Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/299

"Yes, sir," said Peter. "I never told no one, not even me wife, but I understood after that how things was goin'. An' when ye went away travellin' so sudden, I s'picioned ye was n't feelin' very merry over the trip; an' I watched Miss Ethel, and I was sure she was n't feelin' merry, for all she tried mighty hard to make people think she was. When they was lookin', sir, she laughed an' flirted most outrageous with them young men as used to be visitin' at Willowbrook, but I knew, sir, that she did n't care a snap of her finger for any o' them, for in between times she used to take long rides on the beach, with me followin' at a distance—at a very respectful distance; she was n't noticin' my troubles then, she had too many of her own. When there were n't no one on the beach she'd leave me the horses an' walk off by herself, an' sit on a sand dune, an' put her chin in her hand an' stare at the water till the horses was that crazy with the sand flies I could scarcely hold 'em. An' sometimes