idn't pay attention to what they were saying, because there was a
chub and a trout together after my bait, and I naturally was excited
to see if the trout would take it. But when I'd lost both of them I had
time to listen.

I wouldn't have believed it of Dr. Denbigh, to bother about a girl like
Peg, who can't do anything. And he's a whale, just a whale. He's six
feet-two, and strong as an ox. He went through West Point before
he degraded himself into a doctor, and he held the record there for
shot-putting, and was on the foot-ball team, and even now, when he's
very old and of course can't last long, he plays the best tennis in
Eastridge. He went to the Spanish War--quite awhile ago that was, but
yet in modern times--and he was at San Juan. You can see he's a Jim
dandy--and him to be wasting time on Peggy--it's sickening! Even for a
girl she's poor stuff. I don't mean, of course, that she's not all
right in a moral direction, and I wouldn't let anybody else abuse her.
Everybody says she's pretty, and I suppose she is, in a red-headed way,
and she's awfully kind, you know, but athletically--that's what I'm
talking about--she doesn't amount to a row of pins. She can't fish or
play tennis or ride or anything.

Yet all the same it's true, I distinctly heard him say he loved her
better than anything on earth. I don't think he could have meant better
than Rapscallion; he's awfully fond of that horse. Probably he forgot
Rapscallion for the moment. Anyhow, Peg was sniffling and saying how she
was going back to college--it was the Easter vacation--and how she
was only a stupid girl and he would forget her. And he said he'd never
forget her one minute all his life--which was silly, for I've often
forgotten really important things. Once I forgot to stop at Lorraine's
for a tin of hot gingerbread she'd had Sally make for me to entirely eat
by myself, and Alice got it and devoured it all up, the pig! Anyway, Dr.
Denbigh said that, and then Peggy sniffled some more, and I heard him
ask her:

"What is it, dear?"

"Dear," your grandmother. She said, then, why wouldn't he let her be
engaged to him like anybody else, and it was hard on a girl to have to
beg a man to be engaged, and then he laughed a little and they didn't
either of them say anything for a while, but there were soft, rustling
sounds--a trout was after my bait, so I didn't listen carefully. When I
noticed again, Dr. Denbigh was saying how he was years and years older,