Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

MOLLY AND JESSIE STOLE SOFTLY INTO THE ROOM TO LOOK AT HER.—Page [30].

PEGGY FROM KERRY

BY

MRS. L. T. MEADE

AUTHOR OF “FOR DEAR DAD,” “THE GIRLS OF MERTON COLLEGE,” “KITTY O’DONOVAN,” “OCEANA’S GIRLHOOD,” “A WILD IRISH GIRL,” ETC.

WITH FOUR HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS

BY MARTIN LEWIS

NEW YORK

HURST & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1912,

BY

HURST & COMPANY

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PEGGY FROM KERRY.

CHAPTER I.
AT HOME.

“It’s really the most horrible thing!” said Mrs. Wyndham. “I don’t know what to do about it; and your father is so determined! I can’t shake his confidence that he is right, do as I will.”

“But what is it, mother? Whatever can be the matter?” asked Molly Wyndham, a sweet, gentle-looking girl of about fifteen years of age.

“Yes, what is it?” chimed in Jessie, another daughter, one year Molly’s senior.

“Why, it’s this, my dears. I assure you it has quite prostrated me, and it’s all on your account.”

Jessie, brimful of curiosity, wanted to ply her mother with questions; but Molly took a wiser course.

“Jess,” she said, “can’t you see how tired and fagged the mums looks?—Sit in this easy-chair, mums, and take things quietly for a minute.”

Mrs. Wyndham’s eyes filled with tears. She was a really kind-hearted woman and was much loved in the neighbourhood of Preston Manor, her husband’s beautiful house. She was kind to her poor neighbours, and liked well her position as Lady Bountiful to the parish. But, with all her open-handedness and generosity, there was a streak of worldliness in Mrs. Wyndham, and that worldliness made what was just going to happen intensely disagreeable to her. She was proud of her home, her children, her husband, proud of her husband’s position as the Squire of Preston Manor; and just now, as she considered it, that pride of hers was to receive a fall. The girls Molly and Jessie, the Wyndhams’ only daughters—there was a son called Jack some years older—were enjoying their Easter holidays when the blow, so unlooked-for, so unexpected, fell.

Molly knelt down by her mother and took her hand.

“What is it, darling?” she began. “Whatever it is, be sure of one thing—we’ll stick to you whatever happens.”

“Oh, it’s nothing of that sort, Molly; I mean, I don’t quite know what you’re alluding to, my child. But I may as well tell you. You have surely heard your father talk of his great friend Peter Desmond?”

“Certainly we have,” said Jess.

“Why, of course, mother,” exclaimed Molly. “And haven’t we laughed and laughed over Captain Desmond’s funny Irish stories? Oh, is it possible that he’s coming to see us at last? That will be fun!”

“No, it isn’t that, Molly; it’s something very different, something very sad. Poor Captain Desmond has just died of typhoid fever in India, and now, my darlings, comes the crux. He wrote on his deathbed to your father, making a sort of confession. He said that long ago, in Ireland, in the County Kerry, he met a beautiful Irish peasant girl, fell in love with her, and married her. They had one little daughter, and the mother died at the child’s birth. The little girl was brought up by her maternal grandparents until they died; then for the last five or six years some people of the name of O’Flynn took charge of her, her father paying them for doing so. The O’Flynns are very poor and common sort of people. The girl is fifteen years of age, and has lived all her life in Irish cabins in the County Kerry. Now, Peter Desmond on his deathbed told your father that the child is penniless, except for a small annuity which she will get from the Government as his daughter. He has asked your father to adopt this poor girl, to bring her here—here!—and to let her grow up as a lady; and your father says he will. Nothing will turn him, no amount of imploring on my part; he has made up his mind. Captain Desmond was his dearest friend. He is going to Ireland to-night to fetch this child—Peggy, he calls her. Now, what is to be done?”

Mrs. Wyndham burst into tears. “To think of such a creature coming to us!” she said. “Why, even the servants would be ashamed of her.”

Jess, the eldest girl, was quite silent; but Molly, after a moment’s pause, kissed her mother’s flushed cheek and said:

“Well, mums, I do think that father could do nothing else.”

Mrs. Wyndham gazed at the child in despair.

“It’s very hard on mums, I must say,” exclaimed Jessie.

“Yes, of course,” answered Molly; “but still it’s right. Right things are often hard,” she added.—“And, mother, we’ll look after her; you mustn’t be worried,” continued the girl.

“But it is on account of you both that I am so unhappy. Oh,” continued the good lady, “you have never seen an Irish peasant! She is a most disgraceful creature!”

“Oh mother, but this girl is a lady by birth!”

“On her father’s side,” said Mrs. Wyndham; “but what about her mother? Her father, as well as I can tell, has never troubled himself even to see her, and now he hands her over to us. I do call it terrible!”

As Mrs. Wyndham spoke she rose from her chair and stood for a few minutes looking out of the window at the peaceful landscape.

“Mother,” said Jessie suddenly, “couldn’t she go to school for a bit—until she’s polished up a little, I mean? Oh, I don’t mean to our school, of course, but to some other school.”

“I thought of that, my dears; but your father won’t have it. He says that if the child comes here she is to be treated from the first as a lady, as a daughter of the house; and if possible, and we can get Mrs. Fleming to take her, she is to go to your school at The Red Gables.”

“Oh mother!”

Both girls looked rather dismayed at this prospect. Mrs. Wyndham soon afterwards left them. She had to attend to her husband, who was making preparations for his journey.

“Now, my darling,” he said, as he kissed his wife affectionately, “you know, my dearest Lucy, there is nothing else to be done. Desmond was my best friend, and I’d rather die than neglect his child.”

Soon afterwards Mrs. Wyndham was left alone to her own reflections, and to the eager comments of her young daughters, who were full of curiosity about Peggy Desmond, wondering what sort of young savage would soon arrive at Preston Manor.

Meanwhile, Wyndham took train to Holyhead, crossed over to Dublin, and then took train from Dublin to Kerry. He arrived in the neighbourhood of the well-known town of Tralee in the course of the following afternoon; and, having inquired for the O’Flynns, was directed to their “bit of a house,” as the neighbour described it. Wyndham was a tall, well-set-up man of about forty years of age; he had a pleasant, kindly face, bright blue eyes, and was, in short, every inch a gentleman.

Now, no one in all the world knows better who is a gentleman and who is not than the peasant of Ireland. He sees who belong to the “quality,” as he calls it, and who does not, at a single glance; he also sees this fact, although one man may be dressed in rags and the other have a carriage and smart clothes, his ring with a diamond in it, and his swell manners. Mr. Wyndham was pronounced by the old man who directed him to the O’Flynns as a “oner.” “Why, thin, sure a gintleman to the innermost bone of him.”

He entered the small lane—or, rather, as the man shouted to him, “boreen”—and, walking down its narrow, pretty path, soon found himself outside a small cottage, which was surrounded by a sort of ill-kept farmyard. Some pigs were grunting and poking their noses into the soft earth, a dog sprang up at his approach and ran towards him, barking, a cat leaped out of sight and sprang into the branches of a neighbouring tree.

A girl who was standing by the cottage door came forward.

“An’ what may yer honour want?” she asked.

Wyndham looked at her curiously and with a sort of tremble at his heart. The girl bore a striking resemblance to his dearest friend, Peter Desmond. She had very large, dark-blue eyes, the true heritage of a Kerry girl; those eyes were put in, as is the proverbial expression, with “dirty fingers.” The thick, curly, long black lashes were lowered for an instant, then the eyes, bright as stars, fixed themselves on the stranger’s face. The girl’s hair was of a tawny shade, with a very slight touch, an almost imperceptible touch, of red in it; it was very thick, very long, and curled in fascinating little waves all over her small head. She wore a blue cotton frock which came down just above her ankles, coarse white stockings, and hobnailed shoes. Under her arm she carried a big dish filled with all sorts of farm refuse, which she had prepared to give to the fowls. Her sleeves were pushed up as far as her elbows, showing her pretty rounded arms, which were, however, reddened through exposure to all weathers.

“I need hardly ask your name,” said Wyndham. “You are, of course, Peggy Desmond?”

“Arrah, thin, I be,” answered the girl. “An’ what may ye be wantin’ wid me, yer highness?”

Wyndham put out his hand and took the rather dirty little one of Peggy Desmond.

“I have come from your father, my dear.”

“Ah! an’ wisha! have ye? Why, thin, I haven’t had a line from hisself this many a day. Is he took with the sickness forby, or does anything ail him at all, at all?”

“Peggy, do you love your father?”

“Why, thin, yes, yer highness; only I never clapped eyes on him since I was a tweeny bit that high, yer highness.”

“My poor little girl, your father is dead!”

“Dead!” The girl started back. “Ah, thin, I want to let a screech out o’ me! Dead! is he dead? Oh, the holy powers! An’ is his sowl in glory?”

“I hope so, Peggy. I have heard from him. He was my greatest friend always.”

“Ye look too mighty fine to have a friend like me father, that ye do.”

“But your father was a gentleman, Peggy.”

“Ah, well!” said Peggy. She drew a long breath. Suddenly the tears rose brimming up to her eyes. “I don’t like to think that he is in the ground,” she said. “Did they lay him out proper—at a wake, belike?”

“I don’t think so, my child. He died in India of fever.”

“Faver, was it? It’s a mighty cruel thing is faver.”

“Yes, Peggy; and before he died he wrote me a letter. He has given you to me.”

“What!”

“Yes, you must come with me, my child; I want to be a father to you.”

The girl looked at him. Up to the present she had scarcely taken in his words; now her face turned white and the tears dropped fast from her eyes. She said, “Hould a bit! whist, for the Lord’s sake!” and rushed into the cabin.—“Biddy O’Flynn! Biddy O’Flynn!” she cried, “come along—ye and Patrick—this blessed minute. There’s a gintleman mightiness from foreign parts come to say that me father’s dead, an’—oh glory!—never waked at all, at all; nothing done proper for his sowl. And me here to go away wid his highness. I won’t! I won’t! Biddy, ye won’t let me go, will ye?”

A blear-eyed, very ancient woman rose from her seat by the fireside. She was smoking a short black pipe, and came out presently into the sunshine to stare at the stranger. She was followed by her husband, a little crooked man, who limped, and supported himself on a crutch.

“Now, my good people,” said Wyndham, “I have come to fetch Miss Desmond. Her poor father, Captain Desmond, is dead, and has put her into my charge. I want to catch the next train to Dublin, and will take her with me. You have been very kind to her, and I am prepared to pay you handsomely for your services.”

“Never a bit o’ money I’ll take for the colleen,” answered Patrick O’Flynn.

“Nor me nayther!” cried the old crone, “except what the Captain’s sent us hisself, through the Protestant clergyman, Mr. Wynne, yer highness, an’ that was a pound a month, no more an’ no less.”

“Well, if you won’t take money from me you must at least receive my grateful thanks, and perhaps I may be able to show my gratitude in another way. Perhaps Peggy can tell me what you want most?”

But Peggy’s black lashes were lowered, and one big tear after another was dropping on the ground. She did not attempt to dry her tears, but let them roll down her soft, delicately-tinted cheeks. Her whole attitude was that of a terribly frightened and also half-savage young creature. “I’m not goin’ along ov him,” she suddenly cried, “don’t ye fear, Mammy O’Flynn darlint.”

As the child spoke she flung her pretty arms around the neck of the old woman. “I’ll stay along wid ye,” she whispered. “What ’u’d the cows an’ the little hins an’ the turkeys, an’ the lambs do widout me, I’d like to know? Oh mammy, I won’t go wid that mightiness to England, not ef ye pay me in gould. Sure! an’ that’s the gospel truth I’m after sayin’.”

But Bridget O’Flynn had different views. She looked the child all over, then she gave an earnest, comprehensive gaze at the handsome, well-spoken gentleman. After a long pause, she loosened the little arms from round her neck.

“Colleen,” she said, “ye’ll do what’s right an’ proper. Ef he can prove that the father ov ye has handed ye over to hisself, why, wid him ye must go. Oh sor, don’t I recall as well as it were yesterday when the mother of this child married with his mightiness Captain Desmond; an’ wasn’t we proud of ’em both jest? Ah, sure, the mother were tuk when the babe were born; but we had a beautiful wake over her, that we had, there wasn’t wan present that didn’t get dead drunk at it—an’ what more can ye want, yer honour?”

Wyndham gave a stiff bow.

Old Pat now came forward. “Faix, child,” he said, “ye must go wid his honour ef his honour can prove that he is takin’ ye wid yer father’s consint. Now, sure then, yer honour, it’s a Protestant we has brought her up, though her mother was a Catholic; but it wor the Captain’s wish that she should be trained in his own religion. Hadn’t ye better spake to Mr. Wynne, the Protestant clergyman, that lives jest beyant? I’ll take ye to him ef ye wish, yer honour. Ye can spake wid him, for he knows the thwist o’ yer tongue, which is more than me an’ herself can foller.”

This advice was gladly followed by poor Wyndham. The Reverend George Wynne proved himself kind and sympathetic. He accepted a ten-pound note from Wyndham for the use of the O’Flynns; and Peggy, who had been their right hand, who had practically farmed their little bit of land for them, had milked their cows, and attended to their hens, and sold their eggs and butter, and kept the tiny cabin wonderfully clean, would soon be on her way to Dublin—on her way to Dublin City, carrying with her a broken heart, for sure she hated foreign parts, and what wish had she to live “wid the quality?”

CHAPTER II.
THE JOURNEY.

When Peggy Desmond found, as she expressed it, “all the world set agen me,” she shed no more tears. A look of proud resignation passed over her face, and she went up to her attic, where she had always slept the healthy sleep of a child who knew neither care nor sorrow, and packed her few belongings in a shabby little black trunk which her father had bought for her peasant mother to use during their brief honeymoon. How little there was to put into the trunk, but how precious that little was to Peggy! They were mostly tokens from the neighbours, who came flying from every direction to see the colleen and to wish her God speed. Her own little wardrobe was of the scantiest: two blue cotton frocks for week-days, and a rough, coarse serge for Sundays; a shabby little hat, trimmed with a piece of faded blue ribbon, which she never put on her curly head except when she went to church to listen to “his riverance” preach. “Sure thin,” she used to whisper to herself, “I’d a sight rayther be goin’ to Mass with Mammy and Daddy O’Flynn.” But the old people were very strict. Captain Desmond wished his daughter to be brought up a Protestant, and a Protestant she should be. Peggy, however, refused point-blank to attend Sunday school; but once every Sunday she went to church, and she received a certain amount of tuition on week-days at the board school until she was fourteen years of age, when her education was supposed to be complete. She was a clever little girl, and could read well, write well, and spell correctly; she also knew her “tables,” as she expressed it, “an’ sure, what did a body want more in the figurin’ line?” She was taught by the nuns of the convent near her home, however, to make exquisite crochet lace, wonderfully like real lace, and this she used to sell for the benefit of her adopted father and mother. Yes, her simple life was truly happy, she loved every one and every one loved her; she was exceedingly pretty, and when she was older would be beautiful. But now what a cruel and torturing fate had overtaken her!

But if pretty little Peggy Desmond shed passionate tears in her corner of the first-class carriage, where Wyndham had placed her, there surely were few men in the length and breadth of Ireland more perplexed than he. With all his wildest ideas he had never dreamt of bringing a creature like Peggy Desmond into his stately home. Her appearance, her dress, her accent, her absolute and complete ignorance of even the rudiments of refined life, appalled him. He could bear these things for the sake of his dead friend; but what would his wife say? Already she was angry at the intrusion of the girl into their midst, but then she had not yet seen the girl. When she did! Poor Wyndham felt his heart beat fast. What was to be done? How was he to train this poor little creature? Was she, during their journey, to receive the first rudiments of education, the first rudiments of introduction into that state of life which, as her father’s daughter, she inherited?

After weeping till she could weep no longer, the child fell into a heavy sleep, and the train was reaching Dublin when she awoke with a violent start and a cry of “Oh wurra, wurra me! wherever be I, at all, at all?”

She looked with terror across the carriage at Wyndham, who now thought the time had come to take a place near her and hold her hand. “Peggy,” he said.

“Yes, sor—yer mightiness, I mane.”

“Don’t call me that, Peggy. Peggy dear, listen. Listen hard, I want to explain things to you.”

She fixed her lovely eyes on his face. Until she opened her lips—and yet, even then, her brogue was soft and winsome—how beautiful and refined was her charming little face!

“Peggy, my child, I was your father’s greatest friend.”

“Were ye then? Bedad then, I don’t care.”

“But you ought to care, Peggy.”

“I can’t help it, yer honour, I want to be back in Kerry, along ov Mammy an’ Daddy O’Flynn.”

“But you wouldn’t disobey your dead father, would you, Peggy?”

“No, I suppose the fairies would be at me if I did.”

“Oh no, that isn’t the reason at all. You see, your father, while he lived, was poor and was not able to help you much; but he did a very wise thing—he left you to my care, and I mean to make a lady of you, Peggy.”

“Sure, thin, ye’ll niver do that, for I’d be but a peasant colleen, an’ wishin’ for nothin’ else, yer honour.”

“You are very young, Peggy; you will change your mind.”

“Sure thin, no, yer honour. I’m not wishin’ ye any bad luck, but me mind is made up. I’ll stay wid yer honour for a bit, if it’s the will ov me dead father; but it’s back to Ireland I’ll go when I have the manes. Ye’ll niver make no lady ov me, yer honour.”

“I think, Peggy, you have a kind heart.”

“Bedad, I suppose so,” said the girl. She dropped her eyes and looked on the ground, the faintest semblance of a smile visiting the corners of her bewitching little mouth.

“And,” said Wyndham, pursuing his advantage, “you wouldn’t really hurt me, who am your own father’s friend?”

“I’ve no wishes that way, yer honour, an’ if I was to try I couldn’t. What am I? A colleen, as poor as they’re made, an’ wishin’ to stay that same.”

“I want you to come to my house, to live with my girls.”

“Oh Lord ’a’ mercy! Be they grand like yerself, yer honour?”

“They are not grand at all, they are just nice girls.”

“Oh my! oh my! Arrah thin, yer honour, I’ll niver take to them, so don’t ye be thinkin’ it.”

Poor Wyndham sighed. Suddenly it occurred to him that he would go to visit a friend of his in Dublin, a certain Miss Wakefield, who was a very kind-hearted woman, and who could advise him with regard to Peggy. Of course this poor little wild creature could be tamed in time; but before she appeared at Preston Manor she must at least be dressed according to her new station.

“Peggy,” said Wyndham, after a long pause, “we are going to stay in Dublin to-night.”

“Yes, yer honour.”

“We are going to a hotel.”

“Is it a public-house, yer honour?”

“No, a hotel; not a public-house.”

Peggy was silent.

They soon reached Dublin, the little black trunk was put on the top of a cab, and they drove away to the Shelburne Hotel. There Wyndham secured two bedrooms, one for himself and one for Peggy, and ordered a meal to be served in the coffee-room. Peggy looked a strange little figure as she entered the room. All eyes followed her as, accompanied by her guardian, she approached a small table and slipped down awkwardly into her chair. A waiter came up with a dish which contained eggs and bacon, and presented it to Peggy. She looked at it and pushed it away.

“Sure thin, it’s ashamed of yerself you ought to be!” she said.

The man stared at her in amazement. Wyndham felt a catch in his breath.

“Sure thin, is it beautiful fresh eggs ye’d break like that? I’d like to give ye a lesson in cooking.”

“Perhaps, Peggy, you would like a boiled egg best?” said her guardian.

“I wouldn’t, unless it was laid right into the saucepan, an’ that’s thrue,” replied the Irish maiden from Kerry.

In short, the meal was fraught with misery for poor Wyndham; but Peggy was tired, and was glad to go to bed. Wyndham saw her into her room, and then went downstairs. He had a short talk with the young lady who had charge of the bureau; he begged her to send a kind-hearted Irishwoman to the little girl, giving her a very brief outline of her story. The girl, all agog with curiosity, said she knew the very woman who would help and comfort Peggy, and sent for her. The result of this was that Peggy and Bridget O’Hara slept in the same bed that night, Peggy’s arms round Bridget’s neck, and her little face lying against the good woman’s breast.

“Why thin, the poor colleen, the poor colleen!” said the kind-hearted Irishwoman.

As soon as ever he was alone, Wyndham hailed an outside car and drove to Miss Wakefield’s address. He told her his predicament.

She was a good-hearted woman, very Irish and very affectionate. She said, “My dear Paul, you have put your foot in it! Well, I will do my very best for the child. I will take her out to the shops to-morrow and get her fitted out properly.”

“You need spare no money on her,” said Paul Wyndham. “Get her anything she requires. I want to start to-morrow for Holyhead by the night boat. Do you think you can manage this for me, Kathleen?”

Kathleen Wakefield promised, and the next day Peggy was taken from one shop to another. She was extremely sulky now, hardly opening her lips, scarcely uttering a word. However, Miss Wakefield, with plenty of money at command, managed to fit the child with a pretty neat coat and skirt, a nice dark-blue hat, and a few more articles of wardrobe, also a fair amount of underclothing. She bought a new trunk for the girl, and told her she had better leave the little black trunk behind her at the hotel.

At this request Peggy’s pent-up feelings gave way to a sudden screech. “Is it to lave me mother’s trunk behind I’d be doin’? Not me. It’s every single thing you bought me flung into the say; but the trunk goes wid me to that cauld England, or I don’t set foot in it.”

Wyndham happened to be near, and assured Peggy that she need not fret, for all her own special belongings would go with her to Preston Manor in the little black trunk.

CHAPTER III.
AT PRESTON MANOR.

The Wyndham girls were considerably excited at the thought of the new and strange companion who was to come into their midst. After their first astonishment they were more pleased than otherwise; Molly, especially, was determined to make the very best out of this strange, new event in her career. At The Red Gables one of the girls happened to be Irish. She was a well-educated, ladylike girl, but oh such fun! Her name was Bridget O’Donnell, and wherever amusement was to be found Bridget was invariably in the midst of it. Suppose this poor little Peggy turned out to be a second Bridget! If so, all would go well. Molly chattered over the subject with Jessie as the two girls were dressing on the morning of the day when Peggy Desmond was to arrive. Their father was expected with the new-comer about eleven o’clock that morning, he having decided at the last moment to spend a little time in London, in order to give Peggy a good sleep after her night-journey, and also to buy her some more clothes. Miss Wakefield had furnished the child with what the child herself considered “owdacious” magnificence; but Wyndham, who knew his wife’s tastes, was clever enough to see that a good many necessary things were left out. Accordingly, having seen Peggy sound asleep in a bedroom at the Euston Hotel, he started off to visit his wife’s dressmaker. He put Peggy’s case into this good woman’s hands, who quickly and deftly made up a box of what she called “necessary garments.” These consisted of white silk stockings, white satin shoes, one or two pretty evening frocks, and a vast supply of delicate and richly trimmed underclothing. Mrs. Ferguson also threw in one or two muslin frocks, suitable to the hot weather which was coming on, and finally trimmed up a couple of smart hats for the “Irish princess,” as she laughingly called the poor little girl.

“She’ll be here soon—very soon,” said Jessie. “Do you know what it is, Moll, I feel absolutely nervous about her.”

“Why should you be nervous?” said Molly.

“Well, I can see that mother is,” replied Jessie; “and suppose, Molly, she eats with her fingers, or does anything dreadful before the servants?”

“I don’t suppose for a single moment she’ll do that,” said Molly; “and, even if she does, we’ll have to tell her not, and then of course she’ll never do it again. She is in great luck to come to a beautiful house like ours, and we’ll soon train her. I think on the whole it will be fun. I’ll look upon it as a sort of adventure.”

“I have a terrible fear,” said Jessie after a pause.

“Whatever can that be, Jess?”

“This. You know how determined our darling dad is, and when he makes up his mind to do a thing he’ll do it in spite of all the rest of the world. You know what poor mother said, that if Peggy goes to school, she goes to our school—our nice, refined school. Oh, that would be awful!”

Molly was silent for a minute, then she said, “Well, when the trouble comes it will be time enough to fret about it. Now, I suppose they’ll be here soon after eleven o’clock. I tell you what it is, Jessie, let’s be awfully nice to her, just like real sisters, and let’s pretend not to notice any of her funny ways, then she’ll soon cease to be shy. And let’s go out after breakfast and pick a lot of flowers to put into her bedroom. There’s nothing like flowers to comfort a person if that person is inclined to be homesick.”

“Homesick after a cabin!” said Jessie, a look of contempt spoiling her nice little face for a moment.

“But,” answered Molly, with a wider comprehension, “you must not forget, Jess, that the cabin, however humble, was her home.”

Mrs. Wyndham, having got over her first sense of dismay, was now fully determined to do all that was kind and right for the orphan girl. She acquainted her maid Ford with a few of the circumstances of the case, and told her that if the new young lady was a little eccentric at first, the servants, especially the men who waited at table, were to take no notice. In short, the good lady acted very judiciously, and enlisted her servants on the side of the new-comer, telling Ford how sad was her story and how right it was that they should all do their best for her.

A room was selected for Peggy’s accommodation next to that occupied by Molly and Jessie. It was a pretty and daintily furnished chamber, the paper was of pale green and the curtains and draperies to match. There was a moss-green carpet on the floor, and, in short, the little white bed, the charming view from the windows, and the dressing-table with its tall vases of flowers, all looked most inviting for any girl.

“How surprised and charmed she will be!” said Jessie.

But Jessie little guessed that the girl in question loved a tiny chamber under a sloping thatched roof, with one wee, very wee, window, and a little feather bed on an old wooden bedstead, the bedding covered with a patchwork quilt. This was Peggy’s idea of a bedroom, the only one she had ever cared to occupy. From there she could let out a screech to the fowls if they tried to force their way in at an open window, which, as a matter of fact, they often did. From there she would halloo to her granny, as she sometimes called Mrs. O’Flynn, to inform her that Pearl or Rose or Dandy had laid another egg. Peggy’s window seemed to her to command her little world; a larger window would have been, in the girl’s opinion, more or less “ondacent;” “for sure,” she was heard to exclaim, once or twice, “ye don’t want to see too much of yerself when yer dressin’ or undressin’.”

The girls got the room into perfect order, and were disappointed when a telegram arrived announcing that Mr. Wyndham and Peggy would not put in their appearance at Preston Manor until about six o’clock that evening. He gave no reason for this delay in London. Mrs. Wyndham was pleased at having a few hours more without the objectionable child, and, in consequence, started off to see a special friend of hers, a certain Miss Fox Temple, who lived about three miles away. This lady’s name was Lucretia; she was very proud and stately, and lived at a beautiful place called Mulberry Court, which she had inherited from her ancestors. Miss Fox Temple was about forty years of age, had decided long ago never to marry, dressed well, lived well, entertained lavishly, and was much respected and looked up to by her neighbours. There were few people whose opinion was as well worth having as that of Miss Fox Temple. She was worldly without being silly; kind-hearted, but at the same time full of practical common-sense.

Mrs. Wyndham arrived at Mulberry Court about twelve o’clock, and after a brief interval, during which the two ladies exchanged commonplaces, she told her friend what had occurred. “I am really shaking in my shoes,” said the good lady, “you cannot imagine what it is to me. My dear husband, you know, in some ways is a trifle unreasonable. He was always devoted to that poor fellow Captain Desmond; and I don’t for a moment wonder, for he was really altogether charming. But to think of the Captain keeping the existence of that child a complete secret from all his friends; to think of his marrying a mere peasant girl, and then on his deathbed handing the child on to my husband as though he were giving him a fortune, begging of my dear Paul to do all he could for his orphan child! Of course every scrap of sentimentality in Paul’s nature is aroused to the uttermost.”

“It is certainly extremely disagreeable for you,” said Miss Fox Temple. “You say the child has lived all her life in a cabin in Ireland?”

“Yes, in the County Kerry, the very wildest, most uncouth part of that—in my opinion—uncouth island.”

“Well, I do pity you,” said Miss Fox Temple; “but now, my dear Lucy, won’t your husband be reasonable? If the child has lived all her life in a cabin, if she is the daughter of an Irish peasant woman, she simply cannot associate with your children.”

“That is precisely what I have said,” remarked Mrs. Wyndham, “but I assure you, that hasn’t the least effect on Paul. He says the girls must get accustomed to her and must train her, and when I suggested school he said, ‘I am quite agreeable, but she shall go to the same school as the children.’”

“What, to The Red Gables!” said Miss Fox Temple. “I really don’t think Mrs. Fleming will permit it even for a moment. I tell you what. I shall come over to see you to-morrow or next day, and I will have a talk with Paul.”

“He has a very great respect for you; I must say that, Lucretia.”

“I shall suggest that the child is sent to a good-natured governess, who will take her to the seaside and train her for a year or so, and at the end of that time she’ll have got over the worst of her gaucherie, and be fit to associate with your family.”

“I wish you would, Lucretia; and I do trust, my dear, that your advice will be listened to, but I very much doubt it. You don’t know Paul as well as I do. When he takes the bit between his teeth nothing can move him.”

“Well, I am sorry for you,” said Miss Fox Temple. “All the same,” she added, “it is very fine of Paul; it isn’t every man who would act as he is doing.”

The two ladies had a little further talk together. Miss Fox Temple suggested that if the new-comer proved quite unbearable, Molly and Jessie should spend the remainder of their holidays with her at Mulberry Court. This proposition Mrs. Wyndham hailed with delight, although, as she did so, she doubted whether her husband would permit it. She lunched with her friend and went back in the cool of the evening.

“Mother,” said Molly, rushing to meet her, as the time approached for the travellers to appear, “what dresses shall we wear? Don’t you think we ought to put on something very quiet?”

“No, I don’t think so at all,” said Mrs. Wyndham; “you will dress as you dress for the evening, my dear Molly. Now go upstairs and get Ford to put out your frocks. Nothing, after all, can be simpler than pure white. I should like you to be in the hall when your father and that poor child arrive.”

Molly and Jessie ran up to their room. Ford arrayed them in simple and very pretty white silk frocks with high necks and long sleeves, they wore round their waists sashes of pale blue, their stockings were silk, and they had white satin shoes. Altogether, two more elegant looking girls it would have been difficult to find.

Molly and Jessie Wyndham had from their earliest days been brought up with extreme care by a devoted father and mother. They had never come across evil or even eccentricity in any form. Their lives were spent in the greatest happiness, all that money could bestow was lavished upon them. But they were also taught the best things; for both Wyndham and his wife were people of high principle. For the first years of their young lives they had a governess, to whom they were devoted. Her name was Miss Sherwood; she was gentle, kind, and very amiable. She was well informed, and, above all things, she had the highest principles.

Molly was a little easier to guide than Jessie, who had a slight crank in her nature; it was a curious crank and did not often appear. Jessie—and her most intimate friends knew it—was in reality consumed with intense vanity. She was not so very vain of her appearance as she was of her position in life. The first thing she noticed with regard to any new friend was how was that friend born, how much money had that friend, how many chances had that friend to make a mark in society? At school one or two of her greatest friends observed this failing in her character; it was just the very failing which would be certain to come to the surface when poor little Peggy Desmond appeared on the scene.

Jessie was a fair-haired, tall, slender girl. Her features were long, her face very pale, her eyes wide-open and of a pale shade of blue-gray. She was slightly aristocratic-looking, and was a contrast in every way to Molly. Molly was rather dark, with quantities of thick dark hair, brown eyes, a brown complexion, very rosy cheeks, and a round face. She had a merry and careless laugh, she had the kindest heart in the world, she was not a scrap vain or conceited. She looked forward with the deepest interest to the arrival of Peggy Desmond. At school Molly was the greater favourite; but Jessie had one or two sworn friends who would almost die for her. These girls appear later on in the story.

But now six o’clock sounded from the stable-clock in the yard. The toot-toot of the motor-car would be heard any moment as it dashed down the avenue. The two girls held each other’s hands as they appeared in the wide hall. Mrs. Wyndham was wearing her garden hat, she had a pair of scissors in her hand, and she cut off some withered roses from the rosebushes which grew at each side of the front door.

“They’re coming, mums! coming!” suddenly cried Molly. “Oh dear,” she continued, looking at Jessie, “my heart does beat!”

Jessie made no response. Her face suddenly turned white; she felt a violent inclination to turn and run away, but Molly caught her hand.

“Let’s welcome her, let’s be nice,” she said; and then the two sisters, hand in hand, came and stood at the top of the wide steps.

The motor drew up at the front door. Mr. Wyndham alighted and held out his hand to Peggy.

“Why on earth! ain’t we goin’ straight home?” was Peggy’s first remark.

“This is home, my dear.”

“Please, yer—yer laughin’ at me!”

“I am not, my child. Now come, these are your two little friends.—Molly, Jessie, come and assure Peggy Desmond that she is welcome to Preston Manor.”

“Oh me word!” exclaimed Peggy, as she tumbled rather than stepped out of the car, “I’m in a moil, an’ so I am!”

A moil—what was a moil? Jessie felt more than ever inclined to turn tail and rush away; but Mrs. Wyndham came up, held out her hand to the child, looked into her face, and bent forward and kissed her.

“Oh my, ma’am, what did you do that for?” exclaimed Peggy. “Why, ye don’t know me at all, at all!”

“I want to welcome you to Preston Manor, Peggy.”

“And is this where you live?” Peggy looked all round her. “Would ye mind if I let a screech in a minute?”

“I think, Molly,” said Mr. Wyndham, “you had better take Peggy up to her bedroom. She is dead-tired.”

“Now thin, sor, I wouldn’t be tellin’ lies if I was you, because most ov the day I was sound asleep on the bed at that big inn where ye tuk me. I’m not tired a bit, not me. Well, I’ll go with ye, miss, if you like; but you can’t expect me to have the manners of a place like this. Oh mercy, mercy me! Glory be to heaven, however am I to get used to the likes ov this?”

“You’ll soon get accustomed to it,” said Molly, in her gentle tone. “Come now with me, I want to show you your bedroom.”

Peggy, dressed as she was, was not so remarkable. Her little face was undoubtedly pretty, pretty beyond the beauty of most. Her eyes were absolutely lovely, her eyelashes were wonderful; and, owing to Miss Wakefield and Mrs. Wyndham’s clever dressmaker, her appearance was all that it ought to be. But her speech! her untrained, wild, untutored speech!

The next minute Molly and the Irish girl had disappeared upstairs, and Wyndham and his wife and Jessie were alone.

“Why didn’t you go with your sister, Jessie?” said her father.

“I cannot, father. I cannot speak to her, really.”

“Now, Jessie, I will have none of this.”

“Father!” the girl’s pale-blue eyes filled with tears. “Father, you cannot expect it, she’s not a lady—father, father!”

“She’s as much a lady by birth as you are.”

“I think not quite, dear,” interrupted the mother. “Remember the girl’s own mother.”

“I am thinking of her father,” said Wyndham, who was now thoroughly angry. “Of course the poor child knows nothing, and I should be ashamed of any daughter of mine who laughed at her and made life hard at present. Well done, little Molly! Jessie, if you wish to retain your father’s respect and affection you will follow your sister.”

Jessie walked away slowly. She did not say a word, but instead of going into Peggy’s room she retired into her own, where she flung herself into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and burst into a flood of weeping. “Oh dear! oh dear!” she sobbed, “I will never, never know happiness again!”

Meanwhile Wyndham and his wife were alone.

“My dear Paul, you have brought a creature here!”

“I admit it, Lucy, I admit everything; but she’s a beautiful little thing, and has a warm, loving heart. Oh my dear, if you are kind to her you will soon train her, and I assure you, my dear Lucy, she is quite as sorry to come to us as you are to receive her. If you had witnessed that poor child parting with her foster-parents you would know how full of love her heart is.”

Mrs. Wyndham gave an impatient sigh. “The fact is,” she said, “I can’t help saying it, Paul, you make a mistake in bringing that untutored, rough child to our house. I quite agree with you that she ought to be trained and looked after; but the kindest thing would be to put her with a woman in her mother’s class of life, who would educate her. Then, of course, as she becomes fit to associate with the gentry she might come here occasionally. You are doing wrong, Paul, and you are doing the worst thing for the happiness of the poor little thing herself.”

Molly, full of affection, determined to make the very best of Peggy, and took her up to her room.

“I hope you will be happy with us,” said Molly. “I know you must be feeling very sad at saying good-bye to your friends; but we mean to love you—at least Jessie and I do—and I hope you will love us.”

“I can’t love ye, miss dear.” The great dark-blue eyes were brimful of tears. “Oh my goodness glory me! ’tain’t a room like this I—I want. Yer niver going to say to me that I’ll sleep here. Why, I can’t an’ that’s true! Why, there ain’t even a little hin about nowhere!”

“A little what?” Molly shook her head.

“They that lay eggs. Did ye niver hear ov hins?”

“Oh hens! We have a lot of them about.”

“Then ye have thim! Thank the good God, I can live if I see hins. An’ have ye—tell me, for the good Lord’s sake, tell me—have you got pigeens here?”

“I think there are pigs. I will inquire to-morrow.”

“Oh it’s me heart that’s broke intirely!”

She sat down on a chair, tears rolled down her cheeks. “You see, miss dear,” she continued, after a minute, “’tain’t that I ain’t grateful, ’tain’t Peggy’s way not to be grateful; but it’s a big mistake takin’ me from thim who belonged to me. I’m torn up by the roots, that’s what I be, an’ I’m all bleedin’ like. Wouldn’t you be the same if ye was tuk from yer grand, wonderful, awful mansion of a place, an’ put into my speck of a cabin—wouldn’t you be feelin’ as I’m feelin’?”

“I expect I should; so you see, Peggy, I can understand you.”

“Ah, no! no! niver a bit, niver a bit; no one can understand me, no one can. I’m all alone, alone! Oh wurra, wurra me!” The girl kept on crying.

“Look at your pretty room, Peggy,” said Molly.

“I hate it!”

“Peggy, look at the flowers. All the world over flowers are the same.”

“Be they now? Well, I’ll look at them. Oh I don’t know the names ov them. Does ye get the Michaelmas daisy, an’ the London pride, an’ the cowslip, an’ the buttercup, an’ the primrose, an’ the violet—them’s the flowers for me. Oh no, miss dear, I’ll niver tek to ye nor yer ways. I hope to goodness mercy me that ye won’t expect me to go downstairs an’ ate me males in front of ye, for I don’t know how to do it, an’ that’s truth I’m tellin’. What sort ov males have ye?”

“I suppose the sort of things every one has.”

“Have ye got the Indian male stirabout? That’s what I’m partial to, an’ I don’t mind a couple ov eggs now an’ then when they can be spared.”

“But why shouldn’t they be spared if you have plenty of hens?”

“Now, missy dear, it’s jokin’ you must be wi’ me. Haven’t the little eggs to be sold to get in the money? Didn’t I go round every day an’ sell the eggs to the neighbours, an’ bring in the money for me poor grandad and grandma. Oh me, wurra, wurra, it’s a quare wurrald!”

“Look here, Peggy. Suppose I bring up something for you to-night, and you have it all alone with me?”

Peggy raised large and terrified eyes. “Why, surely, for the Lord’s sake, ye ain’t goin’ to ate again at this hour?”

“Of course we are, we haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Dinner! dinner! what’s the hour? Why, it’s past siven!”

“Yes, we don’t dine till close on eight.”

“Ah well, I can’t do it. I’m accustomed to me big male about twelve o’clock ov the day, an’ a good drink of buttermilk and some brown loaf at six in the evenin’, then me bed and sound slape, an’ glory be to God! Miss dear, you’ll niver manage the likes o’ me in yer grand house.”

“Peggy, aren’t you fond of your father?”

“Sure then I be.”

“Well, he has sent you to my father, for him to care for you. Won’t you try and do what your father and my father would like?”

The girl looked up at the other girl with bewildered eyes. “I don’t understand at all, at all,” she said.

“Well, I would like to explain to you if I can. At first, of course, you will find it very difficult, being with us and getting accustomed to our ways; but after a time you will find it becoming easier and easier, and your father up in heaven will be looking down at you, ever so pleased.”

“Will he smile, belike?”

“I think he will.”

“I’ve a picter of him. I’d like to see him smile. Have you got ghosties and fairies round here?”

“Oh dear no, we don’t believe in those sort of things.”

“Yon tell me, miss, that you don’t believe in the magpie?

“One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

And four for a birth.”

“No, I have never heard that rhyme.”

“Oh me word! There be some things yer ignorant about, missy.”

“Well, I am going down to get some food for you and me, and you must keep looking at me and eat just as I do, and then to-morrow morning when you come down to breakfast I’ll teach you how to eat and what to do. I’m going to love you, Peggy, so you must love me.”

The sweet brown eyes looked into the sweet blue ones, and at that moment a swift, indescribable rush of sympathy passed from one girl to the other.

CHAPTER IV.
ADVENTURES AT FARMER ANDERSON’S.

Peggy, notwithstanding the strangeness of her lot, slept softly and soundly in that delicious bed. Never before had she known the cool, delightful feel of fine linen sheets, never before had her curly head reposed on a pillow of down. She slept, and in her sleep Molly and Jessie stole softly into the room to look at her. Shading a candle, they bent forward, and certainly their present view of the little face was all that was charming. Not a trace of lack of refinement could be perceived in those delicate features, those long, curly black lashes, the true symbol of an Irish girl, and the well-formed, sensitive little red mouth.

“Oh, we’ll win her yet!” whispered Molly. “And she’s worth winning,” she added; “she’s a perfect darling.”

Even Jessie was silent with regard to the Irish child while the guardian angel of sleep protected her.

But when Peggy awoke the next morning matters were very different. She awoke early, as was her habit in Old Ireland. The stable clock had struck four when she opened her eyes and stared about her. She had been dreaming of the little old homestead and the hins and the turkeys—wasn’t Colleen Bawn going to bring out her clutch of eggs that very mortal day? “Twenty fluffy, downy chicks, as sure as I’m alive,” whispered Peggy; and then she sat up in bed and stared around her. How far off—oh how far off!—was Colleen Bawn and her brood of little yellow chicks; how far away were the rest of the hins, and the pigeens—bless ’em—and the little turkey poults, and the—the—oh all the home-things! What right had she, Peggy Desmond, to be here, in this awful grand room, for all the world like a palace fit for a king? How hateful was this soft white bed to one accustomed to sleep on feathers, it is true, but with the coarsest sheets and with the roughest blankets? And what right, for that matter, had she to be in bed at all, at all, at this hour, instead of up and busy? At home, wouldn’t her work come handy to her—cows to milk, calves to cosset, lambs to pet, and all the other creatures to supply with their breakfast? “Oh wurra me!” thought Peggy, “whativer’ll they do widout me at all? Why, me grandma, she ain’t got the strength enough to rise with the lark; it’s ‘Peggy mavourneen,’ she’ll be callin’ for an’ there’ll be niver a Peggy mavourneen to listen. Oh but I can’t stand this, I can’t! And be the powers, what’s more! I’ll get up and dress me anyhow. Then I’ll get out. Maybe there’ll be a hin or a cock or a bit ov a wee calf for me to pet. I suppose they have a back yard. I’ll make for it an’ see what sort o’ place they kape. Wouldn’t me heart light up if I saw a big dirty pigeen?”

Accordingly Peggy put on her clothes. Their newness and softness drew scornful remarks from her lips and anger from her heart. “Why, to glory now, what do I want wid the likes of thim? It’s a morshial shame to waste the good money on thim when ye can buy unbleached calico for threepence a yard.”

But as Peggy had nothing else to wear she was forced to resort to the soft clothing which had been purchased for her in London the day before; and, finally, dressed in a little dark-blue serge skirt and a white muslin blouse, she opened the French windows and stepped out. She found herself on a part of the roof, which did not trouble her much, for she was accustomed to climbing anywhere, and after some slight difficulty she managed to spring into the welcoming arms of an old yew-tree, and from thence to descend to the ground. The cool fresh morning air revived her and raised her spirits; but, try as she would, she could nohow manage to get into the back yard, for the simple reason that it was not as yet open, the workmen not arriving until six o’clock.

Peggy sat down on a garden bench and looked around her. This was the first time she had had any sense of liberty since her arrival. As long as she was travelling with Mr. Wyndham she was nothing more nor less than a prisoner; a prisoner surrounded by hateful luxury, it is true, but still a prisoner. What she specially disliked in her present surroundings was that sense of belonging to some one else, that sense of being a prisoner. At home she could do exactly what she liked, the O’Flynns never dreaming of interfering with their darling; but here all was different. If she could retain her liberty she might in the end work her way back to Ireland, and be once again a happy Kerry girl in her cabin home. She thought and thought, and the more dazzling did the prospect of liberty appear in her eyes. Presently she stole her hand into her pocket, and to her relief and pleasure found that she was the proud possessor of three shillings. Wyndham had given her the change the day before, telling her that she might like to have the money to buy stamps and such like things. Ah yes! but she would not waste it on stamps. Was it not a nucleus which might be increased? To Peggy’s ignorant little soul three shillings seemed a vast lot of money, and if it were spent carefully it would go a long way. There was no doubt whatever that Mr. Wyndham, kind gentleman though he was, and Mrs. Wyndham, whom she did not take to at all, and Jessie, whom she pronounced a foreigner out and out, and Molly, who was more to her taste, but was also a foreigner, be the same token, all meant between them, in some sort of fashion, to keep her prisoner. Now a prisoner she would not remain, not while the good God had given her a strong pair of legs, and there was liberty in the world. She made up her mind; she would run away. There was no time like the present, “when all the worruld of England seemed dead aslape, bad cess to it! But, be the same token, this was the good-luck for her!”

She started from her seat, and, walking quickly, soon discovered a stile, over which she mounted and got into a large meadow. Here some bulls were feeding; there were three of them at least, and they all raised their stout, stolid heads, and fixed their blinking little eyes on the child. They had each of them a ring in his nose, and had short, strong horns. Had the Wyndhams seen the bulls they would have rushed screaming back into safety; but not so Peggy Desmond, she was no more afraid of a bull than she was of a little bit of a heifer. Why should she be at all, to be sure? She had put no hat on her curly head, and now she stood still within an inviting range of the great beasts, looking from one to the other with love and interest in her dark-blue eyes.

“Why thin, me darlin’s,” she called out, “is it lonely ye be, like meself for all the wurrald? Ah wurra then, come along and let me pet ye! Why thin, it’s home ye remind me of, and it’s the water to me eyes ye do bring.”

It is a well-known fact that cows, and in especial bulls, are some of the most absolutely curious creatures under the light of the sun; they are, in short, at all times devoured with curiosity. To see a small girl, therefore, standing calmly in their midst, and not running away from them, as most small girls did, excited their curiosity to a painful degree. They must investigate this person and find out what she was made of, afterwards they could toss her or not just as the fancy took them. Accordingly, bellowing slightly, and bending their heads, as was their custom when after mischief, Farmer Anderson’s three fierce bulls came up to examine that curiosity, Peggy Desmond. When they approached within close reach of her, Peggy came up to the nearest, laid her hand on his warm, soft red coat, said, “Ah thin, me darlin’, it’s mighty invitin’ ye look;” and the next minute, laying hold of one of his short horns, she sprang on his back, crept up toward his forehead, and began to pat him between his horns, calling him endearing names and keeping her seat by means of the horns. The beast gave an infuriated roar and rushed across the field, his brothers following in an equal state of indignation. Peggy patted, stroked, uttered endearing words, and by a sort of magic kept her seat. The roar of the bull had been heard by Farmer Anderson, whose house was quite close by; but when he appeared on the scene he, as he afterwards expressed it, nearly died of the shock.

There was a pretty little strange girl seated on the back of Nimrod, who was now going quietly about the field, having ceased to make any effort to dislodge his unwelcome guest—or was she unwelcome any longer? Perhaps her soft words and gentle, endearing expressions proved soothing rather than otherwise to his turbulent spirit. Anyhow, he had ceased to attempt to dislodge Peggy Desmond, who, laughing and singing, was thoroughly enjoying her ride. The other two bulls were trotting after Nimrod, who went round and round the great field a little faster each time.

Farmer Anderson stood as one stunned. “For the Lord’s sake, get down, missy!” he shouted, “get down this minute, or Nimrod will bait you!”

But the dark-blue Irish eyes of Peggy looked calmly at Farmer Anderson. She turned Nimrod by giving one of his horns a tug, and rode up to his master.

“I’m likin’ me ride intirely,” she said; “and whatever’s the matter wid ye? I’m doin’ no harm to the baste.”

“But the beast will do harm to you. Here, off you get! The Lord preserve us, never did I see such a sight in the whole course of my life!”

As he spoke, the farmer, who was a big, burly man, lifted Peggy to the ground, drove the bulls to the other side of the field, and taking the girl’s hand led her into a narrow lane which happened to be an approach to his own house.

“For the Lord’s sake tell me what you have been doing with my bull!” he exclaimed.

“Why thin, it’s only a ride I was takin’ on him,” said Peggy.

“A ride on a bull! Wherever were you riz, girl?”

“In Ireland, sure, yer honour; we ain’t afeard of bulls in Ould Ireland.”

“So I should say. You’re an uncommonly brave lass, you might have been killed.”

“Not me. ’Tain’t any animal under the sun as ’u’d injure me. I’ve a heart inside of me, ye see, to love thim all.”

The man looked at her attentively. “Whoever be you?” he said. “Your face is strange to me.”

“Ah well, and that’s likely enough. I’m Peggy Desmond. I come from a cabin in Ireland, County Kerry, as pretty a spot as ye could find on the face of the globe.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“Nothing but killing meself wid grief.”

“I suppose you did want to kill yourself, and that’s why you got on Nimrod’s back.”

“No, when I want really to kill meself I won’t go to Nimrod. I’m lookin’ out for a little bit of a place; do ye happen to know, sor, anyone who would take a young girl who was accustomed to feeding hins and looking afther the farm-work all by her lonesome? I can give a fine character of meself from Mr. and Mrs. O’Flynn in County Kerry. You wouldn’t be thinkin’ ov wanting wan like me, sor? I’d take small wages at first, and I’d do yer biddin’, you’d find me rare an’ useful. I can’t help me brogue, yer honour; but I’ve an honest heart, an’ I’ll work faithful and long.”

“I should say you were accustomed to farm life,” said the man, “otherwise you couldn’t possibly have ventured to mount Nimrod; but as to your coming to us as servant—why now, you aren’t dressed like a servant.”

“Oh for the Lord’s sake don’t mind me dress, yer honour. I’ve as nate a little frock in me bit of a box as you could find. This is me best Sunday-go-to-meetin’ frock, sor, an’ ef I’m to lose a good place because of me dress, why, wurra, I don’t know how I’ll live, at all, at all!”

The man stared at the girl in perplexity. Her voice, her accent, what she had done with regard to Nimrod, all seemed to speak to the truth of her words. But she wore the dress of a lady. He had, of course, heard nothing whatever with regard to the Wyndhams’ protégée; and, finally, much puzzled, and knowing that he and his wife did want just such a sort of girl as Peggy professed herself to be, he took her hand and led her toward the big farm-kitchen.

“You’ve a nice little bit of a boreen here,” said Peggy, as they walked along.

“What are you calling it?”

“Boreen, just where we are standing now.”

“But we call that a lane in England.”

“Well, it’s a boreen in Ireland. I’m right glad ye’re takin’ me on.”

“I don’t say so for a minute, but I’ll speak to the missis about you.”

The “missis” was busy “scalding,” as she called it, a great dish of hot meal for the fowls. She was a stout, red-faced woman, an excellent wife of a farmer. As the farmer and Peggy entered the kitchen the dish, an enormous one, nearly slipped from her hand, and a little bit of the very hot meal scalded her fingers. In one instant Peggy had rushed up and nipped the dish from her.

“Why, ma’am, for mercy’s sake, don’t hould it like that; ye’ll get yerself scalded all to nothing! Let me go out an’ feed the hins. I’d love to be at it!”

“Who in the world is the child?” asked the astonished woman; but Peggy did not wait for any explanations with regard to her whereabouts or who she was. With that dish of hot, comforting food in her arm, she was once again back at Ballyshannon, as she called her home in the County Kerry; once again the sniff of the warm meal assailed her nostrils, her dark-blue eyes sparkled with ecstasy, and she ran into the yard and made a peculiar shout to the fowls, the unmistakable shout which every highly respectable fowl in the whole of Christendom understands, the shout which means food, and nothing but food. They surrounded her in a trice—geese, ducks, hens, chickens, turkeys. With the utmost carefulness and the most splendid genius, she arranged her food, giving the fierce gobblers the coarse bits, and reserving the dainty morsels for the little chickens and the small “hins,” as she called them. The farmer and the farmer’s wife watched her from the door of the house.

“I never did!” said the farmer. “If you believe me, Mary Ann, I might have been cut in two by a knife at that minute, to see her sitting as cool as brass on the back of Nimrod, with no more fear than if she were sitting in the easy-chair by the fire! And now look at her with those fowls. Whoever on earth is she? She’s more like a fairy than a girl.”

“We must find out who she is. She’s too well-dressed to belong to us, and yet she’s the very gal after my own heart,” said the farmer’s wife. “I want a hearty, clever, natty sort of creature who’ll do her work in a jiff without having to be told anything.”

Peggy, having got the fowls quite satisfied with their breakfast, now came up glibly. “Where’s the milkin’-pails?” she asked.

“Why, you bit of a girl, you can’t milk cows,” said the farmer, laughing as he spoke.

“Can’t I? You try me.”

“Well, we’re a hand short this morning, and twenty cows to be milked,” said the farmer’s wife. “You can go along to the sheds. I’m quite certain that Tom and Sam will be glad of your help.”

Tom and Sam were exceedingly glad of the help of Peggy Desmond. What wonderful knack was there in those slim little fingers! The most troublesome cows, those who, as a rule, knocked over the pail, were as good and quiet as mice under her gentle manipulations, and what a lot of delicious, frothy milk she got them to yield to her gentle touch! The farmer and his wife regarded her as a perfect treasure.

“I wish we knew who she is. If she is respectable-like we could keep her until the hay harvest and the wheat harvest are over,” said the farmer.

“We could, for sure,” said the farmer’s wife. “Well, anyhow, she has earned her breakfast.”

It was now past six o’clock. The farmer’s wife went into the kitchen. She put a frying-pan on the fire, cut great slices of bacon, broke in about a dozen eggs, and began to fry.

“Come, you want your breakfast,” she said to the girl. “You milked right well, I will say. I never saw a neater touch.”

“To be sure, ma’am, an’ why shouldn’t it be?”

“You must be hungry for your breakfast.”

“Oh there’s no hurry, bless ye, ma’am! Shall I lay the table for ye?”

“I don’t mind if you do, but you won’t be able to find the things.”

“I tell you what would be better. You let me attend to that fry on the fire, an’ you lay the breakfast. Yes, I’m a bit hungry, no doubt ov that, at all, at all.”

“You come from Ireland the farmer says.”

“That same I do, ma’am.”

“You must be glad to be in a decent, respectable country like England.”

“Is it me!” almost screamed Peggy. “Dacent, respectable! that’s all you know. Ma’am, if ye want to bring the water from me eyes an’ to torture me broken heart ye’ll spake like that ov Ould Ireland!”

“I don’t want to do that, of course, child.”

The meal was cooked to a turn, the farmer, his wife, and the upper farm-servants sat around the board. Peggy enjoyed herself vastly, and her spirits rose.

But when the meal had come to an end, the farmer’s wife said, “Now, I want a word or two all by myself with you.”

“Yes, ma’am, right you be!”

“Well, first of all, tell me your name.”

“Oh whisht! ma’am, what a short memory the Almighty has given you! Didn’t I say Peggy Desmond a score ov times?”

“Perhaps you did; but where are you living, Peggy Desmond?”

“At the back of beyont.”

“I never heard of that place. Where is it?”

“I can’t tell ye more than that. ’Tain’t far off, an’ yet it’s a good way off.”

“Have you any one belonging to you in the place?”

“Niver a sowl, an’ that’s the truth I’m telling ye. I was torn from thim as I loved, an’ I lived last night at the back of beyont, and here I be; an’ if ye’ll take me I’ll work for ye for next to nothing. I want to earn a few shillings to go back again to thim I love. I ain’t demented or anything of that sort; but I’m sore, sore at heart. Me roots have been torn up, an’ they’re bleeding all the time, only nothing on earth comforts them like feedin’ the fowls an’ milking the cows an’ runnin’ about in yer farmyard.”

“Well, to be sure,” said the woman, “you’re about the queerest child I ever heard of; you certainly don’t look mad, but you speak as if you were. At the back of beyont! What on earth do you mean?”

“It’s the way we have ov speakin’ in Ireland, ma’am. You can’t blame me for having the manners of me counthry.”

“Well, I’ll keep you for to-day, and I’ll give you—let me see—a shilling a day and your meals.”

“Oh ma’am, may the Lord Almighty bless ye for ever and ever!”

The girl sprang forward, fell on her knees, clasped Mrs. Anderson’s hand, and pressed it to her lips.

CHAPTER V.
PEGGY LOST AND FOUND.

While Peggy was enjoying herself to her heart’s content at the Andersons’, laughing and joking, and helping Mrs. Anderson in a dozen ways—so that that good woman said she had never met her like before, and never would again—a very different scene was taking place at Preston Manor; for although it was the custom for the family not to think of getting up until seven in the morning, yet that hour arrived all in good time, and the very first thing Molly thought of as she opened her brown eyes was of the stranger, the queer, beautiful, unpolished, and yet altogether lovable Peggy Desmond. How had Peggy slept? How was she that morning? Was she still lonely and heartbroken because of the Irish cabin and the Irish friends?

At a few minutes after seven each morning the girls’ own special maid came in, as her custom was, with two cups of nice, tempting hot tea, and a plate of thin bread and butter.

“Shall I take some tea to the young lady next door, miss?” asked Ruth, addressing Jessie as she spoke. But Molly hastily made reply, “No, Ruth, bring Miss Desmond’s tea in here, and I’ll take it to her; I’d like to, just for once,” she added, looking appealingly at Jessie.

Jessie’s face grew rather red and her lips and eyes rather cross; but she made no remark until Ruth had left the room, having first placed a little tray with tea and bread and butter on a small table by Molly’s side.

“I suppose you’re going to spoil that girl,” said Jessie, when at last the sisters were alone. “I hope, I’m sure, you won’t; it will annoy mother and me dreadfully.”

But when Molly said in her sweet voice, “It’s only just for the first morning, Jess,” Jessie’s crossness dissolved into a sleepy smile. Having drunk off her tea she fell into another doze, for she need not get up until half-past seven. Molly, however, rose softly, put on a pretty blue flannel dressing-gown, and, holding the tempting little tray in her hand, entered Peggy Desmond’s room.

“Well, Peggy,” she cried, “I hope you have slept well; and here’s your tea, and——Oh good gracious!”

Hastily Molly put the tray on a table and gazed around her with a sense of astonishment and dismay, for the bed had no longer an occupant, the pretty soft nightdress lay on the floor, the window was wide open, and the bird had flown!

For a moment a fearful thought assailed Molly. Could the child in her despair have run away? But no—this must be impossible. Molly determined not even to begin frightening anybody until she had had a good search for Peggy in the gardens and farmyards. Accordingly, she dressed with remarkable speed, and before Jessie opened her eyes again was not only out of the room but out of the house. Wherever Peggy was she would find her.

Easier said than done, for Peggy had been clever in her day and generation, and had escaped out of doors and also out of Preston Manor grounds before another soul was awake. Molly, therefore, rushing here and there, and making what inquiries she could of every single individual she met, could get no news at all with regard to Peggy. Her heart began to beat fast, and fear took possession of her. The child had been really unhappy on the previous night; she, Molly, had done wrong to allow her to sleep alone. There was something terribly pathetic about that poor little face, and her want of appetite and her long-drawn, heavy sighs had gone straight to Molly’s warm heart.

After wandering round and round, and discovering no sign or news of Peggy anywhere, she was forced to go back to the house. She had a wild hope for a minute that Peggy might be safely ensconced in her bedroom; but there was no such luck. Peggy was no more to be found in the house than out of the house. What could have happened to her?

Jessie wakened at her usual hour, and when she missed her sister concluded that she had gone to make friends with the stranger. She said to herself, “How troublesome all this is!” and then had calmly and quietly dressed, with the assistance of Ruth, who brushed her hair, plaited it in two long, fair plaits, which were tied at the ends with big bows of white ribbon. As the day happened to be a very hot one, Jessie was arrayed in a white frock. She looked with pleasure at her pretty reflection in the glass, and then went downstairs to join her parents in the cheerful breakfast-room. Peggy, of course, must be present during the meal; what enormities would she commit, what awful solecisms would she be guilty of?

When, however, on her way downstairs, Jessie suddenly caught sight of her sister Molly, with her hat hanging on her arm, her face very hot and flushed, her hair in wild disorder, she stood still in amazement, and then said, “Well, whatever can be the matter with you? Have you and that horrid Irish girl been dancing a jig together on the lawn? You look like it, you really do.”

“Oh don’t!” said Molly, “don’t! If you knew you wouldn’t speak like that.”

“If I knew!” exclaimed Jessie. “If I knew what?”

“Why, she’s gone, she’s gone away, she can’t be found anywhere, high or low! Oh dear, oh dear! she—she may have—have drowned herself! Oh I am miserable!” And poor Molly burst into tears.

Even Jessie ceased to scoff at this turn in events. She took her sister’s hand quite kindly, and said, “Of course she’s not lost, girls can’t lose themselves in that fashion. Let’s go to father, and he’ll soon find her.”

Jessie’s sympathy was uncommonly sweet to Molly just then, and the two children appeared in the breakfast-room. Mrs. Wyndham was seated opposite the tea-tray; and her husband was crunching some toast, eating an egg, stirring his coffee, and reading his morning paper all at the same time. He heard his wife say, “One of you girls had better go upstairs and bring Peggy Desmond down to breakfast,” when suddenly a sob from Molly’s lips caused the man to drop his paper and the lady to put down the cream-jug and turn with a sense of dismay to hear the news.

“Father, I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Can’t find who?” inquired Mrs. Wyndham.

“Peggy Desmond, mother. I went into her bedroom this morning with a cup of tea, but she was gone, gone quite away, I don’t know where! And I have been searching all the place for her, and inquiring of every one. I didn’t want to frighten you until it was necessary to tell; but I had to at last. She’s gone, she’s lost, perhaps she’s drowned. Oh father! father!”

“Molly, don’t be such a little goose,” said her mother. “There now, my dear,” she continued, turning to her husband, “you see for yourself what a great mistake you made when you brought that wild Irish creature over to upset us all round and disturb the happiness of our own children.”

“Never mind that now, Lucy, we’ve got to find the poor little creature. I am exceedingly sorry that I didn’t take better care of her.”

“Better care!” cried Mrs. Wyndham. “I’m sure no one could accuse you on that account. You went to Ireland and fetched her over, and did all that man could for her benefit, and this is the way she treats you!”

“Well, the great thing at present is to find her,” said Mr. Wyndham. “I will go immediately and start inquiries.—Molly, sit down and eat some breakfast. Stop crying, love, the child cannot be far away. I’ll bring her back. When I do I’ve one request to make.”

“What is that?” asked his wife. She looked up at him, and noticed the stern expression on his brow.

“That child is not to be scolded. She knows no better; she is a very ignorant, very spirited, very affectionate creature. You can’t drive her, you must lead her. I wish that to be understood. She is the daughter of my dearest friend, and I won’t have the little creature tortured. Now I’m off. I expect I shall return in a few minutes with Peggy in my wake.”

“Well, this is a nice state of things!” said Mrs. Wyndham, when Wyndham, having absolutely forgotten his meal, had left the room. “Dear me, girls, sit down and eat, and don’t make things worse. I shall go immediately after breakfast to Miss Fox Temple; she’ll tell me what I had better do for this barbarian.”

“Mother,” said Molly suddenly.

“Well, Molly?”

“You must admit one thing.”

“Well, Molly?”

“She’s a very pretty barbarian, isn’t she?”

“My dear, I dare say. I hardly looked at her. She has no style, no manners, no nothing. I can’t say whether she’s pretty or not.”

“She is pretty, mother, there’s no doubt of that,” said Jessie; “but of course I’m quite sure that she’s going to be fearfully troublesome.”

“She certainly has gone the right way about it,” said Mrs. Wyndham. “Help yourself to some fresh toast. I’m not going to let myself be annoyed by the tiresome child.”

Jessie, as far as possible, tried to follow her mother’s example; but Molly was too restless and miserable to enjoy her meal. The fact is, she had fallen in love with the poor, wild, beautiful little Irish girl. She was rather ashamed of her own feelings, and determined, therefore, to keep her sensations to herself.

Meanwhile Mr. Wyndham wandered over the grounds, made inquiries of the men, and could get no news about Peggy. It was strange, it was unaccountable; no one had seen the child, not a soul knew anything whatever about her; and meanwhile Peggy herself was enjoying life at their very door. She had managed her own affairs with rare cleverness, simply by not managing them at all. She had, by this very easy device, put every one off the scent.

“I’m well shut of them!” she was heard to remark as she scrubbed pails and polished the different farm-vessels in Mrs. Anderson’s roomy kitchen.

“What a queer expression!” said the farmer’s wife; “and who are you shut of?”

“They that lives away at beyont,” was her enigmatical answer. “Ah, an’ sorra a wan of thim I want to see again!”

Up to the present, therefore, Mrs. Anderson had no clue whatever to the real whereabouts of the child. It was harvest-time, and immediately after breakfast her husband and all the men available on the place went off to the harvest-fields; she and Peggy had sole possession of the big kitchen. Never before had she so willing a maid, so capable and clever, and “all there.” There was a great charm, too, about Peggy when she liked. Her face was no longer sorrowful, it was beaming. Whenever she passed Mrs. Anderson she laid her hand on that good woman’s shoulder or her arm and gave it a squeeze. “Sure, then, it’s loving ye I be,” she said.

And Mrs. Anderson looked into that charming, lovely face, and felt that she also loved the poor little waif who had been brought to her door. But where was “beyont”? Somebody surely knew the child.

Meanwhile Wyndham, not having got the slightest clue to the whereabouts of Peggy, was forced to start off to the nearest town, where he had important business to transact, business which should have been attended to days ago, but which his visit to Ireland delayed.

Molly and Jessie wandered about the grounds, and Mrs. Wyndham stepped into her carriage and drove to the house of her friend Miss Fox Temple.

Mrs. Wyndham found that good lady at home, and quickly revealed her troubles. “Never was there such a miserable case before,” she said. “My husband arrived late last night with that fearful Irish girl, who behaved in a most disgraceful manner, set the servants giggling, and would not do one single thing she was told; in short, she’s an absolute barbarian. And to crown all, she has run away this morning. We haven’t the least idea where she is.”

“Oh but surely you will try and find her, Lucy!” said Miss Fox Temple.

“Try and find her! We are doing our best. My husband says he will get the police to search for the girl. And there are my own children! Molly is almost breaking her heart about the creature. It is all terrible! Oh, of course, my dear Lucretia, she will be found, there is no doubt on that point; but the thing is this: what is to be done when we do find her?”

“Yes, that is the thing,” said Miss Fox Temple.

“You must try and imagine for yourself the state of ignorance that child is in,” was Mrs. Wyndham’s next remark. “She knows less than nothing; there isn’t a servant in my establishment who does not think she is a disgrace. She can’t hold her knife and fork. I questioned Molly, and she confessed that Peggy eats with her fingers and she speaks like a young savage; in fact, I don’t understand her language; it is an unknown tongue to me. She has no knowledge of anything, as far as I can make out, and only wants to go back to her state of savagery. Now, would you believe it, my dear Lucretia, my husband wants that girl to go to The Red Gables at the end of the holidays with my own two girls? Is it reasonable, is it fair?”

“It certainly sounds to me the reverse of reasonable or fair,” was Miss Fox Temple’s answer.

“You promised when I saw you before that you would have a talk with him. Can you come over this evening and do so? I’m sure he will be reasonable with you, he always is.”

“I will do my best. If I had the management of that child I should send her to a quiet, respectable woman, a little above the people who brought her up, and leave her with this person for about a year; from there give her a good governess, say in the house of the same person; that might occupy another year. Then, at the end of that time she might be able to take up the position your husband wishes her to assume in your house.”

“Oh but he will never consent—never, never; I know him,” said Mrs. Wyndham. “I must say I think men are trying at times.”

The two ladies talked and talked as ladies will. They soon left poor little Irish Peggy behind in their special interest in one or two subjects of local gossip. The time flew, the whole morning went by, Miss Fox Temple induced her friend to stay to lunch with her, and Mrs. Wyndham, nothing loath, agreed. “I do not want to go home now,” she said, “while that horrible little viper is about.”

“But I thought you gave me to understand that the poor viper had disappeared.”

“Oh my dear, she’ll come back, and be more viperish than ever.”

“But you don’t really want the child to be lost?”

“I don’t know what I want. Don’t question me about my feelings, Lucretia; I am too miserable.”

Meanwhile the girls began to search for Peggy on their own account; it was Molly who first propounded the idea.

“Jess, I do wish we could find her. Do you know what father said when he went away—that if there were no news of her by the time he got back he’d get the police to search for her? Oh I really don’t know what to do! I wish we could find her. Won’t you help me to find her?”

“I don’t mind if I do, she must be pretty clever to have hidden herself so completely. Is there a single place in the grounds you have overlooked in searching for her, Molly?”

“Not one, not a single one, not one hole or corner. I’ve been in every one of the summer-houses, and I’ve looked behind them, I’ve been in the stableyard—in short, I’ve been everywhere. She’s not in the place. Besides, if she had been there this morning she’d have been found long ago by the gardeners and stablemen and grooms.”

“That’s true enough. Well, suppose we have the pony put to our little basket-carriage and go for a drive. We can question all the farmers’ wives on our way; they may have seen her.”

“That’s a very good idea,” said Molly, “for there’s no doubt of one thing. Peggy lost herself very easily by getting up early, and I’ve always heard that farmers’ wives get up early, so perhaps they may have seen her going by, and can give us some account of her whereabouts.”

“The nearest farm to us,” said Jessie, “is Anderson’s, but I don’t particularly care to go there because of those wild bulls.”

“The bulls won’t hurt us, they’re in the field; we can drive round by the road, and you can stay in the pony carriage while I run to the house and ask Mrs. Anderson if she has seen a girl who looks like Peggy.”

“Well, all right,” said Jessie, “we shall be doing something. Do you know, Molly, that often and often I think the holidays too long; we have much better fun at school, where all our time is mapped out for us.”

But to this Molly would not agree. The pony carriage was brought round, the children stepped into it, and very soon found themselves—that is a little before noon that day—outside Anderson’s big farm. Peggy happened to be at the back of the premises at that moment, and did not see them arrive. Had she done so she would have quickly rushed away and hidden herself either behind or under one of the haystacks. Molly walked up the neat little path which led to the front door; she rang the bell, and after a minute’s delay Mrs. Anderson came to answer it, and when she saw Molly her face beamed with welcome.

“Miss, I’m delighted to see you. Is there anything you want, or your dear mother or father? I’m charmed to see you, miss. We’re rather in a fluster to-day, it being harvest-time; but, thank goodness! I’ve got a very smart little girl to come in and help me.”

There was something in the tone of the woman’s voice which aroused Molly’s suspicions. “What sort of a girl is she?” she asked. “When did she come?”

“Oh miss, you wouldn’t be likely to know anything about her; she isn’t in your class at all. My husband brought her in this morning, a queer, wild little thing she is, but splendid at the work. Where do you think he found her, miss?”

“Where?” asked Molly, her heart beginning to beat very fast.

“Why, miss, you’d never guess if you was to try till Doomsday; on the back of Nimrod, no less, riding him round and round the field, and as pleased as Punch, and as cool as though she were sitting in an easy-chair at home!”

Just at this moment, before Mrs. Anderson had time to say a word more, Peggy herself put in an appearance.

“Sorra a bit o’ me is goin’ back,” she said; and then she looked at Molly, laughed, ran up to Mrs. Anderson, began to kiss her, and the next minute flung her arms round her neck. “It’s here I’m goin’ to stay.”

“And you mean to tell me,” said Mrs. Anderson, “that you have anything to do with the ladies at Preston Manor?”

“Yes, she has a great deal to do with us, and we have been very unhappy about her. Oh Peggy, how could you treat us like that? I have been crying about you all the morning. Oh I have been unhappy!”

“And if I’d suspicioned ye was really frettin’ for me,” began Peggy, looking askance at Molly as she spoke, “faix! I don’t think I could face it! If you really want me?”——

“Of course I want you, we all want you.”

“I thought it was too good to last,” said Mrs. Anderson. “Do you mean to say, miss, that this young girl is a new servant you’ve got?”

“Mrs. Anderson, she’s not a servant at all, she’s a young lady by birth.”

“No, I ain’t! I ain’t no more a lady than Mrs. Anderson herself, nor as much. Then I’ll tell ye the whole story. As I was lyin’ stretched out this mornin’, I began to think, ‘Now, how can I get away from this awful hole of a place, at all, at all?’ An’ I thought an’ thought until at last it came over me that there was nothin’ for me but to run away, an’ so I did, maining, if ye will belave me, to go to some one who’d give me a trifle of money for me labours; for although I be ignorant of ye’r sort o’ things, miss, there’s a sight o’ things I can do, as Mrs. Anderson knows well.”

“Yes, I do; I can testify to that,” said Mrs. Anderson. “It seems a great pity she’s no servant, because I never came across a better one. But, my dear little girl, you see you can’t stay with me if you belong to these young ladies. You belong to the quality.”

“Faix, I don’t, an’ niver will!”

“Oh fie, child! fie! You’ve no right to quarrel with the position into which God Almighty places you. Miss, I’m more vexed than I can say; but you’ll excuse me. I was took all of a heap, so to speak, and when the young lady would only give out that she lived ‘back of beyont,’ how was I to guess that she meant your beautiful place, miss?”

“So you won’t kape me then?” said Peggy, raising eyes of blank despair to Mrs. Anderson’s face.

“Oh Peggy, you will come back with us!” said poor Molly.

“Will it make ye cry bitter bad if I don’t?”

“Yes, I think I shall be quite ill.”

“Faix, then, I’ll go, but I don’t like it a bit. Oh wurra, but I’m dazed intirely, that I be! Good-bye, Mrs. Anderson, give my love to the little hins. I can’t live your life, but I can’t love the life they live at the back of beyont. Good-bye, Mrs. Anderson, dear.”

The sad little figure was soon walking down the path, and Molly, half-triumphant and yet with a sinking at her heart, saw her safe into the pony carriage.

CHAPTER VI.
PEGGY’S ESCAPADE.

Peggy was certainly very troublesome, there was no doubt whatever on that point. Even Molly had to agree to this most patent fact. She did not want even kind Molly’s attentions; and as to the rest of the family, she openly said that she couldn’t “abide the sight o’ them.” These words were not pleasant to hear, and Mrs. Wyndham was not the sort of person to take them quietly. When the child refused to eat her meals properly, and sat sulky and speechless in one of the beautiful drawing-rooms, having first of all spilt a cup of tea all over one of the pretty frocks which had just been bought for her, Mrs. Wyndham determined to defy her husband and take the bit between her teeth. Accordingly, she marched up to Peggy, took her hand, and led her up to her bedroom. There she pushed her in with some violence, and said, “You’re a very naughty, ungrateful little girl; but here you shall stay until you express sorrow for your misdemeanours.”

“Whativer’s thim?” inquired Peggy.

“I’ll leave you to find out, you naughty, bad child!”

Mrs. Wyndham left the room, locking the door behind her and putting the key into her pocket. She told her daughters that they were neither of them to go near Peggy, and expressed anger and annoyance when Molly began to cry.

“You make me sick, Molly,” she said. “Now do control yourself; take a lesson from your sister. That girl’s spirit must be broken in, or I won’t live in the house with her. Thank goodness, she’s safe for the present. I declare, she has quite tired me out. Girls, you had better take the pony trap and drive over to see the Wrenns and invite them to tea to-morrow. I shall go and lie down in my bedroom.”

Mrs. Wyndham lay on her sofa close to the open window, and, the day being warm and she really tired, dropped asleep. “For once I’ve got the better of that Irish imp,” she murmured to herself as she dropped into placid slumber.

But Mrs. Wyndham had reckoned without her host. When Peggy found herself locked up in her spacious bedroom she first gave vent to some angry words, and burying her little face in the bedclothes, “drownded” herself, as she expressed it, in her tears. But tears with the Irish girl were something like the showers of an April day. Soon she was looking around her and smiling to herself. The window of her bedroom was wide open, and had she not escaped by that same window before on that very day?

“Faix thin,” she muttered, “it’s herself don’t know much. I’m not in dread of her, not at all, nor any of the grand folk I’m likely to meet here. Is it me that’s scared? Not me. Why, even the servants, they don’t paralyse me; us in Ireland”—here she threw her head back—“ah! it takes a dale o’ trouble to import us to a place like this. I declare, for the love o’ goodness! I think I’ll run away again.”

No sooner had the thought occurred to her than Peggy resolved to act upon it. She was out of the window and sitting on the roof, then she managed to scramble until she got to a great stack of chimneys. These she inspected with keen interest, not in the least regarding the fact that her white frock was turning black. She had now mounted up to a good height, and from where she stood she could get a glimpse of the yard. Some fowls of different sizes and sorts were strutting about there in a most important manner; a flock of geese came into view, led by a great white gander; and, finally, the king of the farmyard appeared, in the shape of a huge turkey-cock, who said, “Gobble, gobble, gobble,” as he was followed hither and thither by his troop of wives.

“The Lord be praised!” cried Peggy, “glory be to heaven, but it’s consoled I be.”

By turning and twisting and clinging, occasionally climbing up a little way and occasionally going down a little way, Peggy found herself right round at the back of the house and hanging over the farmyard. There was a good drop, however—at least thirty feet—between her and the ground, and this drop, try as she would, she did not dare to manage unaided. Several men, belonging to the farm, were moving about, employed over their several duties; not one, however, looked up to where the child with the bright eyes and face much blackened with chimney smuts, was regarding them wistfully. Presently, however, a burly-looking man came and stood exactly under the portion of the roof to which poor Peggy was clinging. He was a big man, at least six feet in stature. Here was her opportunity.

“Yerra, Pat!” she screamed, “hould aisy, for the love o’ God; don’t stir, man, as you value your immortal! I’m comin’.”

The next instant the man, who was christened Pat by the girl on the roof, felt a sharp bump on his shoulders, and Peggy, clinging with her dirty little arms to his neck, burst into a fit of laughter and tumbled to the ground.

“Holy Moses!” she cried, “if I didn’t have a stitch in me side intirely at the face of ye, Pat, when I let out that screech! But there, I’m all right, and I have me liberty, praise the Lord! To be sure now, I was dumfoundered how to get off that roof until ye placed yerself so handy.”

Several men and women now came flocking round the girl, and it must be owned that they all burst into laughter, and one or two of them said, “Well done, missy! it’s you that have the spirit.”

“You’d better let me wash you, my dear,” said a big, red-faced woman, who had charge of the fowls. “You’re a sight to behold if you were to meet any of the family.”

“But I don’t want to meet the family,” said Peggy; “I want to stay here along wid ye an’ the dear little hins an’ the turkeys an’ the geese. Why then, me fine master, an’ do ye think I’m afraid o’ ye?” Here she went up to the great turkey-cock and pulled him by the tail. The fierce bird tried furiously to peck at her, but she kept her ground, rushing round and round in a circle, clinging on to the bird, while the servants and farm-labourers held their sides with laughter. At last, however, Mrs. Johns, as the red-faced woman was called, induced Peggy to come and be washed; but, although the young lady’s face and hands could be restored to a state of moderate cleanliness, the frock was past all hope.

“Whatever is to be done?” said Mrs. Johns. “The frock will tell on you, missy dear.”

“I don’t care if it does,” answered the child; “now that I am here I want to have a bit o’ fun. Can none o’ ye consale me for a bit if the quality go by? I’m ragin’ with a hunger, too, bedad, for I couldn’t swallow a bit at tea-time, wid herself scowlin’ at me. Oh now thin, Mary asthore, it’s you that will be kind to me, won’t ye? Ye’ll wet a drop o’ tay an’ bring it out here to the farmyard, an’ I’ll dhrink it, for I’m as dhry as a cinder; an’ I could do with a lump o’ cake, too. You run an’ fetch thim for me, Mary asthore.”

“My name is Ann,” replied the woman, “but I’ll do what you want, you poor little thing.”

Accordingly, Peggy, seated on a three-legged stool in the yard, enjoyed herself vastly. She was surrounded by her satellites, the sort of people she could appreciate and understand. She drank cup after cup of “tay” and devoured many hunches of rich cake, chattering as she ate, and throwing crumbs to the different birds that flocked round her. When she was quite satisfied she rose and shook the crumbs from her dirty frock.

“I’ll come again to-morrow, God bless ye all, me darlin’s,” she said. “An’ now, fetch a ladder, for I must be goin’ back by the road I come. Pat, man, run. Why, man, have ye got joints in yer bones? Ye’ll have me cotched if ye don’t stir yer stumps.”

Pat, whose real name was William, secured a ladder, and held it while Peggy climbed. Soon she was lost to view in the intricacies of the roof.

The servants looked at each other after she had gone, and vowed an unspoken vow that they would rather have their tongues cut out than tell on the poor Irish missy.

“Please God, she doesn’t catch it from Mrs. Wyndham,” exclaimed Mrs. Johns. “She’d have a hard and bitter tongue for an innocent child like that.”

“She took me all of a heap,” exclaimed William, “when she jumped on my back. But I do declare, she’s as pretty a little thing as I ever set eyes on.”

Meanwhile the “pretty little thing” in question re-entered by the open window, changed her dirty frock, put on a clean one, and sat demurely in a chair, looking as though she had not stirred an inch since Mrs. Wyndham had left her, when that lady appeared again on the scene. It is true there was a wonderful brightness in the eyes of the culprit, and not a vestige of sorrow on the small, defiant face; but Mrs. Wyndham considered that she had gained a victory.

“Come, Peggy,” she said, “Mr. Wyndham is waiting to speak to you in the study. I will take you to him. Come at once. I hope, Peggy, you are sorry for your naughtiness.”

“Arrah thin, niver a bit,” replied Peggy, looking full up into the good lady’s face.

Mr. Wyndham, poor man, had been given a most vivacious account of Peggy’s iniquities, her conduct at the Andersons’ farm, her dreadful exploit with the bull, the scene which the two girls had come across of Peggy as maid-of-all-work to Mrs. Anderson; and finally, her behaviour at tea, when she had spilt a whole cup down her pretty new frock, and had not expressed a word of contrition.

“To tell the truth,” Mrs. Wyndham finally added, “unless you can manage to make that child conform to our rules, Paul, I really shall be obliged to say that I must go from home for the present, and take my girls with me.”

“Oh it won’t come to that, dear,” replied Wyndham; but he felt a good deal of distress, of pity for the child, and of pity also for his wife and daughters.

“Send her to me. I’ll have a talk with her, and afterwards I will tell you what I think is best to be done,” was his remark.

Accordingly, Peggy was fetched, and undoubtedly there was no sorrow on the face of Peggy, and no sorrow in her defiant words when she was ushered into Wyndham’s study.

“Here she is, Paul, and I greatly fear from her manner that she isn’t in the least repentant,” said Mrs. Wyndham.

“Ah, thin, an’ that I’m not,” was Peggy’s response. Then the door was shut.

Wyndham glanced up from his desk; he was busy writing a letter, and he did not say a word to Peggy at first, but calmly went on writing. There was something rather fascinating to the child in his manner. He was a very handsome, distinguished-looking man. He wrote very fast. She had never seen any one write properly before, and she had been taught writing, after a fashion, herself, but never writing of this sort. The words seemed to fly over the paper, and then what a funny sort of machine he had close by, with queer little letters sticking up all over it! Suddenly, having finished writing his letter, Wyndham put a sheet of paper into the machine, turned on, as Peggy expressed it, “a kind of tap,” and began making a loud noise and printing as hard as he could.

“Arrah thin! don’t go so fast!” said the child.

Wyndham did not take any notice of her, but went on typing his letter until he had come to the end. Then he folded it up, put it into an envelope, which he addressed, stamped, and laid to one side. Then, for the first time, he looked up at Peggy. She was immensely interested.

“I wish you’d do that again,” she said.

“What am I to do again?” he asked.

“That tip-tapping-tap.”

“Oh, this is what they call a typewriter.”

Peggy shook her head. “Don’t know anything about it,” she remarked.

“Peggy, will you sit down for a little? I have”—he took out his watch—“exactly a quarter of an hour in which to speak to you.”

“Bedad, thin, that’ll be long enough,” was her response.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because, if ye’re goin’ to be scoldin’ me all the time, I think a quarter of an hour will be as long as will be good for yer breath. It’s bad when ye riz the voice in passion, an’ a quarter of an hour’ll do the business fine.”

“Peggy dear!” There was something gentle in the voice, something reserved, and at the same time something pained.

It was that pained note that arrested the child’s indifference. From the moment Wyndham had come to the Irish cabin, Peggy had been feeling that little heart in her breast getting colder and colder and harder and harder; but now, all of a sudden, it began to throb with new life.

“Peggy, instead of a quarter of an hour being too long for what I have to say to you, it will be a great deal too short; I don’t want to waste a moment. To begin, I have something here I should like you to look at.”

Now, if Peggy had one fault greater than another, it was the bump of curiosity. Wyndham went to a drawer, took a key from his pocket, opened the drawer, and took out a little brown morocco case. He opened the case.

“Come here, Peggy,” he said. The girl advanced, he slipped his arm round her waist. “I want you to look at this,” he said.

She looked down at the picture of a man, a man with a kind, brave, noble face, the eyes were shining with a strange sort of wistfulness. The lips were firm and beautifully curved, the brow was broad, but it was the expression which made the face altogether charming.

“THAT MAN, PEGGY, IS YOUR FATHER.”—Page [63].

“That man, Peggy, is your father.”

“Glory”——began Peggy.

“Peggy, he was a gentleman.” The child was silent. “Your mother was a very beautiful peasant woman; your father loved her and married her, and afterwards, when you were born, she died, poor thing! Your father was very poor then, very poor; he was in India with his regiment, and could not come home to take care of his little baby, but he loved her very much. He often wrote to me, and told me about her. He sent all the money he could spare to the people who looked after you, Peggy, and when at last he came to die he wrote me a long letter, a very long letter; it was all about you and his love for you. He said in that letter, ‘I want you to bring Peggy up as your own child, and, above all things, I want her to be a lady. I want her to be good and never to tell lies, and to put honour first, and I want her to learn all those things that ladies ought to know. I want her to be a comfort to you and to your wife and to your girls. I think she will be, if she is her mother’s child and mine. Tell her when you see her, all that I want her to be, and give her, when you think she is fit to receive it, the letter which I enclose for her. It is a letter partly from me and partly from that poor, sweet young mother whom she never saw. But don’t give Peggy either of these letters until she is fit to receive them.’ In the letter which your father wrote to me, Peggy, he said that I was to bring you up as I thought right; and he further said that he felt that he, perhaps, would be not far away, and would be listening to you, and watching you when you were striving to overcome the many faults which you learnt when you were a little girl in a cabin in Ireland.”

“And how am I to forget, bedad?” said Peggy. Her voice had altered in tone, and there were tears in her eyes. “Give me that letter o’ me father’s,” she said, “and I’ll run away an’ not bother ye any more.”

“I couldn’t do that, Peggy. Your father when he wrote said that you were not to receive his letter until you were fit to read it, until you were sufficiently trained to appreciate what he has written for your guidance, until you love me enough to love his message to you. Peggy, look at me.”

The child turned and stared.

“At the present moment I am afraid, my poor little girl, that you are hating me.”

“Arrah no, not quite,” said Peggy, “but I hate herself and Jessie. I don’t mind Molly one way or t’other.”

“The person you speak of as ‘herself’ happens to be my wife. Jessie is my daughter. Do you think that it is pleasant to me to hear that you, a little ignorant girl, hate them when they wish to be so kind to you?”

“Bedad, it mayn’t be pleasant, but it’s thrue.”

“Now, Peggy, I have told you about your father. I have one or two other things to say. Your father was my greatest friend; once he saved my life. It was a long time ago. I’ll tell you that story some day. There is nothing under the sun I would not do for your father; his death was a very bitter grief to me, and the one consolation I had when he passed away, was the thought of looking after his child; the only thing I am sorry for is this—that he didn’t put you into my care a long time ago. Peggy, my dear, I have no intention of letting you go; you must submit to the new life. It is the life you were born to, remember.”

Peggy fidgeted restlessly. “I don’t like it a bit, yer mightiness,” she said.

“Peggy dear, you must not call me ‘your mightiness.’ There are a great many words you must forget.”

“An’ however am I to do that, yer—yer honour?”

“That is not a right way to speak to me either. You and I are, I hope, a gentleman and a lady.”

“Bedad, thin, I’m no lady.”

“Then, Peggy, you honestly say to my face that you deny your own father, for there never was, in the course of the world’s history, a better gentleman than Peter Desmond.”

“I’m not goin’ for to deny it to him, but me mother.”

“Your pretty young mother was, it is true, a peasant by birth, but she was well educated in a convent school, and, compared to you, was a lady. She did everything that her husband told her. I saw her once, Peggy; it was shortly before you were born, and I was touched with her sweetness and gentleness. She would not have dreamed of saying ‘your mightiness,’ or ‘your honour,’ or ‘bedad,’ or ‘wurra,’ or ‘begorra,’ or any of those words. Now, Peggy, I want to ask you if you will help me?”

“To be sure I will, Uncle Paul, if I may call ye that.”

“Yes, that will do splendidly. I should like you to call me Uncle Paul.”

“I’ll manage yer hins an’ milk yer cows. How will that do?” said Peggy.

“My dear little girl, that won’t do at all. I don’t want you to manage hens or to milk cows. It was quite right for you to do those things when you were living in the cabin with the O’Flynns; but now that you are here you must act differently; you must allow yourself to be trained, you must dress nicely and speak nicely, and obey those who know better than yourself. At present you are so shockingly ignorant that I am positively ashamed of you. Do you know that you might have been killed to-day when you got on that bull’s back?”

“Oh, wurra wisha, not at all, your mightiness, there wasn’t a sthroke o’ malice in the poor crayture.”

“Now, Peggy, there you are again! Your language is to be completely altered. How could I introduce a little girl like you to my friends? If you love your father I will give you his letter as a reward; but I will not give it to you until you have proved your love by learning how to speak nicely, how to eat properly—in short, how to be a worthy daughter of Peter Desmond. I don’t mean to punish you, I don’t wish to be unkind to you; and in order to help you I have asked a great friend of mine, Mary Welsh, to come here for the next fortnight.”

“I niver heard her name before. I’m moithered intirely wid the lot o’ fresh people ye’re bringin’ round me, Uncle Paul.”

“I think you will like Mary Welsh, and I will tell you why. She’s an Irishwoman.”

“Oh thin, bedad, is she? An’ does she know about hins an’ turkey-cocks an’ geese an’ little pigeens?”

“I dare say she will talk to you about those things; but there’s a wide difference between her and you, for she speaks like a cultivated lady, whereas you talk like a little girl of the people.”

“Sure thin, yer mightiness, if you’d only lave me wid thim I’d be as happy as the day is long.”

“Now, my dear little Peggy, how can I do that when your father has implored of me to bring you up as one of my own children? Now, Peggy, set your wits to work—you’re quite clever enough—do you think that would be carrying out your father’s wishes if I did as you wished now? But you don’t know any better, you are just a silly, silly little girl.”

“Maybe you’re right, sor.”

“Uncle Paul.”

“Uncle Paul.”

“When Mary Welsh comes you can talk with her just as much as ever you like about Old Ireland; she will stay here for one fortnight, and at the end of that time she will tell me what she thinks had best be done towards your education.”

“How many things must I larn, Uncle Paul? I was sent out from school finished, so to spake.”

“Yes, but there are other schools where you would not be considered finished.”

“Oh glory! All right, Uncle Paul, I’ll do me level best.”

“I think you will, my poor child. Now run upstairs, wash your face and hands, then go to the schoolroom and try to copy the way Molly speaks and the way Jessie speaks. They will be having supper together in the schoolroom, and I want you to have it with them,”

“I’d like to confess a bit before I go, your mightiness.”

“To confess?”

“Why, this. It’s only right I should tell ye. Herself locked me up because I spilt me tay down in the drawin’-room. She locked me up in me room for many a long hour.”

“If I had been at home I wouldn’t have left you so long by yourself.”

“Oh blessings on ye, I didn’t miss ye. I wasn’t a bit unhappy when I was on the roof, an’ jumped on the back o’ Pat, an’ had tay wetted fresh for me by Mary, an’ lumps o’ cake to swallow, an’ the turkey-cock to pull by the tail and run round and round wid it. It wasn’t lonely I was, yer mightiness.”

“Little Peggy, you are absolutely the most distracting child I ever came across. I don’t know who Pat is or who Mary is.”

“They’re the people in your own farmyard, yer honour. I jumped on Pat’s back, an’ didn’t he let out a screech too, be the same token!”

“Well, all these things, my dear, you must not do again, that’s all. I will not speak of this adventure, and don’t you, dear. Now go and get ready for supper, and meet your cousins in the schoolroom. When Mary comes I’m sure you will begin to say it is very nice to be a little lady—to be an Irish lady, remember. If you don’t fall in love with Mary Welsh you will be the first young person who ever did not.”

“Ah thin, there’s never no sayin’,” replied Peggy, and with these ambiguous words she walked as far as the door. There she stood and pondered for a minute, presently she came back. “Uncle Paul.”

“Yes, little child.”

“How long do ye think I’ll be gettin’ ready to read the letter of me own father, what’s lyin’ in his cold grave?”

“That depends on yourself. When you are, in my opinion, fit to read the letter, it will be given to you.”

“I’ll have a good thry,” said Peggy. “Kiss me, Uncle Paul.”

He did kiss her very tenderly. He looked into her wonderful, luminous eyes, and there came back to him a memory of his boyhood, and Peter Desmond, the merriest, cheeriest, jolliest boy in the public school where they had both been educated.

“There’s nothing I would not do for that poor little thing,” he said to himself; “and if there is any one in the world who can help me it is Mary Welsh.”

CHAPTER VII.
MARY WELSH TO THE RESCUE.

The Welsh family lived about twelve miles away from the Wyndhams. Mr. Welsh was a clergyman, with a very large country parish, and Mary was his eldest daughter. He was an Irishman by birth, and Mary had lived in Ireland, in the County Kerry, until she was seventeen years of age. She, therefore, adored Irish people; and when, after the death of an aunt, she was obliged to return to England, she loved to tell her brothers and sisters stories of the life she led in the old country, and fired their hearts with accounts of the kindly hearted peasants, of the bogs, of the flowers, the mosses, the ferns—the marvellous things that grew in Ireland and Ireland alone.

“Sure,” cried Irish Mary—or Irish Molly, as the other children chose to call her—“it’s just the Star of the Ocean, the Pearl of the Sea!” The others, all brought up in England, could not share Mary’s enthusiasm, but they could adore Mary for herself.

Mary was one of eight children, there were two girls younger than Mary, then there came two boys, then another girl, and then two baby boys. The elder boys were at a preparatory school, Mary was now her father’s right hand in the parish, and her sisters Marcia and Angela were both at the same school as the Wyndhams. Marcia and Angela were very particular friends of Molly and Jessie.

When “Irish Molly,” as they used to call the eldest daughter of the Rev. Mr. Welsh, however, received a letter, on a certain sunny morning, from Mr. Wyndham of Preston Manor, she read it in some amazement, and then turned to her mother.

Mrs. Welsh was a gentle, sweet-looking woman, very young-looking for her age. She had always been the darling of her children, devoting her life to their care, living for them, adoring them as only the best mother can. Mr. Welsh was an earnest and hard-working clergyman. Mary was a sort of curate to her father, looking after the poor people; she was their nurse in times of sickness and their playmate in times of rejoicing. It was Mary who organised the village feasts, the bean-treats, all the different amusements which took place in the summer. “Miss Mary” was adored by young and old, by rich and poor. She was “Miss Mary” with some, “Miss Molly” with others, “Miss Polly” with others again; but by all she was loved, and there was no one who had not a good word for Mary Welsh.

Now there was something particularly pleasing about this young girl’s appearance; without being pretty she had a certain charm of face and manner which could not but arrest attention. Her face was oval. She had soft brown hair, a delicate sort of mouse-brown in colour; it was very thick and was divided simply on her broad, white brow, and rolled up in a great coil at the back of her head without any attempt at fuzz or curl or ornament of any sort. Mary’s hair, when let down, fell far below her knees, and was very much admired by her brothers and sisters; her one object, however, was to coil it up as tightly as possible, hairpin it, and have, as she expressed it, done with it for the day at least. The broad, rather low forehead had a pair of delicately curved eyebrows, and beneath the brows were two wonderfully soft, velvety brown eyes, the colour of delicate brown velvet or of a hazel-nut. The eyes were large, well opened, and very clear, and they were surrounded by thick and curly black lashes. Her little features were neat and small, her mouth had a dimple at one corner, and her teeth were white as milk. This little face, which was altogether charming and yet not in the least beautiful, added greatly to the effect which Mary produced on all who came in contact with her. She was a well-grown, well-developed girl, she had a neat waist and a firm column of a throat, her head was nobly set upon the throat, and she walked like a young princess. The other girls and boys were all good-looking; but Mary was, as her Irish mother was fond of saying, “the cream of the crock and the flower of the flock.”

“Well, we shall have a busy day,” said Angela on this special morning. “Why, Polly Molly Mary, what on earth’s the matter?”

“Oh, this, this—do listen, girls. I’ve had a letter from Uncle Paul.”

Now, Mr. Wyndham was not “Uncle Paul” in any sense of the word to the Welsh family, but he was such a kind-hearted, good, affectionate man that Mary had long ago christened him uncle, and insisted on his speaking of her as “his affectionate niece.”

“Uncle Paul’s in a bit of a bother, and wants me to go over there at once.—Daddy, can I have the pony trap? I ought to go as soon as possible.”

“But, my darling child, you really can’t go to-day,” said her father. “You know we’re having the infant school feast in the hayfield. How can we manage without you?”

“Oh daddy, I really think I must go. Just listen to what he says.”

There were no secrets in the Welsh family, and what one knew all knew. They not only knew the little things, but they knew the big things; they knew, for instance, when Mr. and Mrs. Welsh were short of money, and when money came in. They knew the people who were uncongenial to their gentle mother, and the people whom she loved to meet; they were open as the day to each other. But do not let it be supposed for a single moment that they were demonstrative to outsiders, that the Welsh family secrets went any farther. No, close as wax were all these young people with regard to home affairs except to one another.

“It would be the meanest thing on earth to tell anything with regard to our family affairs,” Mary Welsh had once pronounced; and Sam, the eldest boy, immediately illuminated the speech in the most flowery style, with a quantity of blue and gold and crimson paint, and stuck it up above the schoolroom mantelpiece, so that every member of the Welsh family could thus proclaim the sentiments of Mary to the others.

“This is the letter,” said Mary, standing up now and reading it aloud:

“My Dear Polly,—I am in an awful fix. Dear Peter Desmond is dead, and I went a few days ago to fetch his little girl from an Irish cabin in County Kerry. She is a most difficult subject, my dear Polly, and I don’t think any one on earth can help her if you don’t come to the rescue; so, will you come to-day? Come the very minute you get this, for I really don’t know what we shall do with the child. You will understand me when I tell you that this morning she lost herself and had exercise on the back of Farmer Anderson’s bull, Nimrod! You will perceive that she is what is termed an ‘impossibility.’ You, being Irish yourself, can doubtless touch her heart. For goodness’ sake, Polly, come and save us all, and in particular poor little Peggy Desmond.”

“There, now, daddy and mum,” said Mary, after she had read the letter, “this is a call which cannot possibly be neglected. I put it to the family.”

“And the family say that you are right,” was her father’s response.

“I’ll go and get the pony put to the cart,” said Sam.

“And I’ll pack your things. You’ll want your best evening dresses,” said Angela.

And so Mary started off on her visit to Preston Manor.

The children ran with her a good bit of the way, shouting to her and giving her directions. She was on no account to be bullied or oppressed by the grandeur of Preston Manor, and she was on no account either to allow the heart of the poor little Irish colleen to be broken; she was to keep herself to herself, as all self-respecting Irish maidens did, and at the same time she was to be a comfort and consolation to every single individual in the house. “And, above all things, Mary Molly Polly,” cried Sam, “you are to come back to your loving family as soon as possible, for we’ll be in a rare fix without you.”

“That we will,” said Angela.

But at this moment Mary pulled up the pony which she was driving. “I think you had better all go back now,” she said to her adoring brothers and sisters; “you have given me invaluable advice, and you may be quite certain I will carry it out to the letter. And now I want to give you a trifle of advice. It is this: I want you to see that the mums doesn’t overtire herself, and that daddy has a good strong cup of tea, and doesn’t sit in a draught, and doesn’t get too hot, pretending to be a young man, which you know he often does when we are having our school-feasts. In short, Angela and Marcia and Sam, you are to take the burden of the infant school feast on your own shoulders; and you know well what that means—cutting bread and butter and serving out buns, and laying the cloths upon the long tables, and afterwards seeing that the children have their games to their hearts’ content.”

“We’ll manage; we’ll manage,” cried Angela. “And now, good-bye, and God bless you, Mary Molly Polly!”

So Mary went on her way, thinking a good deal of the loved ones she had left behind, and a good deal also of the loved ones she was going to, for Mary had such a very big and such a very warm Irish heart! All those people she loved she cared for with a great zest, a rush of wholesome affection. This was what made her so beloved and so looked-up-to by rich and poor alike, for she never, never thought of herself, her one object from the time she rose in the morning until she laid her tired head on the pillow at night was what she could do for the benefit of other people. She was not at all proud with regard to the fact that Uncle Paul Wyndham had written to her in his distress. It was the last thing possible for Mary to be proud; but she was exceedingly glad, and she determined to do her utmost for the sad little Irish child who was to be entrusted to her care.

It was, of course, known at Preston Manor that Mary Welsh was expected at a fairly early hour that day. In consequence, the room which was known as the “forget-me-not” room was got ready for her. There were several lovely bedrooms in the beautiful house, but there was no room quite so sweet as the “forget-me-not” room. The paint was all of a delicate shade of forget-me-not blue, and the paper was of soft, very soft, white, the hangings of the bed were blue forget-me-not in tone, and so also were the curtains looped back from the charming French windows. There were, of course, books in the room, and a very nice, comfortable sofa, and a couple of easy-chairs; also, a small table, where a girl could write letters or do needlework, just as she pleased. In short, the forget-me-not room was essentially a girl’s room, and essentially also a cheerful and pleasant room.

The room having been ordered to be in a perfect state of readiness for Miss Welsh, the two young Wyndhams walked up the avenue to watch for Mary’s arrival. They did not take Peggy with them.

Peggy was much quieter than usual that morning; she had been fairly good the night before—that is, she had with a violent effort refrained from using her fingers instead of a knife and fork, and, when she was about to say “faix,” or “wurra,” or “wisha,” she clapped her hand to her mouth and said, “Beg pardon, sure,” and then stopped talking altogether. The girls tried to encourage her to talk as they did, but she only nodded her head and was silent. She went to bed early, and, as far as they could tell, she slept soundly. As a matter of fact, unknown to them, she rose at her usual early hour in the morning, got out by way of the roof, climbed down again by the yew-tree, and went straight round to the poultry-yard. There she dazzled and amazed “Mary” and “Pat,” as she insisted on calling these two good people, by announcing her intention of coming every morning to see the poultry, in order to keep herself alive.

“For, if I don’t, sure as I’m a breathing girl, I’ll burst!” said Peggy.

“Oh, indeed you won’t, darling; you won’t be so silly,” said Mrs. Johns.

“Yerra, thin,” said Peggy, “that’s all ye know about it. If I can’t let out me feelin’s when I’m here, I’ll burst, as sure as me name’s Peggy Desmond. Why, thin, now, didn’t hisself spake to me last night, an’ tell me that I wasn’t niver to say ‘yerra,’ nor ‘whisht,’ nor ‘wurra,’ nor ‘faix,’ nor ‘oh glory!’ I can’t remember them all. Yes, though there was more—nor ‘sure thin,’ ‘your mightiness,’ nor ‘yer honour’—in fact, there was scarcely a word left in the language that I was to spake, an’, however was I to let out me voice if I was to be pulled up with niver a ‘yerra,’ nor a ‘wurra,’ nor a ‘whisht’ passing me lips? I ask you that, Mary, and, in the name of Almighty God, tell me how it’s to be done?”

“You must learn fresh words, honey,” said Ann Johns. “In our part of England we don’t say the words you use.”

“Oh, thin, faix, to be sure, I expect ye don’t. Ye haven’t got what I call a cosy, cossetty, nice, consolin’ sort ov word amongst ye; never was there a colder place, an’ me heart’s broke intirely!” The poor child burst into tears. “It’s Mary Welsh they’re going to put on me to-day,” she said, after a pause; and, as she uttered these words, both Johns and his wife approached the child and each took possession of an arm.

“What are you trying to say, missy?” asked Mrs. Johns.

“Oh, thin, wurra, nothing at all, only it’s Mary Welsh they’re putting on me to-day. Whoever be she, bedad?”

“You’re in luck if she’s coming! Why, she’s as Irish as yourself, only she knows just how to manage. She’ll teach you beautiful. Oh, you’ll love her!”

“Mary, for the love of heaven, don’t say another word about her, for, if ye do, as sure as me name’s Peggy Desmond, I’ll hate her! Don’t ye praise her, woman, for, if ye do, hate her I will! Now, thin, I’ll be off. I suppose ye haven’t a nice little hin that ’u’d like a bit of breakfast that I could give to the crature, it would ease me heart like.”

Mrs. Johns rushed into one of the stables, filled a dish full of corn, took it out to Peggy, and said, “There, dear, feed the little hens round the corner, and then go back to your bed, because if the family see you they’ll be really angry.”

So Peggy did go back to her bed, crept into it, and, what is more, fell asleep, wondering as she sank into the land of dreams who this extraordinary Mary Welsh was who would help her, and whom everybody seemed to love.

“But I’ll hate her,” thought Peggy; “it’s the way with me. I hate thim whom other folks praise; it’s a sort of twist I have in me nature, bedad.”

A servant came in to call Peggy, and also offered to help her to dress, and Peggy submitted, and was, on the whole, apparently quite a good little girl this morning. The nice maid brushed out the child’s soft, beautiful hair, and took her hand and led her to the schoolroom.

There Jessie and Molly were waiting for her. They all sat down to breakfast, Peggy with her hands hidden in her lap; the other two were seated one at the foot and the other at the head of the table. Molly was pouring out the coffee, and Jessie turned to Peggy and asked her what she would like to eat.

“Is it ate ye want me to? Have ye any stirabout?”

“What’s stirabout?” asked Jessie.

“Oh, wurra! I beg yer pardon. Don’t ye know stirabout in this poor sort of a country?”

“No, I never heard of it,” said Jessie.

“It’s made of Indian male, bedad—I beg your pardon. I don’t think I’ll ate anything, if ye don’t mind.”

“Oh yes, you really must, dear,” said Molly; “and you know when Mary Welsh comes——”

“For the love of goodness, don’t!” said Peggy.

“Don’t what?” exclaimed Molly.

“Don’t praise her in the sight of me; ye’ll repent it if ye do.”

Molly looked in despair at Jessie.

Jessie shook her head; suddenly, however, she rose from her seat. “Now, look here, Peggy,” she said. “Molly and I want to be kind to you.”

“Am I sayin’ that ye don’t?”

“Well, we can’t be kind while yon go on in this silly way. Here’s a nice piece of toast which I am going to butter for you. Would you like some salt butter on it, or would you prefer it plain?”

“It’s stirabout I’m wantin’.”

“You can’t have stirabout, there’s none in the house. If you have a craving for it, perhaps there’ll be some ordered to-day. Now, here’s some nice toast. Would you like an egg?”

“Is it an egg laid by a hin? No, I won’t touch it. Poor little doaty things, to ate their eggs! Bedad, thin—I beg yer pardon.”

The girls thought it best to talk to one another, which they did, and Peggy ate a very moderate breakfast, looking at them wistfully from time to time. At last the meal was over, and the girls consulted together. Jessie went out of the room and Molly was left alone with Peggy.

“Now, then, Peg, we’re going to have such a nice morning; and, first of all, we must meet Mary Welsh. I’m not going to praise her, of course, if you don’t wish me to; but we are very fond of her. Will you come with us? We thought of walking up to the gate to see her come along; she’ll drive over in the pony cart.”

“I won’t go with ye—no, thanks.”

“Very well, dear, you must please yourself.”

“Thank ye for that same, I will.”

“Peggy, you don’t know how anxious we are to make you happy!”

“Ah, thin, if I were you, I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t understand,” said Molly.

“I mane that I wouldn’t fret; for ye can’t make me happy if ye were to try for ever and ever, amen.”

“But, why not, Peggy?”

“Because ye can’t, and I’ve no raison to give. But lave me; I’m much more aisy in me mind when I’m let alone.”

“Very well, dear; I will let you alone; only, don’t you think I might give you one little kiss?”

“Arrah, why should ye be kissin’ me? I’m not in yer class, at all, at all.”

“Yes, you are, Peggy, you are quite in our class.”

“Ah, thin, I wouldn’t be tellin’ lies if I was ye.”

“Well, anyhow, whether you are in my class or not, I’m fond of you and I mean to be fonder, and I mean to kiss you, whether you like it or not. Come, Peggy, come; one warm kiss from an English girl to an Irish girl. Come, Peggy, come!”

Peggy submitted to the embrace, and as Molly flung both arms round her neck affectionately she suddenly felt a queer softening of the heart. She did not respond to the kiss; but as Molly reached the door of the schoolroom, on the way to her own room, the Irish girl rushed towards the door and embraced her tightly, saying, “Here’s from an Irish girl to an English girl!”

Peggy’s kiss was soft, her eyes were full of tears. Molly went soberly to her own room. Oh, how earnestly she trusted that Mary Welsh would come and tell her how she was to manage this wild young creature!

A few minutes later both girls walked slowly up the avenue. Peggy, from her point of vantage on the roof—which she now liked best as an exit—watched them. When they were out of sight, she climbed down by the aid of the yew-tree; then she ran swiftly along the shrubbery, and a good while before the girls reached the gates of Preston Manor Peggy had got there, and, with the agility of a young squirrel, had climbed up into a tall elm-tree. There she ensconced herself comfortably in the branches, and looked down and watched what was going on.

“I’ll see what kind that Mary Welsh is, whativer I do,” she said to herself. “Ah, thin, bedad, I can say the words comfortably while I’m alone. The trees don’t mind, nor the sky, nor does God in His heaven; but, thin, it’s moithered I am intirely!”

The girls, little knowing that Peggy was watching them, presently reached the gates. There was a lodge just inside the big gates, and the woman who lived at the lodge, Mrs. Jordan by name, came out and began to talk to the young ladies.

Peggy, up in her tree, could hear most of the words which passed between them. To her disgust, the words happened to be praises, extreme praises, of Miss Welsh.

Mrs. Jordan said, “I’m right glad she’s coming, miss; it’s good for sair e’en to see her.” Then the woman began a long story about when Jack scalded himself, and how wonderfully Mary Welsh managed, sitting up all night to mind him, and dressing his wounds herself, and he never crying at all when she touched him—that good he was—though a very torment when Miss Welsh was out of the room. Presently, however, the woman began to talk about Peggy. There was a little rustling sound in the elm-tree into which Peggy had climbed; the time, however, was midsummer, and, as the leaves were very thick on the tree, nobody noticed when the girl slipped down to a branch a little nearer the ground.

“I may as well know,” she said to herself. “I suppose it’s a bit mane of me to listen, but I may as well know.”

“You’ve got a wonderful young lady staying with you now, miss,” said Mrs. Jordan.

Peggy began to whistle exactly like a thrush.

Molly looked up into the tree. “How sweetly that bird sings!” she said. She could not possibly see even a glimpse of Peggy, who was surrounded by a curtain of green leaves.

“I hope the poor little lady won’t be lonesome,” continued Mrs. Jordan.

Peggy now thought that she would venture to imitate a nightingale, and she did so with rare success.

“Oh, do listen! listen!” said Jessie. “I hadn’t the least idea that nightingales were so close.”

“Nor had I,” said Mrs. Jordan. “I’m very glad if they’re going to pair so near us; it will be nice.”

“I’ll tell father about them when he comes in,” said Jessie; “he will be interested.”

“And so will Mary Welsh!” exclaimed Molly.

Just then a cuckoo, the sweetest note imaginable, sounded on the girls’ ears.

“I never knew the birds sing in such a lovely fashion as they are doing to-day, and such a variety of them, too,” said Molly.

Peggy had hard work to keep back a violent fit of laughter; she, however, restrained herself. She began a low, clear note, which might have belonged to a blackbird or to a lark; she did not venture to do many of the lark’s notes, fearing that she would be recognised, for larks do not sing so near the ground. At last, however, the sound of approaching wheels was heard; Peggy made a tiny opening for herself in her screen of green leaves, and the next minute the little pony trap appeared in view. A boy was seated at one side—he was evidently a groom, as he was dressed like one—and a girl in a brown holland dress, with a brown hat trimmed simply with a band of brown ribbon, was holding the reins. She stopped abruptly when she saw the girls, sprang lightly from the cart, and flung the reins to the boy.

“Joe, you had better take Sally up to the house; she will like a feed of oats before she goes home again. Well, my dears, here I am. I’m so glad to come!”

“And, oh, we are delighted! delighted to see you!” said Molly.

“And so am I delighted to see you.—Joe,” she called, aloud, “have my little trunk sent up to my room, please; don’t take it back again in the pony cart.”

The boy laughed and nodded. Soon the entire party were out of sight, and there was perfect silence all around; but Peggy remained up in her tree. At last, however, she slipped down towards the ground and ran as fast as she could to the house. She had liked the Irish tone of “Mary Polly Molly’s” voice, and was anxious to hear it again.

About half-an-hour before lunch the said Mary Polly Molly was in the “forget-me-not” room. She had unpacked her few possessions, and was standing by the open window. She had not yet seen Peggy, although she had heard a vast lot about her. She had listened to the despairing tones of her friends Jessie and Molly, but she had also heard Mrs. Wyndham declare positively that if something was not done she could not endure the child in the house.

“It comes to this, Mary,” Mrs. Wyndham said, “that if she doesn’t improve I must ask you to get her into your father’s house for a bit.”

“Oh, but, mother, that’s not fair!” exclaimed Jessie.

“We would have her with a heart and a half,” said Mary, “except that we haven’t got even a scrap of a corner to put her in.”

“Of course, you haven’t, dear,” said Mrs. Wyndham, flushing slightly, “and it was very shabby of me even to suggest it. Well, Mary, if you can stay with us for a few days you will tell us what we ought to do with the child?”

“I don’t expect she will be a bit difficult,” said Mary; and now, as she stood by her window, she thought about Peggy. Just then there came an imperious knock at the door. She said, “Come in.” A slight pause followed her words, then the door was very slowly opened and a small head of bright hair peeped round it—peeped round the door somewhat in the manner of a very ignorant lower-class servant in Ireland.

“Why, thin, it’s me,” said a sweet little voice; and the body which belonged to the head now showed itself. The little head and the slender figure made altogether an absolutely enchanting study, the sapphire-blue eyes were so very, very bright, the ruddy chestnut hair was such a mass of soft curls, the lips were curved like a true Cupid’s bow, and the pearly teeth were small and absolutely even. Then the young figure was by no means devoid of grace; and, although there was an ominous stain of green on the white frock, otherwise the little maid was neatly and suitably dressed. Her tan shoes and neat tan stockings were the best of their kind, and the fact that the small hands were very brown and sunburnt did not in the least detract from the other fact that this Irish girl looked, at least, a perfect lady.

“Mary Polly Molly,” gazed at Peggy for a moment in undoubted astonishment; but then, alas! the small girl began to speak, and the crown of young ladyhood tumbled down from the stately head.

“Why thin, but might I come nigh to ye for a minute?” was the first remark of Irish Peggy.

“Of course, you may, dear,” replied Mary; “I am so glad to make your acquaintance. I have been hearing about you and wondering when I should see you. It is very, very kind of you to come to my room like this.”

“Yerra, not at all,” replied Peggy. “It’s in a bit of a hole I be, and I thought, savin’ yer presence, yer ladyship, as ye’re Irish-bred yerself, and I liked the looks of ye when I saw ye driving up to the gates in a humble little gig, that perhaps ye’d help me.”

“Of course, I will help you, Peggy; but I’m puzzled to know when and how you saw me.”

“Oh wisha, worn’t that aisy? Didn’t I just climb up into a tree belike, close nigh to the big gates, and looked down on ye and the young ladies; and afore ye come up, and when they two was chattering with a woman they called Mrs. Jordan, didn’t I—to beguile the weary time—imitate the tunes the bits of birds sing, the cratures! They was all in a moil with wondering why so many birds set up singin’ in that wonderful tree, an’ I was fit to choke with the laughter, for ye comprehend they couldn’t get a sight of the smallest spalpeen of me through the branches.”

Mary laughed very heartily. “I think, Peggy, you are a very clever girl,” she said.

“Me! Is it me clever? May Heaven forgive ye! Why, ever since I set me fut in this bitter cowld country it’s nothing but a fool I do be makin’ o’ meself, an’ it’s on that account I ventured into yer ladyship’s presence, for how I’m to spake at all, at all, beats me.”

“Whatever do you mean, Peggy dear?”

“Oh ‘Peggy dear’! ’Tisn’t that ye’ll be callin’ me for long; why, it’s hatin’ me ye’ll be, like the rest of thim. Now listen. I can’t come round yer tongue, at all, at all, and that’s the truth, an’ the words that I mustn’t say—oh my, but I’m blethered!—I’m not to say ‘arrah,’ nor ‘musha,’ nor ‘wurra,’ nor ‘yer mightiness,’ nor ‘yer honour,’ nor ‘yer ladyship,’ which, be the same token, I thought for sure would plase herself, and she as proud as Lucifer; but there, Lord save us! I must be dumb, for I don’t know no other way to express me feelings, an’ that’s the bare truth!”

“Poor little Peggy! Sit down and let me talk to you; we have a few minutes before lunch. I can understand so well what you feel, for you see I am Irish myself. I think I can help you fine; but, first, before all things, we must be friends.”

“Does ye mane it, Miss Mary Molly Polly? Oh for the Lord’s beautiful sake, does ye mane it?”

“Most certainly I do.”

“Thin let me give ye a hug. There, now, thin; that’s consoling; I’m better now, I am, truly. Me heart’s not so sore. Ye’ll tell me how to spake yer tongue, for ’tain’t mine. How does the quality spake in Ireland, Miss Mary Molly Polly? That’s what I’m wantin’ to get at.”

“Peggy, I’m afraid you will have a hard time before you. The ‘quality,’ as you call them, in Ireland, speak exactly as the quality speak in England. Now listen, darling. All well-educated people speak somewhat alike, whatever country they stay in.”

“Oh, thin, wherever’s the use o’ bothering about languages, when iverybody spakes the same?”

“You must say ‘speak,’ not ‘spake.’”

“Speaks the same. Oh, me word, there seems no flavour in that!”

“Now listen to me, Peggy. I will write out a list of the words you must say instead of the words you do say; and I will ask Mrs. Wyndham to let you sit next me at lunch, and whenever you say a word you oughtn’t to say I’ll just give you a gentle little push with my hand. I won’t correct you all the time, for you can’t possibly, my dear child, learn our way of speaking all at once. But will you listen to me—you will try and copy me, won’t you? For I love Old Ireland, and for that matter, Peggy my dear, I love the very part of Ireland you love, for we both have come from the County Kerry.”

“Oh, wusha, wurra, wurra, wurra! Let me dance up and down the room! An’ did ye see the mountains ov her, and the lakes ov her, an’ did ye see the clouds come down, forming a nightcap on some ov the mountains; an’ did ye see the flowers all a-blowin’ and a-growin’, an’ the little bastes in the fields, an’ the little hins? An’, oh my! wurra, wurra! to think of it!”

“Now, Peggy, don’t you think you can express all these feelings without saying, ‘my’ and ‘wurra, wurra’?”

“I can’t, Miss Mary Molly Polly, I can’t.”

“In the first place, dear, you mustn’t say ‘miss’; you are to say ‘Mary’ to me.”

“Mary! I wouldn’t take the liberty; not if you was to beat me black an’ blue.”

“But if I ask you?”

“I couldn’t, Miss Mary—I beg your pardon—Mary, that is.”

“There, now, you’ve said it, you see, and it isn’t so difficult.”

“There’s no colour in it,” said Irish Peggy.

“Wouldn’t you like, Peggy, to be a little lady some day?”

“That’s the worst of me; I don’t want it at all. I’d a sight rayther be wan of the common people. That’s what I’m afther wishin’ for.”

“You mustn’t say ‘afther wishin’ for;’ you must say, ‘that’s what I wish.’”

“An’ what’s wrong in ‘afther,’ Miss—Mary, I mane.”

“It isn’t good English, dear.”

“Oh, bedad!”

“You mustn’t say ‘bedad.’ That’s quite wrong.”

“I’d best be dumb, hadn’t I, miss?”

“I think, Peggy, for a short time when you are downstairs, you had better just say, ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ or ‘please,’ or ‘thank you,’ and when I’m up in my room with you, or walking with you, or telling you stories about Ireland, I will gradually tell you the words you mustn’t say, and you will see, darling, at the end of a week that you will have learnt to drop a lot of the words that now seem to you so necessary and you will have fresh ones to take their place.”

“Very well, Miss Mary.”

Just then the luncheon gong sounded.

“Now, dear, I’m not ‘Miss Mary,’ and remember that the girls are Jessie and Molly, and when you speak to Mrs. Wyndham you are to say, ‘Mrs. Wyndham,’ not ‘ma’am,’ and you are to sit close to me, and on no account to eat your food with your fingers.”

“Why for not? It’s twice as fast.”

“But that is not the question, dear; it isn’t done.”

“I can’t manage a knife and fork nohow.”

“Well, watch me. Will you try and eat like me and speak like me? Now, I know you’re very clever—you can imitate. If you can imitate a bird, surely you can imitate a girl. Well, now, imitate me, won’t you?”

“But that would be laughin’ at ye like.”

“No, no, not at all; it won’t be laughing at me. Try and speak the way I speak.”

“I’d a sight sooner imitate that Jessie; she’s so stiff an’ stuck-up. I don’t like her, not a bit.”

“Oh, you mustn’t imitate in that way; that would be very rude.”

“Or,” said Peggy, her eyes dancing, “I’d like best of all to imitate herself. Me word! wouldn’t I like to strut into a room like herself, me head thrown back an’ me chest bulged out, an’ meself very nearly fallin’ backwards? Would it be right of me to do it, Miss Mary—I mane Mary—because, if it would, it would tickle me fancy mightily.”

“No, it wouldn’t be right at all, Peggy, and you’re not to do it.”

Presently the two girls went downstairs. Mary undoubtedly felt that she had got a “handful” in Peggy Desmond. Peggy was wondering and looking about her; she had caught a little of Mary’s spirit, and wished to please Mary, and Mary had put a new idea into her head—she was to imitate. She did not think for a minute that it would be much fun imitating Mary herself; besides, whatever Mary said, it was rude to imitate. Her grandfather and grandmother and the O’Flynns had told her that she must not ever “make game of folks,” as they expressed it. Surely, then, she would not make game of dear, dear Miss Mary; not she, no, indeed, not for the world. But who could she imitate? She was told she mustn’t imitate Jessie, and she mustn’t imitate Mrs. Wyndham, and it would be rude to imitate dear little Molly, for she quite liked Molly; but there were the servants; she might imitate one of them.

There were generally two men to serve at lunch-time at Preston Manor. Mary came downstairs holding Peggy’s hand, and with a nod to Jessie it was quickly arranged that the little girl was to sit next her new friend. Occasionally Mary took the small hand and pressed it. Lunch began. Peggy was strangely silent. When she was asked if she would take such a thing, she said, “Yes, I thank you,” and when she was asked if she would take another, she said, “No, I’m obliged”; and on the whole her behaviour was fairly good, but all this time her small mind was exceedingly busy.

There happened to be a new footman in the room that day, and this man, it so happened, had a rather painful stammer in his speech. Now, nothing makes one so nervous as a stammer, and Peggy observed that the footman flushed very red indeed when he passed things round, and also that when he was spoken to, he said, “Y-y-y-yes,” and could not very well go on. Suddenly it occurred to Peggy that it would be a delightful thing if she imitated Joseph, as this servant was called.

The first part of the luncheon went off without anything special occurring; but by the time the puddings and other sweets were handed round Peggy had quite learnt her lesson.

“Will you have some pudding, Peggy, or some of this stewed fruit?” inquired Mrs. Wyndham. She spoke in a somewhat languid tone and looked at the child as she did so.

“I’ll have p-p-p-p-p—fr-u-it—’m,” said Peggy.

Mary turned and looked at the girl. The footman, Joseph, rushed out of the room, and there was a sound of convulsive laughter in the hall. Peggy looked up with her innocent eyes. “Did I frighten him?” she said. “Ye told me I was to imitate.” She looked full at Mary.

“Oh my dear, I didn’t mean that. Forgive her, please, Mrs. Wyndham; she—she’ll soon be all right.”

“No, I won’t; I’ll always be wrong,” said Peggy; “always and always and always; there ain’t no use trying to bother about me at all, at all!” And the excited child burst into tears.

But Mary, after all, had her way. Ever since she came into the world had not Mary Polly Molly had her own way? She had it now with Peggy when she took the girl up to her room, and got into an American rocking-chair and rocked backwards and forwards with the angry child folded in her arms. When the little girl’s passion was over, Mary began to talk to her in gentle, sweet tones, telling her stories of Ireland—beautiful stories, stories of its glens and vales, of its rivers and mountains, of its meadows of emerald green, of its waterfalls, of its countless delights, and the lonely Irish child listened, fascinated by the stories. Then Mary, who saw her opportunity, brought in very delicately little fairies and little brownies, and made up tales about them, and she suddenly suggested to Peggy that nothing could be better for her than to have a dear little fairy godmother who would remain with her day and night and tell her what to do.

“We will call her the Fairy Princess Mona,” said Mary. “Where I lived there was a dear little Irish girl called Mona, and I think the dear little fairy of that name will be a sweet godmother for you, Peggy. She will sleep in your bed at night, and she will make herself very disagreeable when you are naughty, and she will make herself very agreeable when you are good.”

“But is it nonsense ye’re talking, Miss Mary?”

“Not Miss Mary.”

“Is it nonsense ye’re talking, Mary, or is it sense?”

“It is sense, darling, and now I will explain it to you. The little Fairy Princess Mona really lives inside you. She has got another name; her name is ‘Conscience,’ and she will tell you, with her dear little clear voice, when you are doing wrong and hurting people; she will hurt you a little bit herself then; and, of course, you being a sweet, true Irish child, will stop immediately. Now, it was very unkind of you to imitate poor Joseph to-day, and the little fairy, the Princess Mona, must have been fearfully hurt when you did it. I’m dreadfully afraid that poor Joseph, although he laughed then, did not laugh afterwards, and he certainly ran out of the room in great confusion.”

“Whativer will I take him to make him happy again?” asked Peggy.

“Well, we’ll take him an ‘I beg your pardon,’ to-morrow,” said Mary, “and I will be with you when you speak to him; and now, darling, try and remember about the fairy princess, and don’t make her unhappy. You can’t think how she will sing in your heart when you have done a kindness to any one.”

“But I’m anxious to be always doin’ kindness. Sure, for glory’s sake——”

“Now, Peggy, that is not a right word. Say it without ‘sure’ and ‘for glory’s sake.’”

“There’s no end to it without its beginning,” said Peggy, turning a little sulky.

“Well, darling, I want you to try and speak like a dear little Irish lady. You can’t forget all your pretty words at once, and some of them you may say now and then—not quite all, but some—and then, dear, you needn’t lose your sweet accent, for it is altogether charming, and you needn’t lose your dear Irish blue eyes, for nobody who wasn’t an Irish girl could have such sapphire-blue eyes as yours. My dear child, I am certain you will be very happy if only you obey little Fairy Princess Mona.”

By the evening of that day, Peggy had really made valiant efforts to improve her language. Mary, however, allowed the girl to talk to her pretty much as she liked.

In the evening Mary had a conversation about her with Mrs. Wyndham. “I think,” she said, “that Peggy ought not to go to a regular school for at least two months. During that time, if you are wise, you will let me send her to my friend Nancy Grey. Nancy Grey lives with her father on the borders of Wales; she is a dear, sweet girl, and has got two little baby-brothers to take care of, and her father. Her dear mother is dead, and Nancy would be glad to have Peggy to keep her company. At the end of her visit she will be ready to come back, and, perhaps, go to school to The Red Gables with the girls after Christmas.”

“My dear Mary, I think your plan is a splendid one! I never knew anybody who had such patience. I only wish you could take the child yourself.”

“I wish with all my heart I could,” replied Mary; “but, as a matter of fact, we have hardly standing-room in our crowded rectory. But I will write to Nancy if Uncle Paul says I may.”

“Speak to him yourself, Mary; he is the most obstinate man in existence. If he agrees, all will be well.”

CHAPTER VIII.
PEGGY AND HER SCHOOL COMPANIONS.

Strange to say, however, Mr. Wyndham’s obstinacy was too strong to be overcome by Mary’s keen desire that Peggy should go to her friend before she was launched into the terrors—as terrors they certainly would be to her—of a fashionable English school.

“No, Mary; I hope you will stay with us for the remainder of the holidays, and do what you can for the poor little thing; but I have already written to Mrs. Fleming, describing Peggy’s character and begging of her to be kind to the child. I have received a letter, telling me that she will accept the charge of Peggy, and that she has no doubt that in a very short time the girl will turn out all that is satisfactory. She says there is nothing, after all, like school for breaking a girl in. She promises to be very kind to the child, and patient, and says that if the other girls laugh at her they will be reprimanded. I am certain that I am doing right, my dear. The girl needs to be educated and that without delay; she would never get the education she requires at home, and will become interested in her life at The Red Gables, will choose her own friends, and, in short, will soon be happy as the day is long.”

Mary had to bring this information to Mrs. Wyndham, who, as may be easily imagined, was anything but gratified when she heard of her husband’s determination.

“Really some men are too annoying!” Mrs. Wyndham could not help saying; then she was silent, for the simple reason that she had nothing more to say.

The Red Gables was one of those select schools which are to be found here and there in England; they are, as time progresses, growing rarer and rarer. The high schools, the schools of the County Council, the colleges, &c., seem to shut them out, to oppose them, to make them undesirable; nevertheless, a few still do exist; the old-fashioned sort of home-school, and of these there could not be a more delightful specimen than The Red Gables.

The house was exceedingly old-fashioned, and was situated in a most lovely part of Devonshire. From the windows could be seen a distant peep of the sea and of some neighbouring hills; the grounds were extensive, consisting of many acres; and the house itself belonged to a very much earlier period than the date of this story. For nearly two hundred years The Red Gables had been a school for girls, and one mistress after another had taken possession of it; and it so happened that the girls of the present day were the children of the girls of the past day, their mothers, their grandmothers, even their great-grandmothers having been educated at The Red Gables. The school was select and small; there were in all only twenty girls, and these were divided into the Upper and the Lower Schools, with ten girls in each. The Upper School lived quite apart, having little or nothing to do with the Lower School except on feast-days and on days of special ceremony.

The teachers were—first of all, Mrs. Fleming, who was the daughter of the late head-mistress (a Mrs. Medbury, a very sweet old lady, who had died some time ago). Mrs. Fleming had married early in life, had lost her husband, had lost her children, and had been only too glad to take possession of The Red Gables. She was essentially a teacher; she had that inestimable gift of tact which is necessary for all good teachers. She was very sympathetic and very patient; she had long ago discovered for herself that there were no two girls alike, so she expected that each girl who came to her would differ in character from her predecessors. She watched these young characters most carefully, and as far as possible she treated them in such a manner as she thought best calculated to help them in their journey through life.

It was an exceedingly difficult thing to get into The Red Gables, the school being so small; limited, in short, to twenty boarders, it was all but impossible to admit any girl there on short notice. Mrs. Fleming had often been implored to enlarge her borders, and had been assured that she could just as easily take a hundred girls under her care as twenty; but she was determined to keep to the good old rules, and not to increase the numbers of her school. One reason, therefore, why Mr. Wyndham was so very anxious that Peggy should go to The Red Gables at once was the fact that there happened to be a vacancy suddenly in the Lower School, caused by the serious illness of a little girl who had been obliged to be moved in order to undertake her education at home. Mrs. Fleming had written immediately to the Wyndhams to tell them of this vacancy, and to ask them if they had any young friend they would like to send to her school.

The Wyndhams happened to be some of Mrs. Fleming’s most esteemed and loved friends. By a curious coincidence this letter of Mrs. Fleming’s arrived on the day before Mr. Wyndham got his letter from poor Captain Desmond, begging him to take compassion on his only child. The two things seemed to Wyndham to fit together too closely to be disregarded. He accordingly wrote immediately to Mrs. Fleming, describing most fully the character of the child, and asking her to help him to bring Peggy up. “She is fifteen,” he said, “and she is as wild as a young colt. She has been taught after a fashion at a board school in Ireland, but what her accomplishments are I know not. She would make a very excellent servant, but she has not the most remote ideas of the part assigned to her—the life of a young lady. But will you take her? Dare you put such a little wild colt into the midst of your very orderly school?”

Now it so happened that Mrs. Fleming was rather fascinated than otherwise by Wyndham’s description of Peggy Desmond. She wrote immediately to say that she would take Peggy, and had every confidence that she could train the “little wild colt” to her own views and wishes. In short, without spoiling Peggy’s character, she would make her what was most desirable—a real lady. “The difficulty will be this,” she said, “I must on no account break her spirit, for the child, from what you tell me, must have enormous spirit. I must train her without breaking that.”

It was, therefore, impossible for Wyndham to accede to Mary Polly Molly’s request. The girl must go to The Red Gables; if she did not seize the chance she might not be able to go to the school at all.

Amongst the teachers at the school was a certain Miss Greene, a very tall, graceful, and clever woman of about five-and-twenty years. She was head-teacher to the Upper School; thoroughly understood English literature and history, and was also a charming companion to the older girls. She had been carefully trained, first at St. Hilda’s at Cheltenham, and then at Girton College. She had now been only a year and a half at The Red Gables, but already her influence in the school was strongly felt. The next teacher, who exercised an enormous influence over the girls, was Miss Archdale, the head-teacher in the Lower School. Then there was Mademoiselle France and Fräulein Stott; these good women taught in both schools, the Lower and Upper. Miss Smith was a sort of nurse-teacher to the little ones. She was beloved by all the children, and more particularly by the small girls. In addition, there was the housekeeper, who had charge of the commissariat of the establishment; but Miss Smith was the one to whom the sick and weary invariably went, and they never went in vain. A German teacher of the name of Herr Harleigh used to come twice a week to instruct the higher forms in German; he also taught music; and there was Monsieur Romanes, a Frenchman, who taught French in the Upper School, and painting as well.

The names of the special girls who figure in this story were, first of all, Alison Maude. She was the head-girl of the school; was tall, graceful, and just eighteen years of age. She would leave The Red Gables in another year, and the rest of the girls did not know how they could ever get on without her. Her dearest friend was Molly Wyndham, but she was also fond of Jessie. Both these girls had been for a couple of years now in the Upper School. Then there was Bridget O’Donnell, the Irish girl about whom Jessie and Molly had spoken. Bridget was absolutely charming. She was the life and fun of the place; her laughter was most infectious, and her jokes were inimitable. She was a perfect lady and yet she was also a perfect Irishwoman; she would not give up her native land for all you could offer her. She was extremely pretty, with the dark-blue eyes which are the sure accompaniment of the true Irish maiden; but, unlike poor little Peggy, her hair was black as jet and grew in profusion to far below her knees. Her complexion was that of the brunette; she had a vivid colour in her cheeks, and lovely crimson lips with a little dimple at the right corner, which, when she smiled, gave the final touch to her charms.

Marcia and Angela Welsh were also members of the Upper School; and, being Mary’s sisters, it was impossible for them to be anything but lively and charming girls. They were fairly good-looking without being the least beautiful. They were well-informed for their age, without having any one special talent; in short, they were ordinary, very nice, trustworthy everyday sort of girls. Although they had Irish blood in their veins, they had, unlike Mary, never lived in the dear old country. They were accustomed, however, to small means, to the hard work which falls to the lot of girls who belong to a big family where riches are unknown, and where it is only just possible by the utmost economy to make two ends meet. Marcia was fourteen and Angela sixteen; but, in mentioning the two, Marcia was invariably spoken of before Angela, because she had far more character than her sister.

The Red Gables was an expensive school, and it would have been quite impossible for Marcia and Angela Welsh to have gone there had not Mrs. Fleming taken them practically without payment. Mrs. Welsh had been a pupil of her dear mother, and this good woman was in consequence only too anxious to help her friend. Marcia and Angela had received a long letter from Mary with regard to Peggy, and were in consequence all agog to see her, although they knew that as Peggy would be in the junior school they would not, under ordinary conditions, have much to say to her.

And now to speak of that Lower School, where the little Irish girl was to dwell, was to cast off that curious and yet fascinating sense of humour and peculiarity of language, which kept her apart from ordinary girls in that new class of life where she was expected to walk. The Lower School would, indeed, not prove itself a bed of roses for poor Peggy. There was one girl who considered herself, whether rightly or wrongly, the captain of the school. Her name was Kitty Merrydew; she was twelve years old, and some people said that those glorious, great dark eyes, that exceedingly dark skin, that hair of jetty black, the rich, deep colour in each rounded cheek, pointed to Spanish ancestors. Whatever her birth may have been, there was no doubt of one thing, she was exceedingly mischievous, and her mischievous ways were joined to an amount of cunning which made her young companions afraid of her—that is, those who were not on her side. Kitty was far too clever to be found out by her teachers. She was small and very slender. Her nickname in the school was The Imp, although a few of the more venturesome of the girls called her The Brat. In very truth, Kitty Merrydew deserved both these names, and if Mrs. Fleming had had the slightest idea of this strange girl’s influence over her younger pupils she would have dismissed her at once; but Kitty was one of the people it is exceedingly difficult to understand. Before her teachers and in the presence of the head-mistress she could only be regarded as a gentle, low-voiced, rather sweet-looking girl, a girl decidedly handsome, given to change colour violently, and, in consequence, to be considered rather delicate; the sort of girl to be adored by her mistresses and masters, because lessons, however difficult, were a mere nothing to The Imp. She drank in all instruction as a thirsty child will drink water, she played beautifully both on the piano and violin, she recited with such exquisite pathos that those who listened to her felt tears at the back of the eyes; and yet there was not one girl in the whole school who did not know well that The Brat or The Imp was up to mischief; so she had her own way with all those with whom she came in contact, making them her slaves, and daring them to defy her, or, as she expressed it, “to tell tales out of school.”

Kitty Merrydew’s special friends were Grace and Anne Dodd. They were both of them exceedingly plain and exceedingly wealthy; they were dull-looking girls, and not only looked dull but were dull; nevertheless they were invaluable to The Imp, who used them on all occasions as her tools.

The youngest child in the school was a most lovely little creature of about six years of age. Her name was Elisabeth Douglas. Her father and mother had to leave her behind when they went to India; and little Elisabeth, who had been an only darling, and a much petted and much loved treasure, very nearly broke her little heart when she found herself alone at The Red Gables. All that money could do was done for Missy Elisabeth’s comfort, and in particular she had a black servant who had been her “Nanny” all her life to wait on her. It was very unwillingly that Mrs. Fleming consented to the admission of Chloe into the school; but at last she agreed that the woman should remain with the child for the first year, and after that time she might see her during the holidays. Little Elisabeth had her own bedroom, where she and Chloe slept; Chloe curled up on a mat by the door, and the little one lying fast asleep in her pretty cot, which the mulatto ayah had decked most fancifully with curtains of the softest white muslin, looped up with many-coloured ribbons.

When little Elisabeth arrived at the school The Imp began by sneering and laughing at her; but after a very short time she changed her tactics, for she perceived an expression in Chloe’s eyes and a certain watchful manner which made the clever Imp see that she had met her match. Accordingly The Imp took up little Elisabeth, and the child quickly yielded to her fascinations. Elisabeth was the sort of little girl who might be described as an angel. She had great, dark-blue eyes, which looked strangely dark in that fair little round face; the pupils of the eyes were very much distended, and the eyelashes were long and very dark. Above the eyes were delicate, soft brows, most beautifully marked, the little mouth was a rosebud, and when she laughed there issued from those small lips a peal of something like angel’s bells. Nevertheless, little Elisabeth was by no means in the best place in the world for either her education or happiness, and all this was caused by the secret and pernicious influence of Kitty Merrydew.

Now it was into this hornets’ nest that poor, wild, untutored Peggy Desmond was to enter. There was a great deal to dazzle and even delight the child who had all the wild imagination and poetry of her race. Could any one, for instance, be quite so wonderful in appearance as little Elisabeth, who was dressed according to her mulatto nurse’s ideas, and made in consequence a vivid and even coquettish effect. The little face was pale and full of reserve, strange and almost unnatural at her tender years. She had been born in South Carolina; hence the presence of Chloe on the scene. Her dark-blue eyes were big, wondering, and wistful; her hair was thick and straight, and rather fair. She wore as a rule a frock of orange and scarlet striped cotton, which came down just to her knees. On her head she invariably had perched a small cap of scarlet, with a great flaring bow of yellow of the most vivid shade. Wherever Elisabeth appeared there came the stout, cumbersome form of Mrs. Chloe, in her wonderful turban of crimson and gold.

Mrs. Fleming hoped to alter this strange attire on the part of both child and maid before the next term had come to an end, but this she was wise enough to know could only be effected by degrees.

Meanwhile Peggy was being fitted with a suitable wardrobe. This caused much annoyance to the small person, and but for Mary’s soothing influence it is doubtful if the clothes would ever have arrived at The Red Gables. Peggy was at the age when dress was not of the smallest importance to her; and to be called from Mary’s side to be fitted and measured, to be turned to right and to left just because of the set of a frock, nearly drove this small girl wild. “Lawk-a-mercy me,” she was heard to say, “what do I care so that I’m just covered; for the Lord’s sake, ain’t that enough? I don’t want fine clothes; that I don’t, Miss Mary Polly Molly.” But then Mary looked at her sadly, and she dropped her voice, lowered her long lashes, and said after a minute, “Does ye want me to be a vain little colleen, Mary?”

“No, I don’t want you to be vain, Peggy; but I want you to be properly dressed. It would not be at all pleasant for you to go to The Red Gables not dressed neatly, like other little girls. You would be teased a good deal if you did.”

“Is it tased? What’s that?”

“Well, they would make fun of you.”

Peggy’s sapphire-blue eyes sparkled. “Let them!” she said; “I can pay them back in their own coin!”

“Now, Peggy, I’m quite sure you won’t do that. You’ve improved enormously; you haven’t been in any sort of scrape for the last three days, and I’m ever so proud of my pupil.”

“Are ye thin, miss?”

“Not miss, Peggy.”

“Are ye thin, Mary?”

“I am, Peggy. I am very proud of you.”

Peggy said nothing, but soon afterwards she took an opportunity to go away to her own room. There she locked the door; then she flung herself on her knees by her bedside, and burst into a stormy fit of weeping. After she had dried her eyes she stood for a minute deliberating; then said to herself, “I may as well do it, for I can’t do otherways. Mercy me, ’t ain’t one dhrop o’ slape I’ll get to-night if I don’t do it.” The next minute she was out of the window, had crawled along the roof, and had come to the poultry-yard. She was bending down and waiting for Pat, as she now invariably called him, to bring a ladder. Pat was accustomed to his name; he liked the Irish missy, and so did his wife. The ladder was forthcoming, and Peggy had a good time with the little “hins” and “pigeens.”

“Is it true, Miss Peggy,” said Ann Johns, “that they’re sending you to school at the end of the holidays?”

“Why, thin, it is,” said Peggy. “If I could run away, I would.”

“Oh, but it’s a beautiful school I’ve heard tell,” remarked Ann, winking as she spoke at her husband to induce him to hold his peace.

“It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s beautiful or not,” said Peggy. “I hate it; I hate all schools! Haven’t I had me larnin’?” she continued. “Didn’t I know up to the third standard, and what more could any young girrul want?”

“For a poor girl, of course, that would be plenty,” said Mrs. Johns, “but then you’re a lady, missy.”

“And I tell ye, Mary, I ain’t, and I niver will be. When I’m a growed-up woman I’ll run away back to the O’Flynns. They can’t niver make a lady o’ me, try as they will!”

The servants clustered round as usual to listen to their favourite. Presently a girl rushed up and began to whisper to Mrs. Johns.

“Well, I never!” she said. “I didn’t expect it till to-morrow morning.”

“What is it? What are ye whisperin’ about?” said Peggy.

“Why, missy, dear, you’re in the very luck of time; there’s the little hen Charity has brought out her brood of chicks. We didn’t expect them to be hatched until to-morrow morning.”

“Oh glory! oh let’s see!” said Peggy. She began to hop on one leg, to pull Mrs. Johns by the hand to get her to take her to the spot where Charity sat guarding her brood. The bright eyes of the little white hen looked up with conscious pride and at the same time a touching mixture of apprehension at those who were gazing down at her. Peggy smoothed her delicate little top-knot, and then, thrusting in her hand, took out a tiny chick, a ball of yellow fluff. She kissed it very tenderly and then put it back again under its mother.

“Oh, an’ don’t me heart go out to ye, Charity?” she said, “an’ ain’t ye a darlin’? Look ye here, Mammy Mary, mayn’t I stay an’ watch wid Charity for a bit, an’ give her some hard-boiled egg to feed her little chicks wid? Bedad, now, ye’ll let me, won’t ye, Mary?”

“I daren’t, darling, I wish I could.”

Peggy frowned. “Oh dear, wurra!” she said, “it’s a sad worruld!”

After a time, however, she was induced to go back, Johns and his wife being, as a matter of fact, most anxious to get rid of her; if she did not go back almost immediately they would be discovered, and then they did not know what mischief might befall them. Accordingly, Johns put the ladder up to the house and Peggy said good-bye to Charity, although there was a very knowing look in her eyes, and then returned to her own room.

Now these little escapades on the part of Peggy were never breathed even to Miss Mary Polly Molly; and Peggy quieted that conscience of hers—that fairy Princess Mona, who would speak and would not be quiet—at least she tried to quiet her by disregarding her.

The days flew past, the holidays were over. Peggy, compared to what she was when first she arrived at Preston Manor, was outwardly vastly improved, but it is sad to relate that her nature was very much the same as it was before. She did, however, cry very heartily when she bade Mary good-bye, but no one else seemed to evoke any feelings in her breast.

Mrs. Wyndham said to her husband: “Mark my words, you will have trouble with that child, that’s a certainty.”

Wyndham said, “I mean to do my utmost, and I am convinced that in the long run I shall conquer.”

And then Peggy went off to school with her cousins.

They had a long journey from Preston Manor to The Red Gables, and the three girls were tired long before it came to an end. Peggy went to sleep in her corner, and Jessie and Molly began whispering together. They had a first-class carriage to themselves.

Jessie said, “Well, I do wonder how she’ll get on.”

“Oh she’ll get on all right,” said Molly.

“But you see,” continued Jessie, “the difficulty is this. It was all very fine while dear old Mary Welsh was with us, looking after her every single minute of her time, but now things will have vastly changed. You see, my dear, we two are in the Upper School, and have little or nothing to do with the girls in the Lower School. I’m so terrified that she’ll get into the power of The Imp.”

“Yes, I must say I don’t like The Imp at all in connection with Peggy,” said Molly, “but I tell you what I’ve been thinking, Jess.”

“What’s that?”

“I might have a little talk with dear Mrs. Fleming, and perhaps she’ll manage that I may sometimes see Peggy.”

“Perhaps she will,” said Jessie, “but there’s one thing certain, you mustn’t tell any stories of The Imp.”

“Of course I won’t. Whoever heard of such a thing? You don’t suppose I’d do that, do you, Jessie?”

“I don’t know, you’re such a queer girl, Molly; you take people up in such a hot sort of fashion. You are almost as impulsive as that dreadful little Irish thing in the corner.”

Now “the dreadful little Irish thing in the corner,” as it so happened, opened, not the eyes of her body, but the eyes of her mind at that moment, and heard the words which Jessie had pronounced. A sudden stab, a sudden queer tremor took possession of her frame. She, who loathed England, who had come over because she had been dragged there, was called by one of those detestable English girls “that dreadful little Irish thing in the corner.” Oh wouldn’t she give it to her! Without opening her eyes she knew quite well who had spoken—it was Jessie. Molly would not be so unkind. From the very first Peggy had hated Jessie.

“I’ll make things unpleasant for her at school,” she thought, “see if I don’t!” Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brightened. “I’ll kape things dark. Who’s The Imp? I’ll make friends wid her, if she’ll help me to punish Jessie Wyndham,” thought the girl. Then she opened her bright eyes wide and fixed them on the other girls. “How soon will we be there? I’m sick of this jolting along,” she said.

“We won’t be there for at least an hour,” said Jessie, in a cross voice; “and as to jolting along, I’m sure, my dear Peggy, you were never in such a beautiful train before in the whole course of your life.”

“Wasn’t I? The trains in Ireland are twice as nice. They go jogglety-jogglety, an’ stop just when ye want them. If there’s a little pigeen lost by the wayside, why, the man stops the train an’ out he gets to take it up. We’ve a heart of our own in Ould Ireland; ye haven’t a bit of it in England, ye’re as cold, as cold as a lump of stone!”

“Well, you needn’t abuse us,” said Jessie, in rather a cross tone, “it’s disagreeable enough to be going to school with you without your abusing us too.”

“Don’t scold her, Jessie. Remember that, although this is our fourth or fifth term at school, it is poor little Peggy’s first,” said Molly. “Peggy, come over and sit close to me, and I will point out the beautiful things as we pass them by.”

“There ain’t no beautiful things,” said Peggy; “there are no beautiful things anywhere except in Ireland, bless its heart!”

“Oh come now, come and look at this view; isn’t this quite superb?”

But Peggy refused to admire. Jessie snatched up a school story which she was reading and turned her back upon the other two, pretending to read.

Peggy whispered to Molly, “Why thin, I don’t like her. What’s put her in that sulk now, you tell me?”

“You mustn’t speak against my sister,” Molly whispered back.

Then Jessie shrugged one of her shoulders, for of course she heard the whispering, and made up her mind that, come what would, she would try to induce Mrs. Fleming to send Peggy away from the school.

Thus these three young people were by no means in a state of harmony when they arrived at The Red Gables.

CHAPTER IX.
THE IMP OF THE RED GABLES.

It was the custom at The Red Gables for the entire school to meet together, and in the presence of their teachers to have tea together during the first evening of each term. Afterwards the Upper and the Lower School might still remain in the great central hall, talking with their mutual friends and discussing how and where the holidays were spent. This evening was looked forward to with deep interest by all the old pupils; they had so much to say, to inquire about, to whisper together. For the rules were very strict, and except in the case of a holiday, or the Saturday half-holiday, the pupils of the Upper and Lower Schools never met except on this one precious evening.

But while the old pupils delighted in these few moments of reunion, the new pupils—when there were new pupils—did not find this time of mutual confab so agreeable. They, poor things, felt strange and out in the cold, and as a rule longed for the moment when they might cross the quadrangle and retire to their own rooms.

The Red Gables was an old-fashioned house, built round three sides of a square. This gave it a slightly foreign appearance. On the fourth side a great archway was flung across where the square opened on to the long avenue, which was very broad and straight.

Facing this was the school itself, where were the classrooms, the great refectory, and the chapel where prayers were read morning and evening. To the right were the rooms occupied by the girls of the Upper School. Here each girl had her own special bedroom. Here was the suite of rooms appropriate to the head-mistress, and here also slept the English teacher, Miss Green, the French governess, and the German governess. Here was a lovely library of most choice books for the use and pleasure of the girls, and here also was the private sitting-room sacred to the girls themselves, and into which not even the head-mistress had a right to enter without the special invitation of the girls. This room was most carefully laid out in ten compartments, each girl owning one, and keeping therein her own precious gifts and possessions. The room had easy-chairs, a thick Axminster carpet, and in winter and spring a bright fire burning in the grate. On the walls hung lovely pictures, many of them the work of former pupils.

The left wing of The Red Gables was devoted to the Lower School. Here also slept Miss Archdale, the clever and delightful second English teacher. Here was to be found Miss Smith, the beloved of all sick or sorrowful children, and here also, on the upper floor, slept the servants of the establishment. The children here—with the exception of little Elisabeth Douglas, who had her own small room on the second floor—slept in two long and very cheerful dormitories. One dormitory was on the first and the other on the second floor. At the end of each dormitory was a small room occupied by a teacher. There was also a large sitting-room downstairs for the use of the girls in wet or cold weather, but this room was unlike the luxurious sitting-room of the Upper School. It was plainly and almost severely furnished, and had a high nursery-fender to keep the young and giddy children from going too near the flames. This room was not private like the Upper sitting-room, but was liable at all times or at any moment to be invaded by Miss Archdale or Miss Smith.

The fact was this: Mrs. Fleming, having a reason in all she did or said, made it a great object that her pupils should realise that promotion to the Upper School was worth waiting for and worth striving for, so that those girls who were really worthy, quite irrespective of age, might go there. This being the case, there were now and then times in the history of The Red Gables when up to twelve girls would be members of the Upper School, while only eight remained in the Lower. Of late years, it is true, this was not the case; and the good lady wondered, without in the least knowing the cause—namely, the baneful influence of The Imp.

The Imp was a great correspondent, and had learned from her friends and satellites, the Dodds, that a most peculiar Irish girl—a sort of raw material—was coming to the school.

The Dodds lived in a huge, vulgar-looking place called Hillside, in the same parish as the Welsh family. Mr. Dodd had made his money in pigs, and had built Hillside some years before this story begins. His one object was to get in with the County, and the object of the said County was to avoid him and his vulgar, red-faced wife and singularly plain daughters. The link between the County and himself seemed to John Dodd to be the clergyman of the place, and in consequence he tried to make great friends with the Welsh family. It was entirely on account of them that he got his daughters admitted into Mrs. Fleming’s school.

The Misses Dodd were quite as commonplace as their name implied, and being completely under the power of The Imp, rejoiced in writing letters to her. Their luxurious home at Hillside was supplied with unlimited carriages, motor-cars, horses, pony traps—in short, all that money could buy. But it is well known that money cannot buy everything; it cannot buy refinement of taste, it cannot buy those inalienable things which come from long descent, from the heart and soul of the born gentleman or lady. These things the young Dodds had not got, and nothing could ever give them those inestimable possessions. Mr. Welsh was, however, the sort of man who could not possibly be rude or unkind to any one; he told his children that they were to be as nice as possible to the Dodds, he allowed them to visit at Hillside, and the news that Mary Welsh had gone to Preston Manor because a little wild Irish girl had arrived there quickly reached the ears of Grace and Anne Dodd. For Grace and Anne to know a thing was, of course, for Kitty Merrydew to know it as soon after as possible. Accordingly, Kitty was prepared for the advent of poor little Peggy in the school.

The first evening passed as usual. The girls assembled in the great hall and stared at each other. Peggy found herself standing close to Molly, who instinctively put out her hand and linked it in that of her little friend. Peggy felt a warm rush of something like gratitude filling her heart, then her bright eyes, blue as sapphires, shining like stars, fixed themselves on the equally bold black eyes of The Imp. There was an instant challenge between those two pairs of eyes. Peggy held herself very erect. The Imp also drew herself up as high as she could—she was a tiny creature, and really exquisitely made—and looked at Anne Dodd, and Anne Dodd laughed. This laugh was very bad manners, and would not have been permitted had any of the governesses been by.

The evening passed much as usual, and by-and-by the moment came when Peggy had to say good-bye to Molly and go across the courtyard to the left wing, where the Lower School lived. For the first time Molly was startled by the passionate intensity of Peggy’s nature, as she said in a low whisper: “For the Lord’s sake don’t let me go alone over there!”

“But I must, Peggy, and you know you’re no coward; and you also know—you are quite sure, you are certain—that nothing will happen to you, darling.”

“Oh I—I can’t go over there alone. Oh, she lives over there!”

“Who do you mean by she, Peggy?”

“That thing with black eyes, that stare and stare at me.”

But just at that moment other eyes looked compassionately into Peggy’s; they were the wistful, thoughtful, pleading eyes of the little creature Elisabeth Douglas. She was wearing her peculiar dress of striped scarlet and yellow. On her little head was placed her dainty scarlet cap. Her pale face became suddenly illumined with a brilliant colour.

Elisabeth went up to Peggy and held out her little hand. “I will take care of you,” she said.

There was something wonderfully touching in the tone of the almost baby voice. Peggy looked beyond her, and encountered the affectionate gaze of Chloe, the large, very stout mulatto woman.

“I’m all right,” said Peggy suddenly. “I’ll go wid her. She’s a little duck, she’s almost as good for all the worruld as a hin. Good-night, Molly; I’ll see ye some time to-morrow.”

Molly did not like to say to Peggy that she could not by any possibility see her until the following Saturday except in school hours, when, of course, the girls were not allowed to speak to each other. The playgrounds for the Upper and the Lower School were quite apart; and the only time of intercourse between the two schools was on Saturday afternoons. As soon as the child had departed, holding the hand of little Elisabeth, Molly looked wistfully after her, then she turned and met the earnest gaze of Alison Maude.

“What a queer, nice child!” said Alison.

“Yes,” said Molly very eagerly. “I’m so glad you like her; but do you know, Alison, I’m awfully frightened about her?”

“Why?” asked Alison.

“I can’t half tell you what she is or what she’s like.”

“Well, shall we go up to our sitting-room and talk?” said Alison. “There’s so much we have to say, these summer holidays are so long; for my part I am very glad to be at school again. Heigho! it’s my last year, my very last; to think of it, girls—to think of it!”

“Well, don’t think of it to-night, Ally darling,” said another girl belonging to the school, running up to Alison and kissing her.

Suddenly Bridget O’Donnell came up and spoke to Jessie. “Is that new girl Irish?” she asked.

“Need you ask?” was Jessie’s reply.

“I thought she must be. I am ever so glad.”

“Are you?” said Jessie. “That’s because you don’t know her.”

“And you don’t know me,” retorted Bridget, “or you wouldn’t suppose, even for a single moment, that I could be anything but glad to see a fellow countrywoman in the same school.”

“A fellow countrywoman!” echoed Jessie, “fellow country baby, if you like! Why, she’s a regular little brat, that’s all I can say. If I’m glad of one thing more than another it is that she’ll be at the mercy of The Imp.”

“Oh hush!” said Bridget, “it isn’t kind of you, Jessie.”

“I know it isn’t, Bridget; but you can’t imagine what we have been suffering from that girl. Since her arrival, at the very beginning of the holidays, we haven’t had one minute’s peace or comfort. Since she came to live with us I can’t tell you what it’s been like!”

“Well, I have a lot of things to talk over,” said Bridget. “I want to call a private council. Please may I, Alison?”

“Of course you may, Biddy, my dear,” replied Alison, looking with some surprise at Bridget as she spoke.

Bridget suddenly darted about the hall, collecting her several friends, and a few minutes later ten girls were assembled in a sort of circle in the lovely sitting-room. How cosy and bright it looked! How homelike, with its ten compartments each filled with the treasures of the girl to whom the said compartment belonged! How brilliantly the fire burnt in the grate! The easy-chairs were drawn up, the circle widened, the doors were shut. Lights, except the light of the fire, were extinguished. Then Bridget suddenly sprang to her feet. “Now I have got something to say,” was her remark.

“Well, whenever you have anything to say, Biddy, I will acknowledge this—it’s worth listening to,” was Alison’s answer.

“It’s about The Imp,” said Bridget.

They all looked very grave when she said this; a dead silence fell over the room. The girls, including Marcia and Angela Welsh, pressed a little nearer, and some quick, hurried breaths were drawn from more than one pair of lips.

“The fact is this,” said Bridget, “I have been having my eyes on The Imp for a long time. I haven’t pried on her, because it isn’t in my nature to pry; but I know what I suffered from her even for the half-year that I remained in the Lower School, and I don’t know that it is at all right to have her spreading an evil influence over nine young girls, which is what she is doing. She trades upon our good nature, upon that old proverb which says that no one should tell tales out of school; but she may trade a trifle too far, particularly now that she has got those Dodds to uphold her—to be, in short, her satellites. I think that we ought to speak about The Imp to Mrs. Fleming.”

“Oh but I don’t think we could,” said Alison, “you know what it would mean, don’t you, Bridget?”

“Yes,” said Bridget. “I know quite well what it would mean. I have been thinking it over at night during the holidays, when I have lain awake. I have been thinking it over also in the daytime, when I ought to have been enjoying myself, and I tell you, girls, it downright hurts me. It isn’t right, that’s what it isn’t, and nothing will ever make me think it’s right! When I got home to-day—for you know I call this darling old place home—one of the first things I noticed was the wicked way that Imp looked at poor little——What’s the name of your friend, Molly?”

“Peggy Desmond.”

“At poor little Peggy Desmond. She will make that child’s life unbearable.”

Jessie burst into a peal of laughter. “Little you know, Peggy, if you think any one will make her life unbearable! She’ll just have her own way, and be a match for The Imp if any one can.”

“If I could think that!” said Bridget. “I wish I might have a talk with her; but there, I daren’t—I daren’t appear to side with any one. What I should like to do would be to consult dear, dear, kind Miss Smith, she is so affectionate and so good to all those children; but at the same time I don’t believe that she is really the right person to speak to. I think the right person is Mrs. Fleming.”

“And now, suppose you did speak to her,” said Alison, “what would you say?”

Bridget looked a little puzzled at this.

“There it is!” continued Alison. “We all suspect her, we none of us like her; but there isn’t a single girl in the school who can lay any wrong, absolute wrong-doing, at her door; all we can say about her is that we don’t like her. And when it comes to that, have we a right to ruin a girl’s future by making mischief?”

“But when every girl in the whole school dislikes her, except those Dodds, there must be a reason for it,” pursued Bridget.

“Oh Biddy, you are Irish, you truly are!” said Molly, running up to her friend at this moment and kissing her.

“I couldn’t bear the look on that other dear little Irish girl’s face, that seemed to finish me altogether,” said Bridget O’Donnell at that moment. “I wish you’d tell us about her, tell us something of her story; how is it she has come to you?”

“Oh don’t let us wander now from the subject under discussion. I’ll tell you her story in half-a-dozen lines,” said Jessie. “She is the daughter of an old friend of father’s, and father has gone mad about her. Her father is dead, she was brought up in an Irish cabin, she doesn’t know how to behave as a lady, she has turned our house topsy-turvy, she has made us all miserable, and no doubt she will make school miserable too. However, Mrs. Fleming was told all about her—all her ways, her queernesses, and everything else, and she’s absolutely willing to take her in hand. That being the case, there’s nothing for it but to rest satisfied and make the best of the worst. If The Imp does annoy Peggy a little it will do her good, that’s all I can say.”

“You’re a very queer girl!” said Bridget. “Well, I must say that I don’t like The Imp. I’m certain she works for evil in the school. I don’t know what there is about her; but I never feel happy in her presence, and I think she is doing her utmost to effect a bad influence over that dear little child, Elisabeth Douglas.”

“Well, Elisabeth took to Peggy; she went away holding Peggy’s hand.”

“Yes, a nice quarrel there’ll be to-night between Peggy and The Imp,” said Jessie with a laugh. “Fancy anybody daring to come in the way of one of The Imp’s favourites!”

The girls talked a little longer on the subject of The Imp, it was discussed more and more fully, and after a great deal of conversation it was finally decided that for the present nothing was to be told with regard to this peculiar girl, but that she was to be watched, and the girls would have a further consultation at the end of a fortnight, when, if necessary, they would speak to Mrs. Fleming on the subject.

Bridget O’Donnell went to bed that night feeling really unhappy. Her little room was so cosy, everything was so nice and comfortable, but the dark-blue eyes of the other Irish child seemed to haunt her. She wanted to kiss that child, to put her arms round her, to say to her, “I too, come from the Emerald Isle; I too come from the land of the mountain and the lake; I too love what you love; I too have the warm, warm heart of the Irish maiden.” But nothing of this could poor Bridget waft across to Peggy Desmond.

Peggy herself, still holding little Elisabeth’s hand, went across the quadrangle to the left wing, where the Lower School was situated.

There she was met by Miss Archdale, who spoke very kindly and said: “Oh you are our dear, new little pupil,” and then, bending down, she kissed little Elisabeth. “What is your name, dear?” she said in a kind tone to Peggy.

“Why thin, me name’s nothing at all,” replied Peggy.

“I don’t quite understand you, dear. What did you say?”

“I said nothing at all, wisha thin.”

“Wisha thin!”

There came a mocking laugh. Peggy raised her blue eyes. There was The Imp looking at her over the balusters—The Imp in a scarlet dress, in which she looked more bewitching and imp-like than usual.

The Imp was bending forward. “Wisha thin!” she said, “Wisha thin! The top of the mornin’ to ye, or the top of the evenin’ belike!”

In one moment, in a flash, Peggy had dropped the hand of her little companion, had rushed upstairs, and taking The Imp by the two shoulders, had shaken her violently, until the angry and enraged little girl had to cry for mercy.

“Now thin, that’s for yer bad manners, bad cess to ye! Don’t ye be goin’ on like that, don’t ye be talking like that, for I won’t have it! Do ye hear—do ye hear—do ye hear?”

“Come, Peggy, come, you must stop this,” said Miss Archdale who had discovered the girls’ quarrel from the actions of little Elisabeth, who, white as a sheet, was crouching in a corner in absolute terror.

Peggy let go The Imp’s shoulders, pushed her violently towards Anne Dodd, and then turned to Miss Archdale. “I’ve relieved meself a bit,” she said. “Where am I to slape, tell me, please?”

Miss Archdale took the girl’s hand, little Elisabeth clinging once again to Peggy’s other hand. They walked up the stairs in the direction of the supper-room. “First of all I will take you to your dormitory,” said Miss Archdale.

“What on earth’s a dormitory?” asked Peggy.

“It is where you are to sleep.”

“Is it sleep?”

“Yes, sleep.”

“Is there a bed there?”

“Of course there is.”

“Oh my! Well, I suppose I dished her; I shook her pretty rough.”

“You must not do that sort of thing again, Peggy, it won’t do.”

“Mustn’t I? But she mustn’t take me off, I tell ye, Miss—what’s yer name?”

“Archdale.”

“I can’t go round that word at all, and it’s plain that I can’t.”

“Well, don’t mind it to-night, my dear.”

Just then some one crept up behind, snatched little Elisabeth violently away from Peggy, and rushed off with her. The child began to kick and scream, and Peggy would have flown after the two had not Miss Archdale’s detaining hand kept her back.

“Come, Peggy Desmond,” she said, “this won’t do. I cannot allow fighting in the school. I am the head of the Lower School and I insist on obedience.”

“Ye mane by obedience that one girl is to do as she likes, and the other is to do nothing? Bedad, I don’t see the sinse of that, nohow.”

“There is plenty of sense in what I say, Peggy. Now come, come, my dear. The little girl will be with her nurse, and you shall see plenty of her to-morrow. And I will speak to Kitty Merrydew. She must not attempt to take you off. I certainly won’t allow it.”

“Faix ye needn’t bother. I’ll pay her out!”

“But that is just what you mustn’t do, you must leave those sort of things to me.”

Peggy laughed. “Is it likely?” she said.

Miss Archdale pretended not to hear this last remark. They had now entered the lower dormitory, where five girls slept; the upper dormitory had only four inmates, as little Elisabeth and her nurse had a room to themselves.

“You are rather lucky in one way, Peggy,” said Miss Archdale, “your bed is next to my room. I sleep here. If anybody worries you or does anything to annoy you, you have only to open your door and come to me at once. I hope you won’t be annoyed or frightened, my dear; I shall speak to the girls about you. I am glad to say that Kitty Merrydew sleeps in the dormitory upstairs, and has nothing to do with this room. You will, therefore, be quite comfortable here.”

“Ah thin, thank ye, ma’am, for that same.”

“I hope you will be happy with us, Peggy; we want you to be happy.”

“Ye’re not at all likely to have yer wish thin, ma’am.”

“And why not, my child?”

“Because ’tis me heart is breakin’, ma’am; it’s breakin’ slow but sure, the crack gets wider every day, an’ whin I see her an’ hear her voice trying to take off me blessed, beautiful tongue, why, fire rises up in me. Oh ma’am, did ye iver feel the fire rise up inside of ye an’ burn so that ye could scarcely hold yerself together?”

“I’m afraid I have; but of course all good and brave girls learn to conquer that, Peggy; if they cannot, they had far better be out of the world.”

“Is that truth ye’re speakin’, ma’am?”

“I am speaking the truth. ‘He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.’ The blessed, beautiful Bible says that, and it is true.”

“Say thim words again for me, ma’am.”

Miss Archdale did so.

“May I go to bed now?” said Peggy.

“But wouldn’t you like to go downstairs and have supper first?”

“No, I thank ye kindly, ma’am, I’d rather go to bed. I’m that moithered by the train and the addling ways of this new place, and the looks of them stupid girls, an’—an’ the whole thing, that I’d rather lay me head on me pillow an’ pray that I may go off into the land of dreams. If it wasn’t for Mary Welsh, ma’am, you wouldn’t be able to stand me at all, but she’s been teachin’ me an’ I’m trying to follow her. Good-night, ma’am, I know ye mane well, I’ll try to do me best for ye, but don’t let that black thing come near me, for I can’t abide her, that’s the solemn gospel truth.”

Poor little Peggy was allowed to have her way. She tumbled into bed now, and her head was no sooner on her pillow than she fell into the land of dreams.

Meanwhile The Imp, black with rage, called her satellites round her. Little Elisabeth had been taken off to bed by Chloe. Little Elisabeth had kissed The Imp, had looked gravely and steadily with her curious, thoughtful blue eyes into The Imp’s face, and had said, “I love that little new girl, I think she’s very pretty.”

“You’re a horrid little wretch if you love her as well as you love me.”

“I am not a horrid little wretch, and you mustn’t call me so!” The little spoilt Elisabeth burst into tears.

“Think of her taking Elisabeth from me already!” said The Imp, looking at the two Dodd girls.

“Oh isn’t it shameful?” said Anne Dodd.

“Well, good-night, child,” said Kitty, pushing little Elisabeth from her. “I’m sure I don’t want your caresses, I don’t want anything belonging to you. Get off to your new friend; go, go out of my sight!”

Little Elisabeth put a finger into her mouth, stared solemnly and with great amazement at The Imp, and then backed into the affectionate arms of Chloe.

“Is it my little darling precious that’s to be spoken to like that?” cried the mulatto woman. She took the child into her arms, crooned over her in a way that the child adored, and shut the door of the tiny room which they shared together. Soon the small child was fast asleep in her white bed, and the mulatto was rolled up on her rug by the door, watchful to guard her dear one from any attacks of the enemy.

“Oh then, it’s me that hates that bit of a horrible black thing!” thought the mulatto, “and that little Irish girl who gave it to her so well—why, I like her, that I do!”

Meanwhile The Imp sat with a hand of Anne Dodd locked in hers, while Grace stared full into Kitty’s face, and presently put out a hand and stroked her curly black hair.

“Do you think I’m going to stand this?” said Kitty, looking with flashing eyes at the two.

“Of course you’re not, darling; we’ll help you, of course we will.”

“We must think out a plan,” said Kitty.

“Yes, we must think out a plan,” exclaimed Anne.

“Look here, girls, there’s no good doing anything except when we’re by ourselves. Then we’ll excite her, and we’ll be three to one. My arms are black and blue from the way she shook me—but three to one! We’ll get her down and whip her till she screams for mercy, as I screamed to-night. Are you willing and ready to help me, girls?”

“Yes, that we are,” said both.

“Well, then, let’s coax her into the back playground after morning lessons to-morrow. We must pretend to be very kind to her, and then she’ll come fast enough. You manage to sit next her at breakfast and don’t laugh at her whatever you do. We’ll manage fine.”

“Yes, we will,” was the reply.

CHAPTER X.
THE HOWARD BEQUEST.

Although Miss Archdale spoke very soothingly to wild Peggy she did not feel so comfortable as her words seemed to imply. She was a very clever and very conscientious woman, and saw immediately that a very strong new element had come into the Lower School with the advent of Peggy. Whether it was for good or evil remained to be proved. Miss Archdale was wise enough to know that the best teachers in the world can only guide girls; they can only, so to speak, give them a little push here and a little nudge there in the direction in which they are to go. The girl is really, when all is said and done, her own teacher, her own guide; if she chooses to follow the paths of evil, not all the accomplishments in the world, not all the knowledge, not all the loving-kindness, can keep her back. God, inside the girl, must be the propelling force for good; and, alas! Satan inside the girl must be equally the propelling force for evil. Because Miss Archdale recognised this fact she was an admirable and efficient and dearly loved teacher; and because Mrs. Fleming recognised the same fact even in greater fullness she had made The Red Gables the school that it was. Miss Archdale, to all appearance, had taken little or no notice of The Imp and her ways. She called her Kitty Merrydew, and was consistently kind to her.

Kitty’s conduct was always excellent before her teachers. She learnt her numerous tasks with the ease of very pronounced talent; she was a favourite with the occasional masters and mistresses who came to the school, for her music was decidedly above the average, and so also was her drawing and painting. She had a perfect genius for caricature, and could make thumbnail sketches of the different girls and mistresses in a way which convulsed the school with mirth. These caricatures she kept, however, carefully hidden from the eyes of the mistresses. Kitty could tell a story better than anybody else, she could sing a song to “bring down the house,” she could act to perfection, and here her powers of mimicry did her immense service. Up to the present Miss Archdale had left The Imp more or less alone; she knew that the girl was peculiar, difficult, and that she had a power in her which seemed to be more directed to evil than to good; but, nevertheless, up to the present she knew that she had no right to interfere. The Imp was The Imp, and as she seemed not to cause any unhappiness, and was on the whole more a favourite than the reverse, she judiciously let her alone. But now things were different. The new girl was a power to be reckoned with, and already between the new girl and Kitty Merrydew open war had been declared. Miss Archdale was truly thankful that Peggy’s bed had been made up for her in the lower dormitory, where some quiet, well-behaved little girls slept. She would have altered matters at once had things been different, and had the child been put into the dormitory where Kitty Merrydew and the Dodds, her satellites, were placed.

It was one of the strictest rules of the school that the girls were never to visit the dormitories during the daytime, and that no girl was ever to be seen at night in any dormitory but her own. The rules of The Red Gables School were not many, but they were very strict; to break them was to get into dire disgrace and to be subjected to instant punishment. Miss Archdale had, therefore, no fear of Peggy being molested during the time devoted to slumber; and, in consequence, having seen all the girls safely into their respective dormitories, she crossed the quadrangle in order to have a conversation with Mrs. Fleming.

As a rule nothing would have induced her to trouble her dear head-mistress on the first night of school; but this special occasion needed special counsel, and Miss Archdale did not hesitate. Mrs. Fleming’s beautiful suite of rooms was in a small wing on the ground floor of that portion of the house which was reserved for the Upper School. The suite consisted of a spacious and lovely sitting-room, which looked out into the celebrated rose-garden, and had French windows which in summer were always open; beyond the sitting-room was a bedroom, a dressing-room (where Mrs. Fleming’s own special maid slept), and a bathroom. Besides the sitting-room, at the opposite side of the passage was a small room which went by the name of the library. Its walls were completely lined with books from ceiling to floor, and Mrs. Fleming was fond of saying that not one of these books had been purchased, they had all been gifts from the different schoolgirls to the different head-mistresses. The books were bound in calf and were all uniform in appearance, and therefore looked extremely neat and tempting to lovers of literature. There was a side devoted to fiction (almost all classical), another side to belles-lettres, another side to foreign languages, and another to religious works and philosophical treatises. Behind the outer row of books was an inner row where obsolete volumes were placed to make room for the newest and best books as they came along. The sole furniture of the library, besides the books, was a large roll-top desk, where the head-mistress kept her important letters, a table on which a typewriter stood, a chair facing the desk where the head-mistress could sit, and two or three other chairs, plain and stiff and covered with green leather. It was in this room that Mrs. Fleming received her pupils when they were in disgrace, or when, as sometimes happened, they were in trouble; it was here, in short, that she conducted all her business affairs, and it was here on this special night that Miss Archdale sought for her. She was not to be found there, however, and the governess was wondering whether she might knock at the sitting-room door when the door was flung open and the head-mistress came out, accompanied by Miss Greene.

“I think, Henrietta,” said the mistress, in her pleasant voice, “that those ideas are quite excellent. I won’t keep you now, my dear, as I am sure you have quite enough to do to get things into order. Yes, I agree with you, the prize must be thrown open to the whole school, or it would not meet with the wishes of our dear old friend.—Ah, Julia,” here she turned and held out her hand to Miss Archdale, “I am glad to see you, my dear girl. Were you coming to consult me about anything special?”

“I was, although I admit it’s a shame,” said Miss Archdale.

“Not a bit of it, nothing is a shame that is for the good of the school. Well, Henrietta, as Julia has come I’ll tell her myself about the prize. Good-night, dear.—Come in, Julia—come in.”

Julia Archdale felt her heart beating fast; she hated to worry her beloved friend at this moment. Mrs. Fleming had a sort of dual personality; she was one person in the library and another in this lovely and gracious sitting-room, which was replete with every modern comfort, the electric lights rendered soft by rose-coloured shades. Mrs. Fleming drew a chair near the fire, which was by no means unwelcome, and motioned to Miss Archdale to be seated.

“Now, Julia,” she said, “whatever your business may be, I have something both pleasant and exciting to relate to you. I have already told Henrietta Greene, and of course will mention the matter to Mary Smith and to Mademoiselle and Fräulein. I will own, my dear, that the thing has taken me rather all of a heap, and I sincerely trust that it will do good, not harm. You know, Julia, that I have always hitherto rather set my face against prizes, wishing to avoid in the school the spirit of emulation which seems to me in a small place of this sort to be unworthy and beneath the dignity of The Red Gables School. Nevertheless, the thing is thrust upon me, and I could not neglect it without doing dishonour to the dead, and”—here her voice trembled—“the dead whom I loved—whom I love. You have heard me speak, dear, of my very old friend Mrs. Howard. Her children and grandchildren were educated at The Red Gables, and if there were any great-grandchildren they would certainly be here to-day; but, alas! dear Mrs. Howard, in her ninetieth year, has passed away, the last of her race, every child and grandchild having gone before her into the world of spirits. She always took a deep interest in the school, and there was never a summer holiday that I did not find time to spend at least a day and night with her, talking over old times and unforgotten memories. Well, my dear, she is dead, and amongst the letters which awaited me here to-day was one from her lawyers, in which they inform me that the school has been endowed by Mrs. Howard with the munificent sum of twenty thousand pounds. This money is to be spent in the education of five young girls who are otherwise too poor to receive a first-class education. Mrs. Howard begs that only the income of the money shall be used on the education of the girls, so that it may go on into futurity and add to the honour of the school. Each Howard scholar on her departure from the school is to be presented with one hundred pounds to help to start her in life, and for this purpose an additional sum of money is provided. The whole thing is to be called the Howard Bequest, and the Howard scholars are only to be admitted to the school after passing a strict examination in morals, in knowledge of English literature, and the usual curriculum that a young girl of fourteen ought to attain to. The Howard Bequest girls are to remain at the school from the age of fourteen to eighteen, a special new wing is to be built for their convenience, and they are to be treated, not as paupers, receiving their education for nothing, but as scholars of high distinction on whom many special honours are to be conferred. I have, therefore, Julia, to break that rule which I kept so firmly to, and which my ancestors kept so firmly to before me, of admitting only twenty girls to the school. In future—that is, as soon as the wing is built—there will be twenty-five girls in The Red Gables; these girls will be admitted, after strict examination by a governing body of myself, you, Julia Archdale, Henrietta Greene, and my dear and special friend Mr. Wyndham, of Preston Manor. I expect him to call in two or three days to talk this matter over with me, for it involves much. With regard to the prize, however, that is an immediate thing, and must be dealt with without delay. Mrs. Howard, dear soul, said to me that she had a strong desire to be remembered in the future by the children whom she loved. In consequence, once every year, a prize will be competed for in the school, which is to be called the Howard Prize. It is to consist of an exquisite little miniature of the old lady herself when she was young and beautiful. The original picture (one of Conway’s) is to be copied on ivory by a well-known miniature painter; it is to be set in a diamond frame, with a golden back, and is to have a narrow gold chain attached, so that the young possessor can wear it round her neck. In addition to the miniature, the prize-winner will obtain a beautifully illuminated scroll, which sets forth in old-fashioned language the reason why she obtains the prize. The reason is threefold—for morals, for intellect, and for beauty of person. This last clause may amaze you, my dear friend, but Mrs. Howard had peculiar ideas on that score, and said that a really lovely character invariably produced a lovely expression of face. She particularly makes a clause in her will relating to this prize, that she does not desire mere beauty of feature, it is beauty of expression which she demands. So valuable does she consider these miniatures of herself thus won, that wherever the girl who obtains the said miniature should happen to be in the future, she has, in case of need, simply to put an advertisement in an English paper, and, as a recipient of the Howard miniature, she will be entitled, not only to pecuniary relief, in case such is needed, but also to unlooked-for friendship because she is the possessor of the miniature. Thus it will be a very valuable asset in the life of any girl who honourably wins it, and none other can, for the rules are most severe. Now, my dear, I shall announce this amazing prize to the entire school in a few days, and after consulting Mr. Wyndham shall probably give the first of the Howard prizes at the end of the spring term, so that the girls will have this term and the next to work for it. It is rather surprising, is it not, Julia?”

“It is. I am altogether amazed. I can hardly take it in,” said Miss Archdale.

“You, my dear, and Henrietta, are the only people at present in the school who know about it,” said Mrs. Fleming. “Yes, it means a great deal of extra work on all our parts, but I believe it may do good.”

“It must do good,” said Julia with fervour. “It is a noble thought. That dear old lady has left her money worthily.”

“She has indeed. I cannot tell you where the bulk of it has gone, but I am given to understand that a considerable amount will be put out to interest, in order to create a fund for the hundred pounds which each Howard scholar receives on leaving the school; but also a fund is to be collected to expend if necessary on those girls who receive the Howard portrait, in case of need at any future time of their lives. This part of the strange legacy is most carefully guarded in order to prevent fraud occurring, or the portraits being sold or stolen. Only the original proprietor of the portrait can receive any benefit from its possession. And now, my dear, it is getting late; what is your trouble, Julia?”

“How could you guess that it was a trouble, dear Mrs. Fleming?”

“My good Julia, I happen to have a strong pair of eyes, and can tell at a glance when anything upsets the equilibrium of my dear teachers. Now, what is wrong?”

“I hope nothing, but I am a little anxious.”

“Ah! well, tell me, my dear—tell me.”

“You know the Irish child, Peggy Desmond?”

“Unquestionably. What a charming little face she has too! I have not had time yet to talk to her; but I took to her, my dear, amazingly.”

“You have not heard her speak, Mrs. Fleming?”

“No, but I am quite prepared for any eccentricity of language. Paul Wyndham gave me her history, and it is a very sad one. The dear little creature hasn’t got a penny in the world; she would be the very case for the Howard Bequest, but I do not intend to take his privileges from Paul. Peggy’s father was his dearest friend, and he left him the child as a keepsake; he means to bring her up as though she were his own, to put her in all respects on a level with his girls and to endow her with an equal fortune. He does right. I respect a man who takes up a responsibility as Paul does. He wrote to me at once on the matter, and luckily little Violet Darrell’s illness gave me the opportunity to help him. I intended to speak to you about the child before now, Julia. She will have a difficult time, but she will succeed, and of course we must help her. Fortunately, she does not look like a coward.”

“Coward!” replied Miss Archdale, with a laugh; “it might have been better for her if she were more cowardly. Already we have had a scene, and she has made an enemy in the school.”

“Ah! who is that?”

“Kitty Merrydew. It was Kitty’s fault, of course.”

“What did Kitty do?”

“Took her off, bent over the balusters and laughed at her, and imitated her Irish. She was chattering to me, poor little soul, and holding the hand of Elisabeth Douglas, who had taken one of her violent fancies to the new girl. Suddenly Peggy looked up, and there was Kitty grimacing overhead, laughing at her, and imitating her Irish. In one moment, like a flash, Peggy was on her, had taken her by both shoulders and shaken her as a dog shakes a rat, and screaming to her, Peggy’s face purple with rage, ‘Take that for your bad manners,’ she said; ‘don’t ye be talking like that, for I won’t have it!’ You never knew such a scene. The Imp, as the girls call Kitty, was absolutely frightened.”

Mrs. Fleming could not help laughing. “Do you know,” she said, “it is very wicked of me, but I’m rather glad to have some one in the school with sufficient courage to stand up to Kitty Merrydew?”

“Oh, then you know?” began Miss Archdale, and stopped.

“My dear, of course I know.”

“But you have done nothing!”

“Nothing yet. I am biding my time. Perhaps my work will be done for me by Peggy Desmond; in which case, God bless her!”

“But, my dear friend, forgive me, do you think it well to have a girl like Peggy under the thraldom of such a very knowing girl as Kitty Merrydew?”

“It won’t do Peggy any harm. Keep an eye on them both for the present, dear, and say nothing. You did right to come to me. I shall learn a great deal more about Peggy after Paul Wyndham comes here. And now, good-night, Julia. Don’t take things too seriously.”

CHAPTER XI.
ADVENTURE IN THE HOCKEY-FIELD.

When Peggy awoke the next morning she could not for a long time make out where she was or what had happened to her. She raised her head and looked around her. The light had hardly yet begun to break, and Peggy, accustomed all her life to wake at five o’clock, could not yet get over the habit. It is true that it was now very nearly six o’clock; but even so, six o’clock towards the latter end of September meant but a very faint degree of light. The girl’s first wish was to spring out of bed, to open her tiny attic window, and call to the little “hins” and the “turkey poults” the welcome intelligence that Peggy was coming; but, alack and alas! she was far, very far away from the hens, the turkeys, the geese of her happy childhood. It occurred to her for a wild minute that she was in bed in her large, luxurious, and hateful room at Preston Manor; from there she had at least the consolation of getting on the roof and making for the farmyard. But the window just opposite to her bed was longer and more severe-looking, and the little cubicle in which her bed reposed was plainly, though neatly, furnished.

“Ah wurra!” sighed Peggy, “I’m at school at long last, and it’s the bitter day for me—the bitter, bitter day for me!”

She little guessed, poor little thing, how very bitter that day was to be. She lay for a minute or two in her comfortable bed reflecting on the changes which had taken place, wishing earnestly that her father had not died and gone to glory, but had stayed in his “rigiment—a fine figure of a soldier, bedad!”—and had gone on sending a pound monthly for her maintenance to her good foster-parents. She looked round her little cubicle. There was no use in wishing for the past; the past, bedad, was over and done! “Why, I was finished off as nate as nate, in Ould Ireland,” she soliloquised; “whyiver should I be comin’ back to a fresh school at all? Bedad, I can’t make head nor tail of it, an’ I don’t like it, not a bit.”

She lay very still while the light came in more and more broadly through the window, which was open at the top. There was a fresh, delicious breeze filling the long dormitory, and Peggy could hear the other four girls snoring. They snored in a sort of concert, each taking a distinct and different note. Peggy burst out laughing.

“Why thin, it’s bad manners they have in their slape,” she said aloud.

Then one of the snorers awoke, and listened to the words of wild Peggy. Moving very softly, she stood on her bed and glanced for a minute at Peggy over the curtain which divided the two cubicles. This girl’s name was Hannah Joyce. She was a good-humoured, plain sort of girl; her face was thickly powdered with freckles, and her hair was of a brilliant red.

Peggy, absorbed in her own thoughts, did not see her, but presently a fresh bit of laughter on the part of the Irish girl caused Hannah to giggle delightedly, and Peggy looked up and caught sight of her. “Whativer be ye a-doin’ there?” she asked.

“Looking at you,” replied Hannah.

“A cat may look at a king,” responded Peggy. “I’m goin’ to have a bit more slape.” She turned on her pillow and closed her eyes.

“No, don’t do that,” said Hannah, “I want you to laugh again. Whatever were you laughing at?”

“At all of yez, to be sure.”

“Whatever did we do to make you laugh?”

“Shnored an’ shnored an’ shnored.”

“I don’t understand your language,” said Hannah.

“Poor ignorums!” said Peggy. “’Tain’t to be expected of the like of yez. There! I’ve no more slape in me, I’m gettin’ up.” She sprang to her feet as she spoke and began to pour cold water into her basin.

“But we don’t get up at this hour,” said the admiring and astonished Hannah.

“Ye mayn’t, but I does.” Splash, splash went the water in the basin. Peggy had submerged her little face and quantities of her glowing reddy-gold hair.

“Ah wisha!” then she said, “that’s reviving.” She scrubbed at her cheeks with a coarse towel, and then proceeded to dress. Hannah watched from over the curtain, spellbound.

“Whatever will you do when you’re dressed?” she asked in a whisper.

“Go out, av course,” said Peggy in a loud, clear voice.

“But it’s against the rules.”

“Faix, I don’t care for thim.”

“Don’t you?”

Hannah had heard of Peggy’s courage with The Imp the previous evening. She felt a wild glow of ecstatic admiration for this queer, new girl. “May I come with you?” she asked.

“Plase yerself,” answered Peggy.

Hannah slid down onto her bed, put on her shoes and stockings, got into her clothes with the rapidity of a very much hurried mouse who knows that the cat will be out if she isn’t quick; and by the time Peggy had noisily attired herself, Hannah, who had hardly made a sound, stood fully equipped by the side of her cubicle. “Here I am,” she said. “Don’t put on your shoes if you don’t want to be caught. Here, I’ll hold them for you. We’ll creep downstairs, and I know a window by which we can get out. If we’re not quick the maids will be up, and then we won’t have a chance.”

“Is it me not have a chance?” said Peggy, curling her lip. “Well, come along then, you lead the way if ye like.”

In consequence, Hannah, who had never done a daring thing before in the whole course of her short life, but who did happen to be acquainted with one special window which The Imp employed when she was up to mischief, conducted Peggy through the silent house and into the quadrangle; without saying a word the children crossed over into a big meadow to their left, and there they walked slowly, Hannah shaking and trembling with mingled feelings of ecstasy and terror, and Peggy looking languidly and indifferently about her.

“It’s an ugly place this,” Peggy remarked after a time.

“Ugly!” cried Hannah, “why, it’s thought most beautiful!”

“Be it now? Ah well, ye’ve niver seen Ould Ireland.”

“No, I haven’t. Is it wonderfully beautiful?”

“Beauty ain’t in it,” said Peggy, “it’s that amazin’ an’ consolin’ that it melts the very heart in ye. Think of Torc wearing his nightcap!”

“Turk!” responded Hannah, “who on earth is he? I don’t think he can be very pretty with a nightcap on.”

“Ah, lave me alone,” said Peggy, “ye make me double up wid the laughter. Is it a man ye think I’m spakin’ of? Why, it’s a beauteous mountain with his head in the clouds, that’s why we call it his nightcap, an’ most days he has it on, for most days it rains, God bless it!”

“But that can’t be at all nice—rain can’t.”

“Howld yer tongue, Hannah, don’t be abusin’ me counthry to me face, or I’ll treat ye as I treated that black thing last night.”

“Oh Peggy Desmond, I admired you when you flew at her; we all did—me, and Annie Jones, and Priscilla Price, and Rufa Conway—we all did, I think, in our hearts, except those horrid Dodds.”

“Did ye truly now?”

“Indeed, indeed we did.”

“Well, that’s consolin’. I’ll do for that black thing if she ill-manners me.”

“Oh Peggy, you don’t know what she is! We’re all afraid of her—we are really.”

“Sit down here an’ tell me all about her,” said Peggy.

Hannah, nothing loath, obeyed, and soon to Peggy’s listening ears was revealed a vast amount of the treacherous ways and the cruel doings of The Imp. But before Hannah began her story she looked full into the dark-blue eyes of the Irish girl and asked: “Have you ever been at school before?”

“Yes, sure I have, an’ I’m up to Third Standard.”

“I only asked you for this reason,” continued Hannah.

“What raison? Out with it, an’ be quick.”

“It is this. You won’t tell anybody what I am saying to you now in confidence?”

“Here’s me tongue,” said Peggy, putting out the pretty little red member, “ye can cut it off if ye find me tale-bearin’.”

“That’s all right, Peggy, and now listen. I mean to like you and I know lots of the other girls in the Lower School who will like you too, and they’ll be, oh so thankful that you have come, for we are all terribly afraid of The Imp; indeed, some of us call her worse than The Imp, we call her The Brat, for you see she has got a sort of real power over us, she makes us do just exactly what she likes. At all times and in every place we have to do precisely what The Imp wants us to do, and we’re real cowards to allow it.”

“So ye be, there’s no doubt on that point,” said Peggy.

“But you are not afraid of any one, are you, Peggy?”

“Yerra, niver a wan!” was Peggy’s response.