future so unlike one those who loved her best could possibly have
foreseen or planned.




CHAPTER IV

IN OCTOBER'S DAYS


September slipped by, a lonely month for Peggy as contrasted with
August. At first she did not fully realize how lonely, but as the days
went by she missed her father's companionship more and more. Formerly,
after one of his brief visits she had taken up her usual occupations,
fallen back into the old order of things, and been happy in her dumb
companions. But this time she could not settle down to anything. She was
restless, and as nearly unhappy as it was possible for Peggy Stewart to
be. She could not understand it. Poor little Peggy, how could she
analyze it? How reason out that her life, dearly as she loved it, was an
unnatural one for a young girl, and, consequently, an unsatisfactory
one.

Dr. Llewellyn was troubled. Tender, wise and devoted to the girl, he had
long foreseen this crisis. It was all very well for the child Peggy to
run wild over fields and woodland, to ride, drive, paddle, sail, fish or
do as the whim of the moment prompted, happy in her horses and her dogs.
Mammy and Harrison were fully capable of looking to her corporal needs
and he could look to her mental and spiritual ones, and did do so.