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?

“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.