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.