It was as if a young archangel had secretly
signaled her in passing.
When the formal invitation arrived, Mrs. Hemingway was delighted
with what she termed Peter's good fortune. The invitations to that
house were coveted and prized she explained. Really, Peter Champneys
was unusually lucky! She felt deeply gratified.
Peter hadn't known that there existed anywhere on earth anything
quite so perfect as the life in a great English country house. He
thought that perhaps the vanished plantation life of the old South
might have approximated it. His delight in the fine old Tudor pile,
in its ordered stateliness, its mellowed beauty, pleased his hostess
and won the regard of the rather grumpy gentleman who happened to be
her husband and its owner. To her surprise, he took Peter under his
wing, and showed himself as much interested in this modest guest as
he was ordinarily indifferent to many more important ones. It was
his custom to take what he called a stroll before breakfast--a
matter of a mere eight or ten miles, maybe--and he found to his hand
a young man with walking legs, seeing eyes, and but a modicum of
tongue.
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