Ethel was the first to recover her equanimity.
She came down the steps, greeted Jerry with a genial handshake, asked to be excused for a moment, and after halting the departing Jarvis she went over to the writing-desk, opened the envelope, added a postscript, addressed a new envelope, put the augmented epistle inside it, sealed it, handed it to Jarvis, saying:
"Send that at once. No answer."
As Jarvis left the room, Ethel turned to speak to Jerry. Meanwhile, that young gentleman had greeted Peg:
"And how is Miss Peg this evening?"
"I'm fine, Mr. Jerry, thank ye." She looked at him admiringly. He was in evening dress, a light overcoat was thrown across his arm and a Homburg hat in his hand.
"Let me take your hat and coat?" she suggested.
"No, thank you," said Jerry, "I'm not going to stay."
"Aren't ye?" she asked disappointedly.
"Is your aunt in?"
"Yes, she's in. Is it HER ye've come to see?"
"Yes," replied Jerry.
At that moment Ethel joined them.
"I came over to ask Mrs. Chichester's permission for you two young ladies to go to a dance to-night. It's just across from here at the assembly rooms."
Peg beamed joyfully. It was just what she wanted to do. Ethel viewed the suggestion differently: "It's very kind of you," she said; "but it's quite impossible."
"Oh!" ejaculated Peg.
"Impossible?" exclaimed Jerry.
"I'm sorry," and Ethel went to the door.
"So am I," replied Jerry regretfully. "I would have given you longer notice only it was made up on the spur of the moment. Don't you think you could?"
"I don't care for dancing. Besides,—my head aches."
"What a pity," exclaimed the disappointed young man. Then he said eagerly: "Do you suppose your mother would allow Miss Margaret to go?"
"I'll ask her," and Ethel left the room.
Peg ran across, stopped the door from closing and called after Ethel:
"I didn't mean to hurt ye—indade I didn't. I wanted to talk to ye, that was all—an' ye made me angry—" Ethel disappeared without even turning her head.
Peg came into the room ruefully, and sat down on the sofa. She was thoroughly unhappy.
Jerry looked at her a moment, walked over to her and asked her: "What's the matter?"
"One of us girls has been brought-up all wrong. I tried to make friends with her just now and only made her angry, as I do every one in this house whenever I open my mouth."
"Aren't you friends?"
"Indade—INDEED—INDEED—we're NOT. None of them are with me."
"What a shame!"
"Wait until ye hear what me aunt says when ye ask her about the dance!"
"Don't you think she'll let you go?"
"No. I do NOT." She looked at him quizzically for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. He was glad to see her spirits had returned and wondered as to the cause. She looked up at him, her eyes dancing with mischief:
"Misther Jerry, will ye take me all the same if me aunt doesn't consent?"
"Why, Peg—" he began, astonishedly.
"But I haven't got an evenin' dress. Does it matter?"
"Not in the least, but—"
"Will this one do?"
"It's very charming—still—"
"Stains and all?"
"My dear Peg—"
"Perhaps they'll rub out. It's the prettiest one me aunt gave me—an' I put it on to-night—because—I thought you—that is, SOMEONE might come here to-night. At least, I HOPED he would, an' ye've come!" Suddenly she broke out passionately: "Oh, ye must take me! Ye must! I haven't had a bit of pleasure since I've been here. It will be wondherful. Besides I wouldn't rest all night with you dancin' over there an' me a prisoner over here."
"Now, Peg—" he tried to begin—
"It's no use, I tell ye. Ye've GOT to take me. An' if it goes against yer conscience to do it, I'LL take YOU. Stop, now! Listen! The moment they're all in bed, an' the lights are all out I'll creep down here an' out through those windows an' you'll meet me at the foot o' the path. An' it's no use ye sayin' anythin' because I'm just goin' to that dance. So make up yer mind to it." Jerry laughed uncomfortably. She was quite capable of doing such a thing and getting herself into a great deal of unnecessary trouble. So he tried to dissuade her. He laughed cheerfully.
"There may not be any occasion to do such a wild, foolish thing. Why, your aunt may be delighted."
"ME aunt has never been DELIGHTED since she was born!"
"Have you been annoying her again?"
"Faith, I'm always doin' that."
He looked at the litter of books on the table and picked up one.
"How are your studies progressing?"
"Just the way they always have," replied Peg. "Not at all."
"Why not?"
"I don't like studying," answered Peg earnestly.
"And are you going through life doing only the things you LIKE?"
"Sure, that's all life's for."
"Oh, no, it isn't. As you grow older you'll find the only real happiness in life is in doing things for others."
"Oh!" she said quickly: "I like doin' them NOW for others." She looked up at him a moment, then down at a book and finished under, her breath: "When I LIKE the OTHERS."
He looked at her intently a moment and was just going to speak when she broke in quickly:
"What's the use of learnin' the heights of mountains whose names I can't pronounce and I'm never goin' to climb? And I'm very much surprised at me aunt allowin' me to read about the doin's of a lot of dead kings who did things we ought to thry and forget."
"They made history," said Jerry. "Well, they ought to have been ashamed of themselves. I don't care how high Mont Blanc is nor when William the Conqueror landed in England."
"Oh, nonsense!" reasoned Jerry—
"I tell ye I HATE English history. It makes all me Irish blood boil." Suddenly she burst into a reproduction of the far-off father, suiting action to word and climaxing at the end, as she had so often heard him finish:
"'What IS England? What is it, I say. I'll tell ye! A mane little bit of counthry thramplin' down a fine race like OURS!' That's what me father sez, and that's the way he sez it. An' when he brings his fist down like that—" and she showed Jerry exactly how her father did it—"when he brings his fist down like THAT, it doesn't matther how many people are listenin' to him, there isn't one dares to conthradict him. Me father feels very strongly about English History. An' I don't want to learn it."
"Is it fair to your aunt?" asked Jerry.
Peg grew sullen and gloomy. She liked to be praised, but all she ever got in that house was blame. And now he was following the way of the others. It was hard. No one understood her.
"Is it fair to your aunt?" he repeated.
"No. I don't suppose it is."
"Is it fair to yourself?"
"That's right—scold me, lecture me! You sound just like me aunt, ye do."
"But you'll be at such a disadvantage by-and-by with other young ladies without half your intelligence just because they know things you refuse to learn. Then you'll be ashamed."
She looked at him pleadingly. "Are YOU ashamed of me? Because I'm ignorant? Are ye?"
"Not a bit," replied Jerry heartily. "I was just the same at your age. I used to scamp at school and shirk at college until I found myself so far behind fellows I despised that I was ashamed. Then I went after them tooth and nail until I caught them up and passed them."
"Did ye?" cried Peg eagerly.
"I did."
"I will, too," she said.
"WILL you?"
She nodded vigorously:
"I will—INDEED I will. From now on I'll do everythin' they tell me an' learn everythin' they teach me, if it kills me!"
"I wish you would," he said seriously.
"An' when I pass everybody else, an' know more than anyone EVER knew—will ye be very proud of me?"
"Yes, Peg. Even more than I am now."
"Are ye NOW?"
"I am. Proud to think you are my friend."
"Ye'd ha' won yer wager. We ARE friends, aren't we?"
"I am YOURS."
"Sure, I'm YOURS ALL RIGHT."
She looked at him, laughed shyly and pressed her cheeks. He was watching her closely.
"What are you laughing at?" he asked.
"Do ye know what Tom Moore wrote about Friendship?"
"No."
"Shall I tell ye?" excitedly.
"Do."
"See if anywan's comin' first." As he looked around the room and outside the door to detect the advent of an intruder Peg sat at the piano and played very softly the prelude to an old Irish song.
As Jerry walked back he said surprisedly: "Oh! so you play?"
Peg nodded laughingly.
"Afther a fashion. Me father taught me. Me aunt can't bear it. An' the teacher in the house said it was DREADFUL and that I must play scales for two years more before I thry a tune. She said I had no ear."
Jerry laughed as he replied: "I think they're very pretty."
"DO ye? Well watch THEM an' mebbe ye won't mind me singin' so much. An' afther all ye're only a farmer, aren't ye?"
"Hardly that," and Jerry laughed again.
Her fingers played lightly over the keys for a moment.
"This is called 'A Temple to Friendship,'" she explained.
"Indeed?"
"And it's about a girl who built a shrine and she thought she wanted to put 'Friendship' into it. She THOUGHT she wanted 'Friendship.' Afther a while she found out her mistake. Listen:" And Peg sang, in a pure, tremulous little voice that vibrated with feeling the following:
"'A temple to Friendship,' said Laura enchanted,
'I'll build in this garden: the thought is divine!'
Her temple was built and she now only wanted
An Image of Friendship to place on the shrine.
She flew to a sculptor who set down before her
A Friendship the fairest his art could invent!
But so cold and so dull that the Youthful adorer
Saw plainly this was not the idol she meant.
'Oh! never,' she cried, 'could I think of enshrining
An image whose looks are so joyless and dim—
But yon little god (Cupid) upon roses reclining,
We'll make, if you please, sir, a Friendship of him.'
So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden
She joyfully flew to her shrine in the grove:
'Farewell,' said the sculptor, 'you're not the first maiden
Who came but for Friendship and took away—Love.'"
She played the refrain softly after she had finished the song. Gradually the last note died away.
Jerry looked at her in amazement.
"Where in the world did you learn that?"
"Me father taught it to me," replied Peg simply. "Tom Moore's one of me father's prayer-books."
Jerry repeated as though to himself:
"'Who came but for FRIENDSHIP and took away LOVE!'"
"Isn't that beautiful?" And Peg's face had a rapt expression as she looked up at Jerry.
"Do you believe it?" he asked.
"Didn't Tom Moore write it?" she answered.
"Is there anything BETTER than Friendship between man and woman?"
She nodded:
"Indeed there is. Me father felt it for me mother or I wouldn't be here now. Me father loved me mother with all his strength and all his soul."
"Could YOU ever feel it?" he asked, and there was an anxious look in his eyes as he waited for her to answer.
She nodded.
"HAVE you ever felt it?" he went on.
"All me life," answered Peg in a whisper.
"As a child, perhaps," remarked Jerry. "Some DAY it will come to you as a woman and then the whole world will change for you."
"I know," replied Peg softly. "I've felt it comin'."
"Since when?" and once again suspense was in his voice.
"Ever since—ever since—" suddenly she broke off breathlessly and throwing her arms above her head as though in appeal she cried:
"Oh, I do want to improve meself. NOW I wish I HAD been born a lady. I'd be more worthy of—"
"WHAT? WHOM?" asked Jerry urgently and waiting anxiously for her answer.
Peg regained control of herself, and cowering down again on to the piano-stool she went on hurriedly.
"I want knowledge now. I know what you mean by bein' at a disadvantage. I used to despise learnin'. I've laughed at it. I never will again. Why I can't even talk yer language. Every wurrd I use is wrong. This book ye gave me—the 'LOVE STORIES OF THE WORLD,' I've never seen anythin' like it. I never knew of such people. I didn't dhream what a wondherful power in the wurrld was the power of love. I used to think it somethin' to kape to yerself and never spake of out in the open. Now I know it's the one great big wondherful power in the wurrld. It's me love for me father has kept faith and hope alive in me heart. I was happy with him. I never wanted to lave him. Now I see there is another happiness, too an' it's beyond me. I'm no one's equal. I'm just a little Irish nothin'—"
"Don't say that," Jerry interrupted. "There's an obstinate bad something in me that holds me back every time I want to go forward. Sometimes the good little somethin' tries so hard to win, but the bad bates it. It just bates it, it does."
"What you call the bad is the cry of youth that resents being curbed: and the GOOD is the WOMAN in you struggling for an outlet," explained Jerry.
"Will you help me to give it an outlet, Mr. Jerry?"
"In any way in my power, Peg."
As they stood looking at each other the momentary something was trembling on both their lips and beating in both of their hearts. The something—old as time, yet new as birth—that great transmuter of affection into love, of hope into faith. It had come to them—yet neither dared speak.
Peg read his silence wrongly. She blushed to the roots of her hair and her heart beat fast with shame. She laughed a deliberately misleading laugh and, looking up roguishly at him, said, her eyes dancing with apparent mischief, though the tear lurked behind the lid:
"Thank ye for promisin' to help me, Misther Jerry. But would ye mind very much if the BAD little somethin' had one more SPURT before I killed it altogether? Would ye?"
"Why, how do you mean?"
"Take me to that dance tonight—even without me aunt's permission, will ye? I'll never forget ye for it if ye will. An' it'll be the last wrong thing I'll ever do. I'm just burnin' all over at the thought of it. My heart's burstin' for it." She suddenly hummed a waltz refrain and whirled around the room, the incarnation of childish abandonment.
Mrs. Chichester came slowly down the stairs, gazing in horror at the little bouncing figure. As Peg whirled past the newel post she caught sight of her aunt. She stopped dead.
"What does this mean?" asked Mrs. Chichester angrily.
Peg crept away and sank down into a chair:
Jerry came to the rescue. He shook hands with Mrs. Chichester and said:
"I want you to do something that will make the child very happy. Will you allow her to go to a dance at the Assembly Rooms tonight?"
"Certainly not," replied Mrs. Chichester severely. "I am surprised at you for asking such a thing."
"I could have told ye what she'd say wurrd for wurrd!" muttered Peg.
"I beg your pardon," said Jerry, straightening up, hurt at the old lady's tone. "The invitation was also extended to your daughter, but she declined. I thought you might be pleased to give your niece a little pleasure."
"Go to a dance—unchaperoned?"
"My mother and sisters will be there."
"A child of her age?" said Mrs. Chichester.
"CHILD is it?" cried Peg vehemently. "I'd have ye know my father lets me go anywhere—"
"MARGARET!" and the old lady attempted to silence Peg with a gesture. Peg changed her tone and pleaded:
"Plaze let me go. I'll study me head off tomorrow, if ye'll only let me dance me feet off a bit tonight. Plaze let me!"
The old lady raised her band commanding Peg to stop. Then turning to Jerry she said in a much softer tone:
"It was most kind of you to trouble to come over. You must pardon me if I seem ungracious—but it is quite out of the question."
Peg sprang up, eager to argue it out.
Jerry looked at her as if imploring her not to anger her aunt any further. He shook Mrs. Chichester's hand and said:
"I'm sorry. Good night." He picked up his hat and coat and went to the door.
"Kindly remember me to your mother and sisters," added Mrs. Chichester gently.
"With pleasure," and Jerry opened the door.
"Good night, Misther Jerry," called Peg.
He turned and saw Peg deliberately pointing to the pathway and indicating that he was to meet her there.
Mrs. Chichester happened to look around just in time to catch her. Peg reddened and stood trapped.
Jerry went out.
The old lady looked at her for several moments without speaking. Finally she asked:
"What did you mean by dancing in that disgraceful way? And what did you mean by those signs you were making?"
Peg said nothing.
"Are you always going to be a disgrace to us? Are you ever going to learn how to behave?"
"Yes, aunt," said Peg, and the words came out in a torrent. "I'm never goin' to do anythin' agen to annoy ye—AFTHER TONIGHT. I'm goin' to wurrk hard too—AFTHER TONIGHT. Don't ye see what a disadvantage I'd be at with girls without half me intelligence if I don't? Don't ye see it? I do. I'd be ashamed—that's what I'd be. Well—I'm goin' afther them tooth and nail an' I'm goin' to catch them up an' pass them an' then he'll—YE'LL—YE'LL—be proud of me—that ye will."
"What is all this?" asked the amazed old lady.
"It's what I'm goin' to do—AFTHER TO-NIGHT."
"I'm very glad to hear it."
"I knew ye would be. An' I'll never be any more throuble to ye—afther to-night."
"I hope you will be of the same mind in the morning."
"So do I, aunt. D'ye mind if I stay up for another hour? I'd like to begin now."
"Begin what?"
"Tryin' to pass people—tooth an' nail. May I study for just one more hour?"
"Very well. Just an hour."
"Sure that'll be fine" She went to the table and began eagerly to arrange her books once again.
"Turn off the lights when you've finished," said Mrs. Chichester.
"Yes, aunt. Are you goin' to bed now?"
"I am"
"Everybody in the house goin' to bed—except me?"
"Everybody."
"That's good," said Peg, with a sigh of relief.
"Don't make any noise," admonished the old lady.
"Not a sound, aunt," agreed Peg.
"Good night," and Mrs. Chichester went to the stairs.
"Good night, aunt! Oh! there's somethin' else. I thought perhaps I would have to be gettin' back home to me father but I had a letther from him this mornin' an'. it was quite cheerful—so I think—if ye don't mind—I'd like to stay another month. Can I?"
"We'll talk it over with Mr. Hawkes in the morning," Mrs. Chichester said coldly and went on up the stairs.
Peg watched her out of sight then jumped up all excitement and danced around the room. She stopped by the table, locked at the open books in disgust—with a quick movement swept them off the table. Then she listened panic-stricken and hurriedly knelt down and picked them all up again. Then she hurried over to the windows and looked out into the night. The moonlight was streaming full down the path through the trees. In a few moments Peg went to the foot of the stairs and listened. Not hearing anything she crept upstairs into her own little Mauve-Room, found a cloak and some slippers and a hat and just as quietly crept down again into the living-room.
She just had time to hide the cloak and hat and slippers on the immense window-seat when the door opened and Ethel came into the room. She walked straight to the staircase without looking at Peg, and began to mount the stairs.
"Hello, Ethel!" called out Peg, all remembrance of the violent discussion gone in the excitement of the present. "I'm studyin' for an hour. Are yez still angry with me? Won't ye say I 'good night'? Well, then, I will. Good night, Ethel, an' God bless you."
Ethel disappeared in the bend of the stairs.
Peg listened again until all was still, then she crept across the room, turned back the carpet and picked up her treasure—her marvellous book of "Love-Stories."
She took it to the table, made an island of it as was her wont—and began to read—the precious book concealed by histories and atlases, et cetera.
Her little heart beat excitedly.
The one thought that beat through her quick brain was:
"Will Jerry come back for me?"
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