"Oh, yes, eyes may say a great deal, especially when they are angry eyes and look out from under drawn brows. I should scarce think any maid would dare wed a man with eyes that could look black when their color by nature is blue." Clever Peggy to shift the ground of attack! Silly Romney to fall into the trap! "I am not angry." "Yes you are, and have been all the morning in a temper. I felt quite sorry for your mother, she was so shamed by it." "What said she?" "Oh, that you were not well, which is what mothers always say when their son's actions do them no credit." "If my temper did me no credit, who drove me to it?" Peggy raised her eyebrows, puckered her pretty lips, and looked straight up into the sky as if striving to solve a riddle. "For my life I cannot guess," she said at last, "unless--unless it was that wretched woman who broke her promise." "Thou hast keen insight for one of thy years." "Then it was she!" "It was no other." "Tell me her name, that I may go to her and denounce her to her face." "Strangers know her as Mistress Margaret Neville. To her friends she is plain Peggy. Now denounce her to her face if thou wilt." Tripping to the edge of the bank, the girl bent over till she could catch the reflection of her curls and dancing eyes in the water. "Plain Peggy," she said, shaking her finger at the image below with a wicked smile, "you must be a bad baggage. It seems you have broken your promise to marry a gentleman here, and such a perfect gentleman! he says so himself,--one who never gets angry, never butts with his head at doors, never shames his mother. Why, plain Peggy, you must be a fool to lose such a chance; but since you have thrown away such a treasure, I trust you will meet the punishment you do deserve, and that he will go away and never--_never_--NEVER speak--to you again!" With this Peggy turned sharply on her heel, burning with curiosity to see the effect of her words. Poor, discomfited little maiden! Romney had withdrawn to the edge of the wharf, and there, close beside her, with his horse's bridle over his arm, stood Councillor Claiborne. With no attempt at salutation Peggy clapped her hands over her burning cheeks, and ran, yes, ignominiously ran, toward the house. At the door she met Mistress Huntoon. "Councillor Claiborne is--is--coming," she stammered breathlessly. "Why didst thou not stay to speak with him?" But Peggy attempted no answer, only fled on indoors. When Humphrey had been left alone, by Peggy's exit to the wharf and his wife's withdrawal to the offices, his thoughts turned with renewed irritation to Claiborne, till Christopher's entrance shed its usual benison of tranquillity. The glimpse of the ball which Neville had caught from over the stairway had lingered in his mind as a charming vision. The lights cheered him, and the music had lulled him to sweet slumber, from which he had wakened at peace with the world, yet with a haze of the Indian-summer sadness over the serenity.