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.