no whisper of them had
been carried to the young mistress. Nevertheless, Peggy was beginning to
discover that a good many of her actions, and also the order of things
at Severndale, had brought a cloud to her Aunt's brow, and a little
sigh escaped her lips as she wondered what the latest development would
prove. It seemed so easy for things to go amiss nowadays, when
heretofore nearly everything had seemed, as a matter of course, to go
right. Then the self-elected dictator spoke:

"Peggy, dear, are you not to drive with me?"

"Thank you, Aunt Katherine, but I always ride, and I have several
errands to do which I can better attend to if I am mounted."

"Well, it can hardly be necessary for you to have _three_ saddle horses
at once. It seems to me unnecessarily conspicuous, and in very bad taste
for a young girl to go tearing about the country, and especially into
Annapolis--the capital City of the State--in the guise of a traveling
circus."

A slight smile curved Peggy's lips as she answered:

"Annapolis is _not_ New York, Aunt Katherine. What might be out of place
in such a city would be regarded as a matter of course in a little town
where everybody knows everybody else, and they all know me, and the
Severndale horses. Nobody ever gives us a thought. Why should they? I'm
nothing but a girl riding into town on an errand."

"You are extremely modest, I must say. Is it quite native or well--we'll
dismiss the question, but I must ask you to do me the favor of leaving
your bodyguard behind today; it may not seem conspicuous for you to play
in a Wild West Show, but I must decline to be an actor. You are growing
too old for such mad pranks, and are far too handsome a girl to invite
observation."

Peggy turned crimson.

"Why, Aunt Katherine, I never regarded it as a prank in the least. I
have ridden this way all my life and no one has ever commented upon it.
Daddy Neil knows of it--he has ridden with me hundreds of times
himself--and never said one word against it. And you surely do not think
I do it to invite observation? Why, there isn't anything to _observe_. I
am certainly no better looking than hundreds of other girls; at least,
you are the only one who has ever commented upon my personal appearance.
But I beg your pardon; you are my guest. I am sorry. Bud, please call
Shelby to take Star and Roy back; I don't dare trust them to you."

The little negro boy who had brought Shashai to the doorstep, and who
had be