we will amend that.” Here Peg turned pleasantly brisk. “We have been too much abroad with mistakes. We have made you too old and me too young in our dealings. There shall be a change, and you and I hereafter are to consider ourselves as folk of even years, each with the other. It is but right, watchdog, for though you have no learning on that point, it is none the less true that a woman of twenty-two is very old and very wise, while a man of forty-four is for his youth and guilelessness, or I should have said dullness, a creature insupportable. Yes, watch-dog, for your ignorance you are insupportable; but I forgive you, since it is your only defect.” And here Peg recovered her old gay smile, and with that my heart came home again to peace. “Well,” I said, when Peg would let me be heard, “I make no secret that I am over happy with this new prospect of your friendship. It was night while I thought you would not forgive me my offence.” “Say no more of it,” cried Peg, sharply, putting her fingers in her ears. At the same time I caught the milky shine of her leopard teeth. “Say no more, or I shall go back to my anger as a refuge. Speak of something else! Why did you turn my chair out of door?--my poor chair that had done no harm!” Peg caressed the arms of it with her palms as though it were alive and could know and feel her petting. “You did it because you hated me.” “No, forsooth!” I protested. “Now if I had only hated you it might have stayed till the fall of doom. But I could not bear the leering, mocking look of it, and me deserted; it would seem ever to brew for me a cup of loneliness. And so for that I thrust it from the room.” “Why, then! and that was it!” cried Peg. “There you see, now, I can be a fool as well as you.” “But why did you avoid me?” I asked, in my turn. “Surely, even for my dull clumsiness, there was need of no such hard reproof. Come, now, why did you stay away? And why did you run from me when I went across to the square that day to beg a word from you?” “Because I hated you,” returned Peg, with a self-satisfied air. “I hate you now, watchdog, when I pause and think. You had made me suffer, and I thought to see you suffer in return. And really, watch-dog, you did suffer; and it pleased me much.” “I had not thought you were made with such a palate for revenge,” said I, a bit stricken with these words of cruelty. “And yet, if it so pleasure you to give me pain, why then, go on.”