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Title: A little maid

Author: Amy Le Feuvre

Illustrator: Sydney Cowell

Release date: December 19, 2024 [eBook #74939]

Language: English

Original publication: London: The Religious Tract Society


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE MAID ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

[Illustration: "WHAT IS THE MATTER, LITTLE GIRL?"]



                          A LITTLE MAID


                               BY

                         AMY LE FEUVRE

        AUTHOR OF "PROBABLE SONS," "TEDDY'S BUTTON," "ODD,"
                 "JILL'S RED BAG," ETC, ETC.



           WITH THREE ILLUSTRATIONS BY SYDNEY COWELL



                      _SECOND IMPRESSION_



                             LONDON
                   THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
          4 BOUVERIE STREET; & 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
                              1905



                             STORIES

                               BY

                         AMY LE FEUVRE.

                         [Illustration]

Odd Made Even. 3s. 6d.
Heather's Mistress. 3s. 6d.
On the Edge of a Moor. 3s. 6d.
The Carved Cupboard. 2s. 6d.
Jill's Red Bag. 2s.
A Little Maid. 2s.
A Puzzling Pair. 2s.
Dwell Deep; or, Hilda Thorn's Life Story. 2s.
Legend Led. 2s.
Odd. 2s.
Bulbs and Blossoms. 1s. 6d.
His Little Daughter. 1s. 6d.
A Thoughtless Seven. 1s.
Probable Sons. 1s.
Teddy's Button. 1s.
Bunny's Friends. 1s.
Eric's Good News. 1s.

                         [Illustration]

                            _London:_
                  _The Religious Tract Society_
                      _4, Bouverie Street._



                            Contents

                         [Illustration]

CHAPTER

    I. "THE FIRST STEP TO SERVICE"

   II. "IN SERVICE TO MY AUNT"

  III. "I'M READY FOR MY PLACE"

   IV. COUNTRY MUD

    V. "TOO FAITHFUL"

   VI. A "HEATHEN STOCKING"

  VII. "A FELLOW-GIRL"

 VIII. "A REAL LITTLE HOME MISSIONARY"

   IX. "I'M A-GOIN' BACK TO LONDON"

    X. "A SICK CAPTAIN!"

   XI. "A LITTLE TRUMP!"

  XII. VISITORS

 XIII. THE COLLECTION



                     List of Illustrations

                         [Illustration]

"WHAT IS THE MATTER, LITTLE GIRL? CAN'T YOU GET A PLACE?" _Frontispiece_

"THEN I COME HOME WITH A BROKEN 'EART"

"DON'T YOU LAY YOUR FINGER ON IT, FOR I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YER!"



                          A Little Maid

                         [Illustration]

CHAPTER I

"THE FIRST STEP TO SERVICE"

SHE sat on a doorstep in Bone Alley. Her surroundings were such as you
may see any day in that part of London, which is known to the upper
class as the Slums. And she herself was not a striking feature in her
landscape. Nine out of ten people would have passed her by, without a
look or thought.

She was dressed in a brown skirt, a black bodice, and a faded blue felt
hat, with a wisp of black ribbon and a ragged crow's feather stuck
jauntily in on one side. Her arms were hugging her knees, and two very
dilapidated old boots rested themselves contentedly on a medley of
orange-peel, broken bottles, and old tins. Her eyes were big and blue,
her hair a nondescript brown, hanging in straight wisps round her small
pinched face. But she was a dreamer.

A close observer would have seen that her soul was far away from her
surroundings. A rapt smile crossed her face, and a light came into her
eyes that nothing in Bone Alley would draw there. Then she gave her
thin shoulders a little shake, and frowned.

"Peggy, you're gettin' up too high; come down!"

She was accustomed to talk to herself. There was no one near her.
Further down, a barrel-organ was surrounded by a circle of dancing
children.

"You'd best be movin', Peg," she continued. "Aunt will be callin' yer."

Slowly she got up, and then, with a little stretch of her long thin
limbs, she shuffled up a steep staircase through an open doorway. Up,
up, up! Three long flights of stairs. Different smells issued from the
many doors she passed, and one could pretty well guess from them the
employments of the occupants within—soapsuds, cabbage, fried bacon, and
fried fish. Nearly every one at this time seemed to be cooking, for it
was one o'clock, and dinners were about to be served.

At the very top floor Peggy paused. Not for breath, for her lungs and
heart were sound; but her words explained it.

"Now, Peg, don't you say nothink at all when she rows yer—nothink, or
you won't get out agen!"

She opened the door abruptly. It was a poor-looking room, but clean and
tidy. A bed near the window contained a cripple woman, who was knitting
away busily. She looked round at the child with a heavy frown, and her
voice had a peevish nagging note in it.

"How much longer am I to wait for yer, I'd like ter know? Look at the
fire, you lazy baggage! You be no more use to me since yer left school
than you were before. What 'ave you been a-doin'? Me, slavin' and
knittin' myself silly to give you food and clothes, and you out in the
streets from morn to night! Dancin' round that organ, I'll be bound!
Oh, if I were given the use of my legs agen, wouldn't I make you dance
to a different toon!"

Peggy said nothing, but with a clatter and bustle she made up the fire,
and then prepared the midday meal. Potatoes and half a herring, with a
cup of tea, formed their dinner. Mrs. Perkins kept up a running stream
of complaints and abuse, which Peggy hardly seemed to hear. She washed
up, tidied the hearth, fetched her aunt some more wool from a drawer,
and then slipped away towards the door.

"Where are you goin'?" demanded Mrs. Perkins. "I'll be wantin' you to
take a parcel for me to the shop, an' Mrs. Jones have bin in to arsk
yer to mind her baby. She have to go to 'orspital for her eye-dressin'!"

"I'll mind her baby now," said Peggy cheerfully, "and then I'll be
ready for yer parcel!"

She ran down the stairs unheeding the remainder of her aunt's talk. On
the next floor she met a stout woman, just opening her mouth for a call.

"I'm a-comin', Mrs. Jones. Was you wantin' me? Where's h'Arthur? Shall
I take him out?"

Arthur was a big heavy boy of two years, but Peggy lifted him in her
arms and staggered down the stairs bravely. Once in the street, she put
him down on his feet.

"We'll come and see Mrs. Creek," she said. "I'm a-longin' to have a
talk with 'er!"

Arthur gurgled assent, and stumbled along contentedly by her side.

She marched down the alley, then turned a corner into a more
respectable street, presently paused before a tiny sweet-shop.

It was a clean little place; and behind the small-counter sat
a cheery-faced little woman with spectacles on her nose and a
work-basket by her side. How Mrs. Creek could live and thrive in such
a neighbourhood was a mystery to many. The children loved her almost
as well as her sweets. She had no belongings, but eked out her scanty
living by mending and making for some of her bettermost neighbours. A
card in her window asserted—

                     "PLAIN SEWING TAKEN IN."

But Mrs. Creek's needle was required for many varieties, from piecing
a small corduroy breeches to trimming a bonnet; and darning stockings
was her relaxation. She and Peggy were the greatest friends. She knew,
though the cripple aunt was a respectable hard-working woman, she was a
harsh task-mistress. Peggy waited on her aunt hand and foot, and never
got a bright, pleasant word from her.

"Please 'm," began Peggy, dragging her small charge into the shop,
"I'll have a halfpenny barley-stick for h'Arthur. And, please 'm, will
you tell me once agen how you first went to service."

"Bless your little heart! Sit ye down, child, on that there empty box.
And there's the barley-stick. Why, what a fine boy he is growing!"

Then she shook her head reprovingly at Peggy.

"You've no right to be longin' after forbidden things, dearie. Your
aunt can't spare you, an' she have told you so."

"Yes," said Peggy, with eager eyes, and a little flush on her sallow
cheeks; "but I dreams and dreams of it. An' it may come one day.
Teacher told me on Sunday we can arsk God anythink, and—and I'm
a—arskin' of Him to manage it for me. Tell me agen of your clo's, Mrs.
Creek. They do sound lovely."

Mrs. Creek gave a little low laugh.

"I minds that I thought 'em so. 'Twas nursery maid at the Rectory I
went to, and I couldn't sleep at night for thinkin' on it. I had two
lilac print gowns, with sprigs of daisies over 'em, and four white
aprons, and two pair of home-knitted stockings, and one pair o' new
boots, and a pair of low-heeled slippers, and three white caps, and a
black straw hat with ribbon, and a white straw bonnet for Sundays, and
a grey linsey gown, and a neat black coat—"

She paused for breath, and Peggy gave a rapt sigh.

"Oh," she said, clasping her hands, "how rich yer mother must 'ave
been! How lovely to feel they was all yours! Go on, 'm, please. Tell
'ow you felt when you treaded on carpets!"

"They was lovely and soft," the old woman said meditatively; "an' the
nursery with its big fire and bright brass fender, an' the pictures and
toys, an' the red-cushioned rockin'-cheer, I seem as I can see it all
now. The nurse were tall and stern, but the little ladies, there were
three on 'em, they were always ready for a game with me. And I used to
swing 'em on the lawn, and help 'em to clean out their rabbit hutches.
Dear life! What a happy little maid I was!"

Peggy gulped down a sob.

Mrs. Creek looked at her and saw that tears were running down her
cheeks.

"It seems like 'eaven," she murmured, wiping her tears away with the
back of her hand and hoisting Arthur on her lap, as the little urchin
was getting restless. "How little could you go out to service with, 'm,
please? If you was ever so careful, wouldn't one print dress be enough?
You could wash it out careful when you went to bed—leastways, any dirty
patches you could."

Mrs. Creek shook her head.

"If you goes to ladies' service you must 'ave an outfit," she remarked
importantly.

"Like as if you were goin' to marry!" said Peggy, with another big sigh.

"But," said Mrs. Creek, "'tisn't many got such a chance as I had. I was
country-born, ye see, an' my father were under-gardener at the Hall."

Peggy's face became gloomy.

"Tis no use hopin', is it? I 'ave saved up some pence, 'm. Just what
I've earned proper, but see—'ow many before I could get a gown? Why,
hundreds, wouldn't it be?"

She produced out of the bosom of her shabby bodice a dirty-looking
piece of rag; unknotting it carefully, she counted out sevenpence
halfpenny.

Mrs. Creek nodded and smiled.

"That's a beginnin', dearie. Maybe by the time yer aunt will be wantin'
yer no longer, you'll have a goodish sum."

Peggy brightened up.

"And 'ow did you stick your caps on, please 'm? Did you have longer
hair than mine?"

"Well, yes, I think I had a fine lot in those days, and I plaited it
neatly and had a nice flat cap, not one o' these cockatoo sort o'
arrangements that girls wear nowadays."

"And tell me now about the rooms, please 'm!"

Mrs. Creek began her descriptions, that had already been given to Peggy
many and many a time before; but the child listened with open mouth and
eyes, until small customers began to crowd in. It was Saturday, and
fathers had come home from their work with pence to spare. Mrs. Creek
had to put aside her reminiscences for the time, and, after waiting a
little longer, Peggy reluctantly departed with her charge.

A sharp-faced girl soon joined her outside.

"'Ulloo, Peg! H'aint seen you for years."

"Where have you bin?" demanded Peggy.

"I've j'ined the boot factory, and, I say! H'our Emma has gone to be a
slavey!"

"Has she? Where? I wish I could!"

"You be a pair o' sillies, the two on yer! Catch me bein' a slavey! No,
not I!"

"Where has Emma gone?"

"To the pork-butcher's. An' her missis hit 'er with a bootbrush las'
Saturday. I'd like to have had that done to me!"

"When I goes to service," Peggy said loftily; "I shall go out to real
ladies, who don't keep no shops."

"I'd start with Buckingham Palace," said the factory girl witheringly;
"but p'raps that wouldn't be 'igh enough for yer!"

Peggy promptly parted company with her. She turned into a broad street
with her little charge, and sauntered past lines of shops, occasionally
pointing out some desirable objects to him, but for the most part
pursuing her thoughts in silence. At last a smart draper's brought her
to a standstill. Peggy often amused herself by pretending she had come
out with a full purse to buy an outfit for service. Now she could not
resist playing at the same old game.

"Now, Peggy, take your choice. There are prints there, pink and blue,
but no dark lilac like Mrs. Creek had. But that's a pretty stripe over
in the corner. You'd look fine in that. And oh my! What cheap caps,
with real broidery round 'em, and only twopence three farthings each!"

She paused, and looked at the caps longingly.

"If I could try 'em on, just to see how I looked, and if I could pin it
on proper! Why shouldn't I buy one? There now! Come on, h'Arthur, and
I'll do it, this very minit!"

Into the shop she went with the air of a duchess. If there was anything
that Peggy loved, it was shopping. "Tis the only time folks is civil,"
she would say. "They don't bawl at me, nor yet scold then, and it makes
me feel as if I'm a bigger person than them!"

"I wish to see some of them there caps, please," she said, taking a
seat at the counter, with her chin well tilted up. "Caps for service I
want."

"Certainly," said a young woman politely, "here are a cheap lot just
come in."

"I hope they washes," Peggy said, up one on the tip of her finger.
"Sweepin' rooms do make one's caps so dirty," she added, with a knowing
shake of her head.

"Oh, they wash right enough," was the reply; "see here, catch hold of
this string, undo it, and they come out flat! There you are!"

Peggy gazed at the cap, trying hard to conceal her surprise.

"'Tis like a Jack-in-the-box!" she said to herself; then aloud—

"I'll take one, please, and try how I like it. I'm rather partic'lar as
to caps."

The young woman tried to conceal a smile, but she wrapped the purchase
up into a small parcel, and Peggy departed in great spirits.

"'Tis the first step to service," she said; "but I don't know where
I can try it on. Aunt has the only looking-glass. And I don't like
tellin' to Mrs. Creek; she'd think it silly!"

She went home with Arthur, then climbed the steep stairs again. She
crammed the cap into the pocket of her dress, then went in and was met
with her aunt's usual greeting—

"Wherever have you been, you good-for-nothin' girl? And my parcel ready
and waitin' this last hour, and the fire nearly out, and the kettle not
near boiling!"

"I've been out with h'Arthur. I'll make up the fire in a second!"

She was not much longer, and then, a few minutes later, sallied out to
take her aunt's knitting to one of the City shops. Mrs. Perkins warned
her not to be out long, and Peggy sped along the busy streets, racking
her brains as to how and where she could try on her untidy little head
the stiff snow-white cap that she had bought.

The parcel was delivered, and she received two shillings in payment,
which she carefully tied in a corner of a red handkerchief round her
throat. Then she retraced her steps homewards.

On the way her eyes lighted on a heavily laden dust-cart in front of
her. Something glittered among some rotten cabbages. Peggy's eyes were
sharp. She saw that it was a piece of broken looking-glass.

"The very thing for you, Peggy," said she. "Now if you gets that,
you'll be in luck indeed!"

She approached the dustman with all the assurance of a London child.

"Hi, mister, jest shy me that piece of glass! I wants it badly."

The man looked at her and it. Then he laughed. "It'll show you no
beauty," he said, with a chuckle.

"No," said Peggy seriously, "but it'll keep my hats and bonnets
straight on my 'ead."

He came to a standstill. Then with his shovel, he drew out the piece of
glass and presented it to her.

Peggy was profuse in her thanks. She hid it under her jacket, and got
home in such haste that even her aunt had little fault to find with her.


It was Sunday. She was up early, for she had a lot to do before she was
at liberty to go out, and Peggy attended a Sunday School close by, and
always went to church on Sunday morning. After that, she stayed in with
her aunt for the rest of the day.

Sunday afternoon was the time for Mrs. Perkins' visitors to come and
see her. Sometimes it was a neighbour who dropped in for a chat;
sometimes a married niece; but there was always a cup of tea going if
nothing more, and Peggy waited on everybody and listened to the talk
with interest, though she was never supposed to speak.

She went off to Sunday School this morning in a happy frame of mind.
Possibilities of a good place always seemed to centre in Miss Gregory,
her teacher; and Peggy had made up many wonderful stories about this
young lady. How one Sunday morning she would come to school and say,—

"Peggy, I have for a long time thought you would make me a good little
servant. Now I am sure of it. I will come round and talk to your aunt,
and I will buy you some clothes and next week you shall come to me."

Sometimes Peggy's fancies took a still higher flight. Miss Gregory
would say,—

"Peggy, I am buying a house in the country. It is a Rectory, and I have
bought the church with it. It has a beautiful garden, and flowers and
fruit; you must come with me and be my servant."

I am afraid Peggy's thoughts were often far away from her lessons. She
secretly adored her teacher; but if I were to tell the real truth, Miss
Gregory looked upon her as a quiet dull little scholar, who was less
attentive than many others, and who seemed the most uninterested of
them all.

But to-day the lesson attracted Peggy from the very first. It was about
the little captive maid who told Naaman's wife of the great prophet who
could cure her master. She listened with big eyes and open mouth to the
story.

Miss Gregory wound up with—

"And so you see, children, what a lot of good a little servant-maid can
do. She had been taken away from her home and friends, and might have
been fretful and sulky, and unwilling to help her master. Instead of
that, she longed to tell him how he could be cured."

"Should think so," gasped Peggy; "she must have been awful glad to
leave 'ome, and go to service!"

There was something in her intense tone that made Miss Gregory look at
her. But she felt she needed rebuke.

"No little girl ought to like leaving her parents and going away from
them. Good little girls would not like it."

Peggy hung her head abashed. Her next neighbour nudged her sharply with
her elbow.

"One for you, Peg!" she whispered.

Peggy gave her a vicious kick, which brought upon her a severer rebuke
still from Miss Gregory, and when the class was over and the children
dispersing, Peggy was kept behind.

"Don't you ever wish to love Jesus, Peggy, and please Him?" her teacher
asked rather sadly.

Peggy looked upon the ground and said nothing.

Miss Gregory went on, "I have often wished you took a greater interest
in the Bible, Peggy. You always seem to be thinking of other things.
Don't you like hearing Bible stories?"

"About servant-maids I does," said Peggy, looking up with a bright
light in her eyes.

"You like that, do you? Why? You are not in service yet, are you?"

"No, teacher. I live with aunt, and does for her."

"Then you ought to be a happy little girl to have a comfortable home,
and not have to go out and earn your own living. Maids-of-all work have
a miserable time; you need not wish to be one of them."

"But I wants to get into a good place with real nice ladies!" said
Peggy earnestly.

Miss Gregory shook her head.

"You would have a lot to learn before you could do that."

"But the girl in the Bible went right into a lovely place. You said her
mistress was great and rich. I'd like to wait on a lady like that!"

Miss Gregory smiled, as she noted Peggy's downtrodden aspect.

"Well," she said, "perhaps one day you'll go into service, and if it
is a shop, you can serve God as well there as in a palace. Don't wait
for great things, but be faithful in small. Now follow the others into
church. I am coming."

Peggy's hopes were again dashed to the ground.

"'Tis no good, Peggy," she murmured to herself. "Teacher won't never
help yer. She thinks you too bad."

She went to church, and when she bent her head in prayer before the
service began, this was her petition—

   "Oh God! You'll understand, if she don't. And please find me a place
as good as that there leper capting's, and send me clothes, and let aunt
let me go. For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen."

Then she lifted her head with bright hope shining in her eyes.

"God 'll do it better than teacher. He's sure to have heard me to-day,
'cause it's in church."

She went home comforted, and through the whole of that day, her busy
brain was thinking over the story of the little captive maid.

"I'd like to do somethin' grand like that. In the first place I gets,
I'll try. I'll go to a place where there's a ill gent, and I'll tell
him—I'll tell him of them there pills that cured aunt's cousin, and
if he'll try 'em and get well, 'twould be grand for me. O' course,
'twouldn't be like tellin' him of a prophet, but teacher says there's
no prophets now. But it's easy to do grand things in service. If I
never gets a place, it's no good thinkin' of 'em."

And so with alternate hopes and fears, Sunday wore away. Not once did
she got chance of looking at her precious cap, but the knowledge of her
possession was joy to her.



CHAPTER II

"IN SERVICE TO MY AUNT"

EARLY the next morning she woke, and hearing by her aunt's heavy
breathing that she was sound asleep, she cautiously sat up in her
little iron bed.

She would like to have drawn aside the old curtain from the window, but
she dared not cross the floor.

Her aunt was a light sleeper, and her only chance of an uninterrupted
time was whilst Mrs. Perkins was unconscious of her presence.

So, as quickly as she could, she propped up her bit of glass against
the wall, and proceeded to array herself in her cap. It was rather
a difficult process. First her hair had to be rolled up in a little
knob, and it was too short to be tractable. Ends kept sticking out, and
then nothing would induce the cap to keep in its rightful position.
She pinned it here, and she pinned it there, and each time got it more
crooked. But patience and perseverance at last won the day, and Peggy
surveyed herself with rapture.

"Yes," she said aloud, with a pleased nod at her reflection. "You look
a first-rate servant, Peg. Quite a proper one, and you could open the
door to a dook quite nice. 'Come in, sir, please. Glad to see you, sir.
Will tell my missus you're here, sir. Yes.' Oh lor!"

Her head was tossed so high, that off flew her cap, and a querulous
voice broke in upon her make-believe.

"Now what on earth are you doin' of, Peg? Are you going crazy? What are
you a-dressin up for, at this time o' mornin'?"

Peggy's cheeks turned crimson. She scrambled into bed.

"Are you crazed?" repeated her aunt. "Tell me what you're a-doin' of.
Lookin' like a monkey with a white thing on yer 'ead! Speak at once,
you good-for-nothin'!"

But Peggy felt overwhelmed with shame and confusion. "I 'spect I was
dreamin', Aunt. Leastways you'd think so—I was—I was playin' at bein' a
servant."

She made her confession in a contrite tone.

"Little fool!" said her aunt, but she turned over in her bed and went
to sleep again, and Peggy did not stir till a clock outside struck
seven, and then with a sigh she got out of bed, and carefully secreted
her bit of glass and her cap under her mattress. It was her only
hiding-place, and had held many a queer assortment of articles from
time to time.

When she was dressed, she went out to get a 'ha'poth' of milk for
breakfast, and this was the time that she took to pass through a quiet,
respectable street, not very far away, where servant-girls were to be
seen cleaning the doorsteps. This street—Nelson Street by name—had a
fascination for her; she took great note of the different caps and
aprons worn, and occasionally was fortunate enough to exchange words
with some of these envied young people.

To-day she addressed a new-comer on the doorstep of No. 6. Peggy had
seen a good many fresh girls on these particular doorsteps; some of
them had stayed a few weeks, others for a few days. She always knew the
fresh arrivals by the cleanliness of their gowns and the tidiness of
their hair; but this new-comer seemed a shade fresher and cleaner than
any she had yet seen. She had red hair and rosy cheeks, and her gown
was nearer Mrs. Creek's pattern lilac one than any Peggy had noted.

"You're new," asserted Peggy, as she came to a standstill.

The girl turned and looked at her.

"Who are you?"

She did not say it rudely, but with curiosity. Peggy had had many a
snub from those servant-girls; few of them would deign to notice her,
so she was quite prepared to be ignored.

"Oh," she said, looking at her questioner going admiringly, "I'm going
into a place one day, and I comes and looks along this street, and
wonders which house I'd like to be in. Who lives in yours? Any one
beside the lady that scolds?"

"That be my missus right enough, for I only come in day 'for yesterday,
and never have done nothin' right since. There be two gentlemen
lodgers, and one first-floor lady that teaches music."

"Oh," sighed Peggy, depositing her small milk jug on the step, and
placing her arms akimbo. "If only I could get into service, I'd be real
happy."

"I live down in Kent," explained the red-haired girl. "But the country
is too quiet, I want London; and so I've come up to my uncle's
step-sister."

"But the best places must be in the country," said Peggy. "I'd a deal
rather live out o' London. 'Tis so much cleaner for yer caps and
aprons—Mrs. Creak says so."

"You are a queer one," said the red-haired girl, staring at her.

Then a voice from an open window called to her—

"Liza, Liza! Come this minute!"

She darted indoors with pail and broom.

Peggy walked on.

"No," she said; "I won't take Liza's place, not if I know it!"

She went into Mrs. Creak's little shop soon again.

"You see, 'm," she said, "I believe if some one was to come and talk my
aunt over, she might let me go. There's a girl on the ground floor who
would do for her for sixpence a week. Now, if I was out, wouldn't I be
gettin' that?"

"Well, yes, dearie, and a good bit more."

"Then I'd be able to pay the girl, and aunt would be looked after. Oh,
please 'm, couldn't yer come round one day and talk to aunt."

Mrs. Creak shook her head doubtfully.

"I couldn't myself, but there's the district lady. I could speak to
her."

"She's no good," said Peggy. "Aunt won't let her indoors. She says she
talks too much religion. She giv' her a trac' one day called 'The Happy
Cripple,' and aunt said she were pokin' fun at her."

"Ah," said Mrs. Creak, with a little sigh, "your aunt ain't found out
that happiness is found in the very folk who seem to have the least
to make 'em happy. I should say your aunt would be better for more
religion, my dear."

Peggy leant forward and spoke under her breath—

"She don't like God, 'm, and that's the real fac'! When her legs were
hurt under the waggon, and she never walked agen, she giv' up sayin'
prayers."

"Poor thing! I never knowed your aunt, Peggy. She were a cripple when
I come here, and a person that kept her door shut to most folks. It's
like a person shuttin' out the light o' day, to shut out the Almighty."

Peggy nodded.

"And so I wants to leave her and go to service. Please 'm, did you ever
hear in the Bible of a leper capting and a little servant-maid?"

"Why, certain I have. 'Tis Naaman you'll be meaning."

"That be his name. I'm wantin' to get a place like that. I dessay she
weren't older than me, and see what a lot o' good she did! I mean do an
orful lot o' good when I goes into my place!"

Mrs. Creak gazed at the child's big earnest eyes for a moment without
speaking. Then she put down the stocking she was darning, and tapped
her thimble on the counter.

"Now listen to me, Peggy Perkins. You're in a place now, and in the
place that God Almighty chose for you. You're a little maid to a poor,
unhappy cripple, who can't move from her bed. Now what good do you ever
try to do to her?"

Peggy looked quite startled.

"Why, 'm, aunt is just aunt; I ain't in service."

"Yes you be, dearie. You be servin' her day in and day out. Do you ever
try to make her feel a bit happier? Do you tell her of bits you hear in
Sunday School, to make her know that God still loves her?"

Peggy drew a long breath.

"Why, I never says nothin' to her more than I can help."

Customers as usual interrupted the conversation, but Peggy departed
from the sweet-shop with new ideas in her head.

"'Tis as teacher said to you, Peggy—you're a lookin' for big things and
not mindin' the little. But, oh lor! To think of me bein' in service to
my aunt! If she were a missis, I wonder if I'd like her better!"

She pondered slowly as she walked down the street.

"Wonder what that there maidservant in the Bible would have done if
she'd been lookin' after aunt! But there's no cure for cripples that I
knows of, or I might be able to do her good."

She passed a flower-girl selling violets, then she looked back at her,
and a bright idea struck her.

Hastily she felt for one of her precious coppers, and after
considerable haggling over the bunches, she selected one, paid her
penny, and ran off home as fast as her legs could carry her.

When she came in she found her aunt lying down, her work, untouched,
by her side. This was such an unusual sight that Peggy was quite taken
aback.

She stepped across the room quietly.

"I've brought you some vi'lets, Aunt, to smell."

Mrs. Perkins turned in her bed. Her face looked white and drawn.

"I've that queer pain in my side agen, Peg," she murmured. "Give me a
drop o' gin and hot water."

Peggy put down her violets hastily, and went to the cupboard for the
gin bottle, which, for Mrs. Perkins' credit, I must say, was hardly
ever used by her.

She soon brought her some hot drink in a tumbler.

Mrs. Perkins seemed better after she had drunk it, and once more sat up
in bed.

"It took me all of a sudden," she explained; "and I've a lot of work to
be got through. Here, Peggy, give me over that wool. Did you say you
'ad some vi'lets? Where did you get 'em?"

"I bought 'em, Aunt."

"Bought vi'lets!" Mrs. Perkins' tone changed. "Why, you wicked,
wasteful girl! And where did you get the money? Me lyin' here and
slavin' from morn to night to keep us from starvin', and you out in
the streets a-buying flowers like any carriage lady! You ought to be
ashamed of yerself, that you did!"

Peggy hung her head.

"I bought 'em for you," she murmured. "I thought as 'ow you'd like to
smell 'em!"

Mrs. Perkins gave a scornful smile.

"A very likely story. Don't you tell me no more lies! Bought 'em for
me, indeed! When did you ever do such a wonder? The skies might fall
before you'd give a thought to your sick aunt! You takes her money and
vittles, and the clothes she gives yer, and you grumbles at all you has
to do for her. Oh! If ever you loses your legs and lies on a hard bed,
may you know what it is to have an ungrateful girl a-waitin' on yer!"

A sullen look crossed Peggy's face. She did not attempt to argue the
matter out, or prove herself in the right. But she felt as if she
would never try to do a kindness to her aunt again. She began to make
preparations for tea, and she pitched the violets down on the floor.

That gave an occasion for another scolding, and Mrs. Perkins finally
gave orders that the flowers were to be put in a tumbler of fresh water
and placed on the window-ledge.

"I only 'opes as you came by 'em honest; but there's no sayin'. I may
as well 'ave the good of 'em now they're here."

Peggy was wakened out of her sleep that night by a call from her aunt.

"That old pain agen! It must be those shrimps I took. Oh dear! Oh dear!
I feel as if I can't bear it!"

"Shall I rub you?" asked Peggy.

When her aunt seemed weak and helpless, she felt pity for her at once.

Mrs. Perkins let her try to rub her. Some more gin and water was
administered, and then she seemed easier. Peggy sat at the bottom of
the bed and watched her.

"Ah!" Mrs. Perkins said, with a groan. "I dessay my days are numbered.
These pains are cruel; they must mean somethin'. But if I die, there
'll be no one to miss me."

"I shall, Aunt," said Peggy honestly. "I've been thinkin' I'll be a
better girl to you. And I'll tell you what I hears in Sunday School,
and anythin' to make you a bit happier!"

Mrs. Perkins groaned, and shook her head.

"There's nothin' will make me happy," she said; "but there be plenty of
room for improvement in you, Peg."

"Yea," said Peggy, humbly and determinedly. "I've made my mind up to do
yer good, same as the servant-maid did to the leper capting. An' I'll
tell yer all I hears, and you can pick out the bits that soot yer, and
ease your mind like."

"I don't want ter hear religion," said Mrs. Perkins, with an indignant
sniff. "If there be a God, He have treated me shameful! I won't have
nothin' to do with Him!"

"God loves yer, Mrs. Creak says," said Peggy undaunted. She was still
sitting at the bottom of the bed, staring at her aunt; and now her eyes
took a dreamy turn. "Anyways, you ain't been mocked and whipped and
crucified, same as Jesus Christ, and God loved Him ever so, teacher
said so. I s'pose as how God loved us ever so, and let us come first,
when the Crucifixion come along!"

"Get into bed with yer, and don't talk my 'ead off!" was the irritable
comment of Mrs. Perkins.

Peggy promptly obeyed.

When she woke the next morning, her aunt was much as usual. The
midnight talk seemed a dream; neither of them alluded to it, and life
went on as before till the following Sunday.

Peggy went to school that morning with a fixed resolve in her busy
brain.

She lingered behind the other children when school was over.

"Please, teacher, I wants to arsk you somethink."

"Then you shall walk to church with me, Peggy. We are quite early, so
sit down again. What is it?"

"Please, teacher, is there no ways of gettin' a cripple cured now, same
as the leper capting in the Bible?"

"You mean Naaman? Well, no, Peggy. God does not work miracles now, nor
let His servants do it; there is no need."

Peggy's face fell.

"Then poor cripples can't be done good to by no one?"

"Oh yes, indeed," and Miss Gregory's face brightened. "Their hearts may
be made well and sound and happy, Peggy; and after all, that is the
best part of us, isn't it? We think a lot of our body, with its aches
and pains, but it is only a cage. I passed down a narrow dark street
yesterday, and outside a window there was a thrush, singing as sweetly
as if he were perched on a tree with a beautiful green world all around
him. Do you know where thrushes generally live, Peggy? In the sweet
country, with flowers and dew-laden grass, and the free, clear air to
fly in, with nothing above them but the infinite blue, and other birds
to live and play with all day long. That is the world to sing in, and
this little fellow was in a smoke-grimed cage about a foot square; he
could only see soot and dust and fog, and screaming, quarrelsome men
and women, and children who sometimes tried to hit him with stones.
Yet he sang his song as merrily and sweetly as any free, country bird.
He had a happy heart. And if we have a crippled body, we can have a
singing heart."

"How?" said Peggy, with big eyes and still bigger thoughts.

"By asking Jesus to come into our hearts and make them sing. Have you
ever asked Jesus to come into yours, Peggy?"

"I prays to Him," said Peggy reflectively; "but I don't expec' He'd
care to live in my heart. It ain't fit for Him. Aunt says I be a wicked
girl."

"However wicked your heart is, it can be washed whiter than snow,
Peggy. Jesus will do that if you give your heart to Him. He will make
your heart fit to receive Him, and if He 'abides in us,' we are told we
shall bring forth much fruit; you will be helped to be good and guarded
from evil if Jesus is taking charge of you."

"I'd like Him to," said Peggy, with a determined little nod.

"Then shall we kneel down here together and ask Him? You speak to Him,
Peggy, and remember that He is waiting to hear and answer you."

So Peggy bent her head and shut her eyes.

"I arsk you, Lord Jesus, to take hold of my heart and wash it, and make
it proper; and please come into it and give me a singin' heart, and I
gives it up to you like teacher says I ought. And please help me to be
good, for I'm awful wicked."

There was a little silence in the empty schoolroom. Then Miss Gregory
prayed aloud for her little scholar, that she might be kept a true and
faithful little follower of her Saviour. And when they rose from their
feet, Peggy's face was very sweet and serious.

"I'm never goin' to be wicked no more," she asserted.

Miss Gregory smiled, then told her to follow her to church; and on the
way talked very earnestly to her, trying to make her realise how weak
she was in herself, and how strong her Saviour.

When Peggy reached home, and sat down to the luxury of a mutton chop
with her aunt, she began to think how she could pass on what she had
heard. It was very difficult. Mrs. Perkins was more discontented on
Sunday than any other day in the week. She had time for airing her
grievances, and her tongue certainly never had a Sabbath's rest, if her
hands had.

"Aunt," said Peggy at length, bringing out her words with a jerk, "do
you ever feel like singing?"

"Are you givin' me some of yer imperence?" was the angry retort.

"Oh no, I ain't a-goin' to sauce yer! Teacher, was a-tellin' me of a
sick body havin' a singin' heart."

"I dessay," Mrs. Perkins said scornfully. "Let yer teacher wait till
she has a sick body, and then let her sing!"

"I 'spect she would," said Peggy thoughtfully. "She says how you does
it is to ask Jesus to come into your heart, and He'll make it sing."

Mrs. Perkins gave a contemptuous snort.

Peggy gained courage, and proceeded—

"I was arskin' her if sick folk that couldn't be cured by doctors could
be done any good to, and she says, 'Yes, their hearts could be made
well and sound and 'appy. It sounds cheerful like, don't it? I thought
as 'ow you'd like to hear it."

"Much obliged," said Mrs. Perkins sarcastically.

There was silence. The meal was finished. Peggy washed up and tidied
the room. Her aunt lay back in her bed, and appeared to be studying a
Sunday paper. But suddenly Peggy heard her give a little cry.

"That there pain agen! Oh for! Whatever shall I do? 'Tis a-takin' hold
o' my inside, like a lobster's claws!"

"I'll get the gin," said Peggy.

But her aunt would have none of it. She moaned and cried, and then
began to talk incoherently.

"'Tis nay 'eart, I know 'tis, and I shall be dead before long. A 'appy
heart! Ay, 'tis fine talkin'! Singin'! I mind in Sunday School I could
sing the 'eartiest o' them. How does it go?

   "'Oh for a 'eart to praise my God,
       A 'eart from sin set free.
     A 'eart that's sprinkled with the blood
       So freely shed for me.'

"What do you say, Peg, about the love o' God? Oh lor! Oh, fetch the
doctor, quick, quick!"

A spasm of agony seemed to pass over her.

Peggy rushed from the room.

"Mrs. Jones!" she shouted at that good woman's door. "Go to aunt. She
be mortal bad! I'm off for the doctor."

It was not long before she was back again with the young practitioner
who lived not far away. But Mrs. Perkins was already beyond all human
aid, and Peggy for the first time in her life realised what an awfully
sudden and unexpected messenger Death may sometimes be.



CHAPTER III

"I'M READY FOR MY PLACE"

THE next few days were dark and bewildering ones to Peggy. Mrs. Jones
proved a friend in need. She took her to her room at once and mothered
her as she had never been mothered before. Peggy was grateful, but she
was not comforted till she paid a visit to Mrs. Creak.

"'Tis so awful me havin' wished 'er dead many a time, Mrs. Creak! I
thinks of it at nights. And I was so cross and sulky and imperent, and
now she be gone. And oh! Mrs. Creak, where is she?"

Mrs. Creak was silent. Then she said softly—

"You gave her a message, dearie. Her last thoughts were about God and
His love. She may have put up a prayer for mercy. She were very near it
from the hymn you tells me she quoted—

   "'Oh for . . . a heart that's sprinkled with the blood
       So freely shed for me.'

"It may have set her thinkin' and then prayin', dearie. 'Tis very
remarkable she should have minded it just then. But oh! Peggy, my girl,
never you leave it to make your peace with God till He calls you! He do
call so terrible sudden sometimes."

Peggy nodded soberly.

"I ain't goin' to say another cross word to no one all the days o' my
life 'm, for fear they should die sudden 'fore I could make it up with
'em."

"That's a very grand resolve," said Mrs. Creak, "but it's too big a one
to keep, Peggy, if ye don't ask the Lord's help."

"The Lord helpin' me—Amen," finished Peggy fervently. Then, after a big
sigh or two, she came to business.

"Please 'm, Mrs. Jones wants me to stay and mind h'Arthur, and she'll
give me my vittles and clothes, but I wants to go to service."

"I know you do, dearie, but 'tis difficult for you at present."

"Oh, please 'm, do you think God is answerin' my prayer? I've been
arskin' Him fearful hard to let me go to service, but I do hope I
haven't been and made aunt die."

She stopped, aghast at the thought. But good little Mrs. Creak
reassured her.

"God has our lives in His hand, and no others have, Peggy. He took your
aunt away, but I doubt if it will be easy even now for you to get into
real good service."

"Why?"

"There be your clothes, child. You have none fit to wear, and it takes
a good sum to get things together. And then you have no trainin' at
all. If you could go to a trainin' 'ome now."

"That I never will!" said Peggy stoutly. "I won't go to the 'Ouse or
any such institootion. I'll manage 'm. I know a good many girls in
places, an' they 'll 'elp me."

Peggy did not let the grass grow under her feet. She followed her
aunt's funeral in company with three other women who took pity on her.
And then, when she had come back and packed up her belongings, she gave
the key of her room to the landlord and went to live with Mrs. Jones.

The very next day she was haunting Nelson Street, and eagerly talking
to the red-haired girl at No. 6.

"I'm a-goin' into a place as soon as I can find one," she assured her
importantly; "but I don't want to live in this street."

"That's a pity," said the red-haired girl good-naturedly, "for No. 14
is a-goin' to be married, and she's leavin', and you might a-tried
there."

Peggy's face lit up with a splendid inspiration.

"Is that No. 14 a-cleanin' her doorstep?" she asked breathlessly.

She was assured it was. Off she marched, and opened fire at once.

"I say, I hear tell you be leavin'. How soon?"

The servant-girl looked round. She had a pretty little face, but her
dress, cap, and apron were in a pitiably dirty condition.

"Yes, I'm leavin', thank goodness!" she ejaculated. "What business be
it of yourn?"

Peggy's eyes were not on her face, but on her dress. She was taking
stock mentally, and murmured to herself—

"Be careful, Peg! Two darns in the back, a slit in the elbow, and a
washed-out blue!"

Then she spoke.

"How much for your cotton dresses? Will ye sell?"

"Sell 'em!" exclaimed the girl. "Be you clean demented?"

"But you won't be wearin' cotton when you're married," urged Peggy;
"and I'm certain sure your gowns would fit me. I'll give yer two bob
for this one, and that's a very good offer."

The girl looked at Peggy with some amusement.

"I don't care if I do sell you this one. I'm a-leavin' to-morrow."

"But it must be washed," said Peggy firmly.

"Oh, I ain't a-goin' to have it washed. You'll take it as it is."

"Then sixpence off!" said Peggy.

The bargain was struck. Late the next evening, Peggy arrived at the
sweet-shop in an eager, excited state.

"Here I am, please 'm, and two print gowns for three-and-sixpence; one
dirty and one clean. And the hems will turn up, and they only want a
bit o' mendin'. You see 'm, there's ten shillings of poor aunt's that
come to me, besides the five that Mrs. Jones got my best black with,
and she giv' me a black hat; so now I've got six shillings and sixpence
for boots, and a jacket, and aprons, and another cap; and please 'm, do
you think I shall do then?"

Mrs. Creak looked at the enterprising Peggy with amusement and a little
respect.

"I see you be quite determined to go to service, Peggy, so I'll do what
I can to help you. Give me the dresses, and I'll see to 'em. If you
gets clothes, you won't be long in finding a place."

A fortnight later, Peggy had the joy and satisfaction of seeing a very
modest outfitin her one wooden box. Mrs. Jones had been good to her,
and given her several cast-off garments of her own, which clever old
Mrs. Creak had cut up and altered and turned out in quite good style.

"'Tis not only the outside of your back wants covering, my girl; and
remember that good stout petticoats and well-mended stockings will keep
you warm and well in the coldest weather."

"Yes 'm," said Peggy meekly.

And then she added anxiously, "And, please 'm, I'm tryin' hard to
fasten my hair up. I've a-been lookin' at the girls in Nelson Street.
They mostly has a curled fringe, but I can't make mine curl nohow.
I've tried curl-papers, but I don't seem to manage 'em right, and them
curlin'-tongs cost money."

"Now, Peggy, you take my word, and brush your hair smooth. Ladies will
like it much better. Plait it neatly behind; them fringes be traps for
dirt and dust, and take a lot o' time fussin' over."

"But," said Peggy, "I want to look proper 'm; I don't want to look
like a Noah's Ark servant. Mrs. Jones says girls must make the most o'
theirselves. And a fringe makes a cap look first class!"

"You try my way first. I know good service, and 'tis the best
servant-maids wear the plainest heads."

So reluctantly Peggy gave up all idea of a fringe. She appeared in
Nelson Street one morning and spoke to her red-haired friend.

"I'm ready for my place," she said, with much pride.

"No. 9 is wantin' a general," said Eliza.

"Who lives there?"

"A widder and six children."

"Oh my! I couldn't do for 'em. What does a general do, Liza?"

"Most everythink—washin' and cleanin', and cookin', and twenty other
things besides."

Peggy gave a little shake of her head.

"I don't think I'll go to No. 9. I should like to live in a bigger
street than this. I'm on the look-out for a house with a garding!"

"Why don't yer go to a Registry?" suggested Eliza. "That's where I
should go, only uncle were so wild for me to come 'ere."

"What's a Registry?" asked Peggy. "'Tis where they marries folks, ain't
it?"

"No, silly! Yer puts your name down, and what yer can do, and then when
a lady comes along, they giv' yer name to her, and she sees yer, and if
she likes yer she takes yer."

Peggy's eyes shone.

"That's first-rate. I'll go this afternoon, and I'll put on my best
black. Where is there one?"

"The girl at No. 14 who's just come, tells me there's one in Friars
Street, No. 54."

Peggy repeated this to herself, and walked home radiant. She did
not tell Mrs. Croak of her intention, for she had a fear that she
might stop her. In this conjecture she was right. Mrs. Creak was
old-fashioned, and did not think much of Registries. She had told
Peggy she had mentioned her to the Bible-woman and to the district
visitor, and they had both promised to look-out for a place for her.
But Peggy found waiting was a trial, and so she took her future into
her own hands, and when she was arrayed in her black frock and hat, she
informed Mrs. Jones that she was going out to look for a place.

"Good luck go with you!" said that good-natured woman. "And mind you
say you can mind babies well, Peg. I'll speak for you there, for you've
minded h'Arthur h'off and h'on since he cut his first tooth!"

Peggy marched away. She looked at her reflected figure in the shop
windows with great satisfaction.

"You look grand, Peggy!" she ejaculated. "Fit to be in a real good
place, and you see you get it, that's all!"

She found the Registry. It was a Berlin Wool shop, and a large card
printed in the window stated that it was a "Servants' Registry."

She went boldly in, and addressed a stern looking-woman behind the
counter.

"Please 'm, I've come to look for a place."

"What kind of place?" demanded the woman. "Have you ever been out
before?"

"No," said Peggy importantly. "This is my first place, so I'm very
partic'lar about it."

"And what can you do?"

Not a glimmer of a smile crossed the questioner's face.

Peggy drew a long breath. She had rehearsed it too often to be at a
loss.

"Please 'm, I can scrub floors, and clean grates, and make beds, and
clean winders, and sweep and dust, and mind babies, and cook 'taties
and tripe, and mutton chops, and steak, and red herrings, and make tea
and gruel, and hot drinks of gin and water, and nurse cripples, and run
messages, and wash clothes, and—"

"That will do. Your name?"

"Margaret Perkins, please 'm."

"Your age?"

"Thirteen 'm."

Another grave-faced woman came forward.

"There's a lady waiting for a girl," she said, in a murmur. "She
doesn't mind training them, she says. Shall I let her see her?"

Peggy's checks got crimson with excitement. When she was ushered into
a little back room, and was confronted by a tall melancholy woman in
black, she felt that this was a crisis in her life.

"Is this a respectable girl, Miss Shipley?"

Peggy did not give Miss Shipley time to speak.

"I'm quite respectable," she said. "I'm goin' to service because my
aunt has died. Lots o' people know me."

The lady looked at her gloomily.

"You look very small," she said. "Are you strong?"

"I'm quite strong, please 'm, and, please 'm, have you an ill 'usband?
That's the place I'm lookin' for. To wait on a lady with an ill
'usband. But I can mind your babies for yer. I'm first-rate with
babies, so long as there's only one in arms."

Miss Shipley turned sharply away. The lady frowned ferociously upon
Peggy.

"I am a single lady," she said, "and want a clean honest respectable
girl, who does her work, and keeps a quiet tongue in her head."

Peggy was not a whit abashed.

"I don't talk if I'm not wanted to," she said; "only, please 'm, what
kind of 'ouse do yer live in? Has it a garding? And is there carpets on
the front stairs? I'm lookin' for a real nice place."

"Miss Shipley!" called the lady sharply. "This girl will be no use to
me; she is either most impertinent or half-witted."

Peggy was bustled out, wholly unconscious that she was in fault. Miss
Shipley enlightened her.

"If you wish to get a place," she said, "you must be quiet and
respectful in your manners. If you sit down a bit, we may have other
ladies in."

Peggy took a seat in silence. She saw a good deal of coming and going,
was interviewed herself by a publican's wife, a grocer's, and a young
bride just married to a plumber and gasfitter, but she calmly declined
each of these situations, asserting gravely—

"I means to live in a proper house, in a real good place."

Then the Miss Shipleys lost patience with her.

"You tell us you have had no experience, and have never been out
before. You ought to be thankful to any one for being willing to take
you and train you. You bring us no references, and yet expect to get a
first class place. It is quite ridiculous. You are really too small and
young to be in service at all."

Peggy felt dismay for the first time, but she sat still in her corner.
Other servants came and went, but she did indeed seem to be the
smallest of them all. Presently, with a sigh, she got up.

"P'raps I'll call again to-morrow," she said. "There must be some nice
places goin', and I means to get into one of 'em!"

She made her exit very quietly. The Miss Shipleys seemed rather
relieved to get rid of her.

Once outside, big tears came to her eyes.

"Peggy, you ought to be 'shamed of yourself, great cry-baby! You've got
your clothes, and of course you'll get a place."

She rubbed her eyes vigorously, and was startled when she heard a
lady's voice close to her.

"What is the matter, little girl? Can't you get a place?"

Peggy looked up astonished, not knowing that her words were overheard.

A lady dressed in mourning was addressing her, and Peggy thought she
had one of the sweetest faces that she had ever seen.

"Oh, please 'm," she cried, "do you want a servant? I'd like ever so to
come and live with you."

The lady smiled. "I am just going in to the Registry for a girl, but I
think you are too small."

"That's what they say," said Peggy, with a little gulp in her throat.
"And if they only knew what I can do! I can scrub floors, and clean
grates, and make beds, and clean winders—"

She rattled off the list of her accomplishments with hope once more
shining in her eyes, as she saw the lady's interest in her.

"And, please 'm," she hurried to say, "I don't mind if you don't have a
garding; but I'd do for you faithful wherever you be."

"We can't well talk in the street," said the lady. "Come inside. I will
ask Miss Shipley about you."

Peggy followed her in with bright eyes and red cheeks.

"We don't know anything about her, Miss Churchhill," said Miss Shipley
when questioned. "She appeared about an hour ago. We wonder if she is
quite—well, quite bright!"

The lady looked down at Peggy's eager face.

"Not much the matter there," she said, with a smile.

"The fact is, Miss Shipley, we are giving up our town house, and my
sister and I have taken a small cottage in the country. We thought of
taking some respectable girl down with us."

"Oh, please 'm," broke in the irrepressible Peggy, "'tis the very place
for me. Mrs. Creak says the country is so clean, and I'll have to be
awful careful with my caps and aprons. Oh, please try me, and see if I
don't soot you."

Miss Churchhill smiled again, and then questioned her closely as to
references. The interview ended in Peggy leading the lady straight to
Mrs. Creak's sweet-shop.

"Mrs. Creak will tell you all about me 'm. And she knows what good
service is, for she lived in a Rectory. I s'pose 'm, you haven't a
Rectory and a church belongin' to you!"

Miss Churchhill's eyes grow moist.

"I have known what it is to have a church belonging to me," she said
gently. "My father was in charge of one in the East End, and died from
overwork only a month ago."

Peggy nodded sympathetically.

"I've had a death belongin' to me, too," she said. "'Tis awful! 'Twas
my aunt, and now I've no one left."

When they entered the shop, Miss Churchhill asked Peggy to wait outside.

"I want to have a private talk with Mrs. Creak," she said.

Peggy trod the pavement outside with firm steps.

"You've done it, Peg! You've found yerself a place with a real lady,
and it has been as straight and easy as anythink!"

Some acquaintances accosted her.

"'Ulloo, Peggy, goin' to church on a weekday?"

"'Ave you bin to a treat?"

"I'm a-goin' into service," said Peggy, with uplifted head.

"Oh, you por critter!"

Then they danced round her singing—

   "Worked in the army, worked in the navy,
    But most worked o' all is the poor little slavey;
    Cookin' and scrubbin', dustin' and runnin',
    Missis is allays a-beatin' and scoldin'!"

Peggy turned upon them furiously.

"You keep your tongues quiet. I'm a-goin' to the country, I am! When
you gets taken for a day's 'curshion, you think o' me! Not pickin'
flowers and eatin' apples and blackberries one day in the year, but
all the year round, all day long, I'll be doin' it! I shall live in a
hop-garding orchard, and never want no dinner off sassages or herrins,
for I shall eat strawberries and plums and grapes till I got quite a
tired o' their taste!"

"Go it, Peg!" cried out a small boy. "And where be yer goin' to live?
In a carawan?"

"In a white house," went on Peggy waxing warm in her enthusiasm, "with
walls covered with roses, and a green door; and vi'lets, and lilies
and chrysanthys all over the garding, and a pond with swans, and a
fountain—"

"Garn wi' yer!"

A piece of mud was flung at her. Peggy beat a hasty retreat, and
tumbled into the arms of Miss Churchhill.

"If you please 'm, may I come?"

"I am going to see your Sunday school teacher. I know her slightly.
Mrs. Creak gives a good account of you, Peggy, but you see Mrs. Creak
is quite a stranger to me."

"She's real good 'm, Mrs. Creak is."

"I have no doubt of it. I will write to you after I have seen Miss
Gregory. Good afternoon, Peggy."

Miss Churchhill walked away, and Peggy darted into the sweet-shop,
where she stayed for half an hour talking over the wonderful fortune
that might be coming to her.



CHAPTER IV

COUNTRY MUD

IT was a mild afternoon towards the end of February. Sundale Station
looked deserted when the London train dashed into it. Only a porter
stood on the platform to welcome any arrivals, and when the one
passenger proved to be our Peggy, hugging her small box, he looked at
her with grim humour.

"I'm paid by the Company to wait on you, Miss, so hand over. Where are
you going? Not from this part, are you?"

"I'm going to my place."

Peggy was in nowise daunted.

The journey had been a delightful one. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Creak had
both stolen a short respite from their busy life to come to the station
and see her off. She had received a parting present from both of them.
Mrs. Jones had presented her with a fancy workbox, gay with painted
flowers, and Mrs. Creak a stout serviceable umbrella.

Peggy thought there never was such a happy girl as herself; not a
shadow dimmed the future. And she looked up into the porter's face now
with such a beaming smile, that an answering one appeared on his.

"Well, where's that?"

"Ivy Cottage—Miss Churchhill's."

"Oh, those be the two fresh ladies come down last Monday. You wait a
bit, and I'll get my barrow and go with you. 'Tis only half a mile—a
little more."

So a quarter of an hour later Peggy stood before her new home. Perhaps
it did not quite come up to what her fancy depicted. It was a small
red-brick house standing back from the road, with a front garden edged
with trees and shrubs. Straw and newspaper littered the front path, the
windows were curtainless and blindless, and the front door stood open,
showing furniture blocking the way.

Peggy walked up the path with smiling assurance; then she paused, for
down on the floor, at the foot of a flight of steep narrow stairs, sat
Miss Churchhill, with dishevelled hair, and a handkerchief up to her
face.

When she saw Peggy she sprang to her feet.

"Why, Peggy, we have completely forgotten you! Come in. Is this your
box? How much is it? Sixpence. Thank you, porter; put it down here. We
are all in confusion. Good afternoon. Now, Peggy, you must help us, for
we hardly know what to do first, and I am in the agonies of toothache."

She tried to speak brightly, but Peggy's quick eyes rested on her face.

"Please 'm, you've bin cryin'. I'm wery sorry for yer; but, please 'm,
have you tried brown paper and vinegar with a little pepper? Aunt used
to find it eased her faceache wonderful, and Mrs. Jones, please 'm,
used to soak her brown paper in gin. She said it was first-rate."

Miss Churchhill began to laugh; Peggy's interest and earnestness when
she had hardly set foot inside the house comforted and cheered her.

"Joyce!" she cried. "Our little maid has come."

Downstairs came a bright-faced dark-haired girl. She had an apron over
her black dress, and her skirt was pinned up. She smiled at Peggy.

"There's a lot to be done, so you must help us as quickly as you can.
The woman who has been cleaning for us had to leave early to-day. We
have got your room ready. Can we get your box up? It is quite a small
one; you take one handle, and I will take the other."

The little room was soon reached. Peggy gazed at it with admiration,
but her eyes remained longest on her dressing-table and looking-glass.

"I was a-wonderin' whether I'd have a glass," she said confidentially
to the youngest Miss Churchhill. "You see 'm, it's rather partic'lar to
me, 'cause of my caps!"

"Oh, of course," Joyce replied, hastily beating a retreat; "now take
your things off, and come downstairs as quick as possible. It is
tea-time."

"My dear Helen," she said, when she joined her sister, "what an
extraordinary specimen you have got hold of."

"She is an original, but I'm hoping she may be a treasure. Don't laugh
at her, Joyce; she takes life in real earnest. She has done me good
already. I was feeling so miserable when she arrived."

"Poor old thing! You're worn out. Shut the front door, and come and
sit down. We shall all feel better after a cup of tea. Do you hear the
kitchen fire crackling? Doesn't that cheer you up?"

"We shall never get our furniture into the rooms," sighed Helen. "We
ought to have sold more, and brought much less."

"I shan't speak to you till we've had tea!"

Joyce went off to the kitchen, singing; then a few minutes after came
back to her sister.

"We haven't a drop of milk in the house. I've forgotten all about it."

"The farm is close; send Peggy."

"So I will."

Joyce ran upstairs. She found Peggy holding out one of her print
dresses, and gazing at it with loving admiration.

"I'm just a-goin' to get into it, please 'm."

"Oh, you needn't do that to-night. Slip on an apron. But I want you
first of all to run up to the farm for some milk. I will show you where
it is. Put on your hat again, and make haste."

Peggy breathlessly obeyed.

Joyce took her outside the gate, and pointed to another large gate on
the opposite side of the road.

"Go through that, and keep to the footpath across the field; then go
through another gate, and you'll reach the farmyard. Get a pint of milk
from Mrs. Green, the farmer's wife, and tell her who sent you. She'll
know then; and it will be all right. Do you quite understand?"

"Yes 'm."

Peggy departed with pleased importance.

She was a long time gone, but at last she reappeared with a very sober
face.

"Come along; where's the milk?" asked Joyce, meeting her at the front
door.

"Please 'm, I haven't got it!"

"Why? Have you spilt it? What is the matter?"

For answer Peggy slowly pulled up her skirt, and displayed one boot,
which she raised in the air for inspection. It was certainly very muddy.

"I had to turn back 'm. It was awful! I never see'd such mud—never! It
ain't like the mud I've bin accustomed to; it sticks! And it got worse,
and a cab-horse wouldn't a-walked through it!"

Joyce stared at her, then lost her patience.

"You stupid girl! It's no good to be afraid of mud in the country. Here
are we waiting for our tea! How do you expect us to get our milk? If
you don't do it, I must."

Tears that had been very near the surface now ran over.

"Please 'm, it's my best boots, and they cost four shillings and
sixpence; but I'll try again 'm."

Peggy choked down a sob, and departed.

Joyce went back to her sister half-amused, half-vexed.

"She thinks no end of her clothes," she said. "If she could only see
what a little guy she looks!"

"Oh, hush, Joyce! I don't think she is half bad-looking. She is very
thin, and has that stunted, wizened appearance that most London
children have, but she has a dear little face. It will be getting dark
if she does not make haste. I never should have thought that mud would
have turned her back."

Poor Peggy was going through worse horrors than mud, and when she
finally arrived with the milk, her hat was awry, her black dress was
covered with dirt, and her eyes nearly starting out of her head with
terror.

Joyce snatched the jug out of her hand, and marched off to the kitchen
without a word; but Helen took pity on her.

"What is the matter, Peggy? You look frightened."

"Oh, please 'm, I've never bin to a farm, and I did go through the mud,
though it was almost a-drownin' of me, and then I come to a gate, and
when I got through, please 'm, it was a wild beast show, only worse,
for they weren't shut up in cages! There was great brown bulls with
'orns 'm, a-tryin' to run at me, and there was pigs as big as sheep,
and great white geese, and a dog barkin' like mad and tryin' to break
his chain to get at me, and awful-lookin' turkeys which I've never seen
alive 'm before, only hung up in shops at Christmas-time, but I knewed
'em by their red beards, but the scandalous noise 'm they made at me,
would frighten the king hisself!

"They all made for me 'm, they did indeed, and there was ducks and
fowls by the hundreds all runnin' under everybody's feet. Please 'm,
I knewed I were in dreadful danger, but I did my dooty faithful, and
thought of your milk. Only what with the sticky mud, and the cocks and
hens, and tryin' to dodge the bulls, and turkeys, and all the rest o'
the wild animals, I fell slap down 'm, and then I give myself up for
lost. I 'ollered, and 'ollered, and then a man run out, and he took the
jug, and was so kind as to tell me I might wait outside the gate, and
he fetched the milk to me hisself.

"And, please 'm, is there no p'lice in the country, for they wouldn't
allow no such goin's-on in London; they be all on the loose and no one
to keep 'em from attacking yer! And, please, 'm, must I go every day to
fetch the milk?"

Peggy's breath gave out. She truly had been nearly frightened out of
her wits.

Helen concealed her amusement, and spoke very kindly.

"We forgot you were a little town girl, Peggy. We will not send you
till you are accustomed to country ways. I don't think the animals
would have hurt you, but I'm sure it must have been very alarming. Now
go upstairs and change your boots, and brush your dress, and then come
down to tea."

Poor Peggy went upstairs a sadder and a wiser girl. She shook her head
at herself in the glass.

"Yer clothes will be ruined, Peg, and you've no more money to buy new
ones. I almost thinks I shan't like the country."

But a minute after, the glory of perching her cap on the top of her
head, and feeling that it had a right to remain there, overcame all her
woes.

She went downstairs with a smiling face, and when she found herself
in a cheerful kitchen, which, though small, was tidy, she again
congratulated herself on her good fortune.

Joyce found her really helpful in getting things to rights, and when
she laid her head on her pillow that night, Peggy added the following
to her evening prayer:

   "And, please God, I thank you for bringin me 'ere, and making me into
a proper servant. And I'll try to do my dooty to you and my missuses. And
please help me to do it, for Jesus' sake. Amen."

Perhaps the supreme moment to Peggy was that in which she stood arrayed
the next morning in her clean print gown. What did it matter if it was
faded and old? It was starched, and crackled when she moved.

"Sounds like silk almost," she said to herself; and she certainly swept
downstairs as if she were a princess robed in satin.

Poor little Peggy had never before possessed a dress that had to be
washed. When water was scarce, and soap and soda had to be considered,
it was natural that she could not afford the luxury of a dress that
soiled so easily. A girl going to her first ball could not have taken
more care not to spoil the dainty freshness of her gown, than Peggy did
of her second-hand print dress that morning.

Joyce, coming down to help with the breakfast, returned to her sister
upstairs exploding with laughter.

"Helen, your little maid will be the death of me!"

"What has she done now?"

"She has pinned newspapers all over herself to preserve her gown and
apron. She looks like a walking edition of the 'Times!' And when I
remonstrated, she said the coals and kitchen grate would soil her
clothes. Can't you hear her crackling as she moves about?"

Helen laughed heartily.

"Don't hurt her feelings. I don't think she has ever possessed a cotton
frock before. She will soon get accustomed to it, and, after all, such
extreme cleanliness ought to be encouraged."

In a few days Ivy Cottage presented a tidy aspect. Helen and Joyce
felt that their rooms, if tiny, were cosy and even pretty. And Peggy's
gratification was great when the stairs were carpeted. She took a keen
interest in her new surroundings and learnt to use the possessive case
pretty freely.

It was "my kitchen," "my kettle," "I'm sweepin' my draw'n' room,"
or "dustin' my dinin' room bookcase." Everything—upstairs and
down—belonged to her, and "my house, my garding, and my missuses"
formed the chief topic of conversation with any passing villager. She
found she had a great deal to learn, but she was so willing and anxious
to please, that Joyce, who took her in hand, forgave her ignorance and
awkwardness, and prophesied to her sister that though at present a
rough diamond, she might prove worth her weight in gold.

Mrs. Creak meanwhile looked out anxiously for Peggy's first letter.

The Board School had certainly taught her to read and write, and though
the letter arrived with many an ink-smudge and blot, it was quite
decipherable.

   "MY DEAR MRS. CREAK,—I'm going to write to you for this is Sunday and
I've been to church, and I let you no that the cuntry aint clean at
all, but downrite filthy, for I never seed mud like it in London. There
is no lamps or shops when tis dark so you falls down anyweres in a
ditch or pond and no pleece picks you up for there is none of them.

   "Old men wears their shirts over their coats to come to church. Farms
has hunderds of feerce animals kep roun them which you has to walk
thro, and they all tries to kep you away from the door, and cows and
bulls walks along the road all day. There is no shops noweres.

   "My place is fine and I has butter to eat evry day. I has many
hunderds of things to take care of. I treds on carpets evry day.
I spilt tea over my apron I trys to be clean. There is more to dirt me
than our room in London. My missuses are nice ladys. I am quite well
as I hopes it leaves you at present.

                     "Your friend,

                           "MARGARET PERKINS.

   "P. S.—Nex Sunday I goes to Sunday School. Please give my love to
Missus Jones."

"Well," said Mrs. Creak, folding up the letter and taking off her
spectacles, "girls is different to when I was young! The country too
dirty for her! What next! Nought about the sweet, pure air and blue sky
and singing birds, and green grass and trees and hedgerows. Her eyes
never gets higher than the mud! I'm ashamed on her, that I be!"



CHAPTER V

"TOO FAITHFUL"

"PEGGY, Miss Joyce and I have to go away for a night. We are wondering
about you, but Mrs. Timson, our next neighbour up the road, has kindly
said she will let you sleep at her cottage. In fact, I think we had
better lock up the house, and you go to her altogether."

But this did not suit Peggy at all. Here was an occasion to prove her
trustworthiness!

"Oh, please 'm, I've a lot o' cleanin' to do. I would be ever so
careful. Miss Joyce has showed me how to clean my brass fireirons, in
my drawin' room, and I wants to scrub out my cupboards, and I has two
aprons to wash, and, please 'm, there ought to be some one to take care
of the 'ouse, 'cause of burglars!"

"We are not afraid of burglars down here," said Helen, with a smile.
"And there is 'Albert Edward'; he can be tied up to guard the place."

"Albert Edward," was a new importation. He was a rough-haired terrier
that had been presented by the vicar, and he was a formidable
watch-dog. Peggy and he were great friends, and they had many mutual
likes and dislikes.

"Yes 'm, Albert Edward and me will take care of everything beautiful."

In the end a compromise was made. Peggy was allowed to stay in the
house till four o'clock in the afternoon, then she was to go to Mrs.
Timson.

She stood at the gate a proud and happy girl when her mistresses
departed the next morning. She watched them out of sight, then stayed
a minute in the front garden, gazing at a clump of snowdrops, the only
flowers then in bloom.

Mrs. Creak was wrong when she lamented Peggy's non-appreciation of the
beauties of nature.

Her little soul was drinking it in very slowly, but very surely.

As she looked out of her small bedroom window every morning, she would
say to herself—

"Oh, Peggy, what is it makes you feel so happy? 'Tis the wonderful
lot of room you sees, and all the empty earth and sky, why all London
couldn't crowd out this place, 'tis so big!"

Now as she looked at the snowdrops, she addressed herself again.

"They does keep theirselves clean, Peggy. 'Tis a pity you can't be
more like 'em, they be just like white chiny. I'm glad I don't have to
dust 'em ev'ry mornin'. I should be certain sure to snap their stalks
off! I wish Mrs. Creak could see what flowers I have 'ere, and nothink
whatsoever to pay."

Then she betook herself indoors.

The garden was pleasant, but she could not scrub or dust it, and those
two arts were at present her chief joy.

The day passed too quickly for all she had to do, and at four o'clock
she locked up the front door, leaving Albert Edward in the back kitchen
with a plate of scraps by his side.

When she arrived at Mrs. Timson's she found that worthy woman sitting
down with her husband at his tea. John Timson was the carrier to the
nearest market town, six miles away. He was a meek little man with a
great faculty for receiving all local gossip and quietly passing it on.

His wife overpowered him when present. She was a head taller than he,
and a great talker, but not a cheerful one. They had no children, and
Mrs. Timson was very glad to help out their small income by going out
cleaning or washing. She washed for the Miss Churchhills, and Peggy's
much-prized cotton gowns passed through her hands.

"Come ye in and sit down, me dear," she said to Peggy. "I've been
expectin' ye this long while. How's the world treatin' ye? Better 'n it
do me, I reckon! For 'tis work, work, work, when me bones is full of
aches and pains. And if I had laws to make, I'd make 'em so as to make
the sufferin' ones sit still, and the hearty ones to work."

Her husband gave a quiet wink to Peggy.

"Meanin' me, in course, wife; but I do be at it all day long."

"You? You sit in your cart like a dook, and gossip wi' folks till one
don't know fac' from fiction. 'Tis me that be at it all day long."

"I like workin'," said Peggy simply. "But then I be stronger than you,
missus."

"That you be. I mind when I were a girl how I worked. But there! Things
is different nowadays, and I'm gradorly droppin' down towards me tomb."

"I've locked up," said Peggy inconsequently. "Do you think it will be
all safe?"

"Safe as my watch in my pocket," said the carrier.

His wife shook her head at him.

"Do ee remember that terrible murder away at Ball Farm two years gone?
'Twas a farm servant left in charge, and 'twas gipsies that did it. Two
men got inside, dressed like women, and they were purtending to tell
fortunes, and the poor little maid screamed for help, and they killed
her."

Peggy's eyes grew round. She was accustomed to London horrors, but she
thought the country was free of them.

"I ain't afraid of no one with Albert Edward," she said sturdily. "I'd
like to have slep' by myself over at my 'ouse to-night. Albert Edward
would kill any burglar if he could get at him, I know he would."

Once embarked on a gruesome subject, Mrs. Timson flowed on, bringing
out of her past reminiscences so many ghastly stories of murder
and thieving and such-like, that at last her more cheerful husband
interfered.

"Come, missus, stop it! This young lady won't sleep to-night. She be
drinkin' it all in like water!"

"Oh! I ain't afraid," Peggy again repeated. "I arsks God to keep me
safe, and I knows He will."

Her sleep was sound and sweet in spite of Mrs. Timson's stories, and
she would hardly wait for her breakfast, so impatient was she to get
back to Ivy Cottage.

"My missuses will be back at three o'clock, and I has my rooms to sweep
and dust, and Albert Edward will be expectin' of me."

She ran back with a light heart, found the postman had left two
letters, but no one else had disturbed the premises. She worked
away with a light heart, but at twelve o'clock heard at sharp ring
at the bell, and when she went to the door was confronted by a tall
commanding-looking lady, who asked gruffly if the Miss Churchhills were
at home.

Now the last words of Miss Churchhill to Peggy had been these—

"You are to let nobody into the house, Peggy. You cannot be too
careful. If any one calls, say we are away from home."

So, with a suspicious glance at the visitor, Peggy replied importantly—

"My missuses be away till this arternoon."

"How vexing, to be sure! But they must have had my letter. I will come
in and wait. My bag is at the station, and will follow me."

Peggy's head was so full of the stories that she had heard, that she
murmured to herself—

"Tis a burglar, Peggy, a-dressed up and tryin' to get in. Now be brave,
and do your dooty."

She slowly began to shut the door.

"No 'm, I ain't goin' to let you in; and if you don't get off with yer
pretty sharp, I'll call Albert Edward!"

"You impertinent girl! Do you know who I am?—Miss Alicia Allandale. How
dare you try to shut the door in my face! A nice reception when I come
to see my nieces! Let me in this minute!"

Miss Allandale had a stronger arm than Peggy. As she found she could
not close the door, she called loudly to Albert Edward. Alas! He was
already barking frantically in the back kitchen, with two closed doors
between him and the intruder.

"You go out this minit!" Peggy shouted valiantly. "I see yer tricks.
You ain't a-comin' I tell yer, so there. Not if I dies for it!"

The lady made no reply, but she thrust Peggy aside as if she were a fly
on the wall, and walked straight into the little drawing room. Then
Peggy flew to the kitchen, got hold of Albert Edward, and brought him
snarling and growling with rage to the door. She was about to let him
in upon the uninvited guest when a second thought struck her. The key
was outside the drawing room door. She locked the lady in, and then
drew a long breath.

"Now I'll go and fetch a pleece, if I can find one; only, Peggy, you
stoopid, he may get through the window and take all the chiny and books
with 'im! Here, Albert Edward, come here! You watch outside the window,
and if he or she—I dunno which it is—shows their 'eel's outside the
window, you go for them, my boy!"

Albert Edward was only too delighted to oblige. He took up his position
outside the window, and with low continuous growls, and much display of
teeth, proved his ability to guard his mistress's domain.

Peggy flew along the road, first to Mrs. Timson's, but that good woman
was out; then, as she was nearing the village, she met the blacksmith.

"Oh! Please, sir," she gasped, "could you catch 'old of a burglar? I
don't know where to find the pleece, and you look fairish strong. I've
been and locked 'im up; he's dressed like a woman. Oh! Come on quick,
please sir! He may be smashin' the china when he finds he can't get
out!"

The blacksmith looked puzzled, but obligingly accompanied Peggy.

"You be a smart little maid to have tackled a thief," he said. "Tell us
how it was."

Peggy began her story, but as she neared Ivy Cottage her heart misgave
her when she saw Albert Edward in the road, worrying at some object
which he held between his teeth.

"He's got away!" she exclaimed. "We be too late!"

But when she bent over Albert Edward and found he held a lady's shoe in
his mouth, she looked up at the blacksmith with a doubtful face.

"You don't think, sir, that he 've a-killed and eaten 'er?"

They found the drawing room empty, but the window open.

The blacksmith made light of it. "Your visitor found his welcome too
hot for my girl. Look about and see if there be anything missing. It
don't look as if he have taken anything."

Peggy made a minute inspection of the room.

"No, everythink be right. You don't think really that Albert Edward—"

The blacksmith lifted up his head, and gave a hearty laugh.

"I don't think he swallowed 'im, my girl; no, I don't indeed. Keep the
shoo, and we'll put the pleece on his track. Are you 'feared of bein'
left?"

"Not a bit!" said sturdy Peggy. "'E won't show his nose agen with me
and Albert Edward here."

By the time the Miss Churchhills arrived, Peggy had come to the
conclusion that she had been at last what she had long wished to be—a
real heroine.

"And, Peggy, if you'd only kep' 'im and given 'im up to the pleece
proper, I 'spect your name would have come out in the newspapers; and
then what would you have felt like!"

She poured forth her story rather incoherently, but with great pride.
To her consternation, Helen turned upon her.

"What name did you say, Peggy? Why it was our Aunt Alicia. Did a letter
come? Oh what have you done?"

Joyce began to laugh, and Peggy to cry.

"Please 'm, she looked too tall; and her voice was so gruff."

"Of course it was," said Joyce. "She's an eccentric old lady, Peggy,
who is fond of taking us by surprise. Well, what does she say, Helen?
Don't look so grave."

Helen held out the letter, which was as follows:—

   "DEAR NIECES,—As I find myself within thirty miles of your new abode,
I shall give myself the pleasure of coming to stop a night with you.
I haven't given you a present for some time, but will wait till I see
what you need most in your cottage. Expect me by the 11.30 train.

               "Your affectionate aunt,

                             "ALICIA ALLANDALE."

Joyce read this aloud.

Peggy's face was a study as she listened, and as she understood the
enormity of her offence. Holding out a stout but much-bitten black shoe
in her hand, she said tragically—

"And, please 'm, this is all that is left of 'er!"

Helen, as well as Joyce, saw the humour of the situation, and laughed
aloud.

But they were seriously annoyed; and poor Peggy, dashed from her
pedestal as heroine to a very stupid and ignorant little servant-maid,
spent the rest of the day in tearful lamentation.

The next morning Helen received the following letter:

   "DEAR NIECE,—I was subjected to such insolence and humiliation from
your ignorant servant yesterday, who absolutely refused me entrance,
and refused to listen to my explanation, that I have resolved never to
place myself in a like position again. I don't know where you got her,
or what training you are giving her. I conclude she is the lowest type
of humanity, and the nearest proximity to a savage that I have ever
come in contact with. She not only locked me in a room, but fetched a
low, vicious mongrel, and deliberately set him at me. My dress is in
rags, and ankles severely bitten. I am in the doctor's hands. It will
be long before I propose myself as your visitor again.

               "Your affectionate aunt,

                             "ALICIA ALLANDALE."

"Peggy is too faithful," murmured Helen.

"She has more heart than head," said Joyce. "Well, cheer up, Helen. We
have lost a substantial cheque, which we can ill afford at present. You
must write and explain; but she will never forgive or forget it."

And Miss Alicia never did.

As for Peggy, her spirits fell considerably. She was learning life's
lessons, and discovered that her sense and judgment were not always to
be relied on.

"You've had a fall, Peggy," she said to herself, "and you won't get up
so high nex' time. Oh my! I only hope a real burglar won't come along.
For I'm certain sure that I'll ask him in so porlite, and be so kind to
'im that he'll clear the whole 'ouse as easy as can be!"



CHAPTER VI

A HEATHEN STOCKING

PEGGY had been to a missionary meeting in the village schoolroom. It
had been held there expressly for children, and a missionary from India
had spoken very earnestly to them.

"Do you all know about Jesus?" he had asked.

Then reading assent in their faces, he went on, "Happy children, to
know you have a Saviour and Friend with you every day! There are
hundreds of thousands living and dying without this knowledge. Would
you not like to help to tell them about it? There are none too small to
be missionaries, and I hope some of you are missionaries at home.

"Remember the little captive maid who told her master of the One who
could cure him. There are many at home who want to be cured by the
Great Physician. Tell others about Jesus. If you don't begin doing this
at home in England, you will never be able to do it abroad amongst the
heathen. We want you to tell about Jesus; we want you to pray to Him
for the poor heathen, and we want you to give of your money to help to
send missionaries out to teach them. Prayers, purses, and preaching
bring heathen to Jesus. Do not forget these three P's."

Peggy walked home full of thought.

When Helen asked her if she had enjoyed it she said "Yes 'm." Then,
after a pause, she said irrelevantly, "I suppose 'm you'll never have a
ill gentleman to live with you?"

"Why, no, Peggy."

"I did used to think I wouldn't get a place without a ill gentleman,
but I couldn't find one, and then you come along, and so I came."

Helen looked puzzled.

"Why did you want a place with an invalid gentleman?"

"So as to be like the little servant in the Bible," was Peggy's prompt
reply. "I somehow thinks I could 'elp him like the other girl did."

"But, Peggy, you need not wait for that opportunity," said Helen
gently. "There are always people to be helped, even in our
village—people who want to be told that Jesus will cure their souls if
not their bodies."

"Do people have sick souls?" asked Peggy earnestly.

"Yes, indeed they do. The soul that hasn't Jesus living in it is always
sick—sick unto death."

Peggy pondered over this.

"I'm a-goin' to think over those there three P's," she said presently.
"And, please 'm, I've done one already."

"Which is that, Peggy?"

"Prayers 'm."

"I'm glad to hear you have prayed about it. You mustn't forget to pray
every day, Peggy."

"But, please 'm, the gentleman told us of them idols that the heathen
made. He said them were deaf, but God weren't."

"Yes?"

"So, please 'm, I ain't goin' to arsk God more 'n once. I kneeled down
when I comed 'ome, and I arsked Him to save the heathen, every one. And
He ain't deaf, so I ain't goin' to arsk Him again."

Helen looked at Peggy, but said nothing. And Joyce at this moment
coming into the room, prevented further conversation.

Two days after this, an old pedlar came to the door. Peggy went to
interview him.

"We don't want nothink, thank yer," she said, eyeing his wares with
some curiosity.

"Now don't 'ee say so, my dear, with your pretty young face a-longin'
for a bright bow of ribbon in your cap. Look at this piece o' blue,
three yards for sevenpence. Why, 'tis givin' it away. Ah, I see you're
a sensible girl; you don't care for finery. Now I dessay I have a book
or two that may take your fancy; or a pictur' now. Look at this one. A
religious one this is, very sootable for a bedroom."

"'Tis Christ knockin' at the door," said Peggy, with a pleased nod.

"'Well, I s'pose it is; only one shillin' and sixpence. Why, He be
worth more nor that, hain't He?"

Peggy frowned at his chuckle that followed.

"'Tis Jesus Christ you be speakin' of. And that's our soul He's
a-knockin' at."

"'Tisn't mine," said the old man; "I don't deal in such harticles. I
hain't got no soul—don't believe in 'em."

Peggy stood gazing at him with horror.

"You was born with one," she said; "what have you been and done with
it?"

He rubbed his head and looked at her with a curious sort of smile.

"What have you done wi' yours?" he demanded.

Peggy's voice hushed.

"I giv' it to the Lord Jesus. Teacher taught me how at Sunday School."

There was a little silence, then Peggy saw her opportunity and seized
it.

"My missus told me there were some souls 'sick unto death.' Maybe yours
is—nearly dead, but not quite."

"Wery likely," was the amused retort.

"Wouldn't you like it made alive agen?"

Such a flash of light lit up Peggy's plain little face as she asked
this question that an answering gleam played across the old pedlar's.

"How's it to be done?" he asked.

Peggy pointed to the picture.

"Ask Him to come into it. If He lives in it, He'll make it alive agen;
missus said so."

"Oh, ay," said the old man; but a long-drawn sigh escaped him. "Well,
good-day, missy, as ye won't buy nothin'."

But Peggy seized hold of him by the lappet of his coat and detained him.

"But look 'ere, you just do it! I'm a-tellin' you of a cure for your
soul. Don't you go away without a-listenin'. I'm a-tryin' to be a
missionary at 'ome, I am, and you've a splendid one to talk to, almost
as good as a 'eathen. You listen! I ain't goin' to let yer go. Do you
mind the girl in the Bible who sent her master, the leper capting, to
be cured? I'm a-goin' to send you, and you'll 'ave to go. 'Course you
will. Who'd stay with a sick, dead soul, if they could get it made
alive agen? You go, do yer hear me?"

"Oh ay, bless the girl, what a tongue she has! Make a fine preacher one
o' those days."

A bell rang, and Peggy know she must answer it.

"Goodbye," she said, with disappointment in her tone. "But I say,
mister, if you go and get your soul cured, you come back and tell me."

"Ay, that I will."

The pedlar departed shaking his head; and so ended Peggy's first
sermon. She was very silent all that day thinking about it.

Shortly after this she was called into the little dining room by
Helen, to receive her first wages. It was an eventful day in her life.
She looked at the money as it was placed in her hand. It was half a
sovereign. Never had she handled a gold coin before. Her aunt's money
had been left to her in silver.

"I am very pleased with you, Peggy," said Helen to her, "but of course
you have still a great deal to learn. You are too noisy, too fond of
talking, and break too many things. All this you must try to get the
better of. I know you try to do your duty faithfully and well; ask God
to help you to cure these faults."

"Yes 'm," said Peggy, who was certainly learning humility. Then, with
a little burst of enthusiasm, she added, "Please 'm, I've never had so
much money of my own afore. May spend it just as I have a mind?"

"I think you had better lay half by, for you will be wanting some new
boots soon. You will have to be careful over it."

A shade of disappointment came over Peggy's face. She took her
treasured coin upstairs.

"Now, Peg, don't you be a silly," was her advice to herself. "You does
as your missus tells you. 'Tis the country that wears the boots so."

She turned the half-sovereign over in her hand.

"Five shillin's for boots, and five to make the other P. I'll ask
missus to give it to me in silver to-morrow. But, oh my! How grand I am
to be havin' gold of my own!"

The next day she got her coin changed, but a pang went through her as
she did so. It seemed as if she had only received it, to lose it at
once. However, when she found an old stocking, and put five shillings
carefully into it, her happy smile shone out again. Laboriously she
wrote out on a piece of paper which she dropped inside with the money,
"Margaret Perkins—Her heathen stocking." And then tying the stocking
into a tight knot, she deposited it at the bottom of her box under her
bed.

"There, Peggy," she said, with a long-drawn sigh of relief, "now you've
made a beginnin', mind you keep right on, and keep it secret from
everybody. And then one day you'll walk up to the clergyman and you'll
roll a stockin' of gold out at his foot for them there savage heathens.
Oh my! 'Twill be grand!"

One afternoon Joyce came into the kitchen where Peggy was cleaning her
hearth.

"Peggy, we want you to take a message for us. A walk will do you good.
It is a lovely day. It is to Mallow Farm; you have to go through fields
the whole way, but you can't make a mistake, as there is a beaten
footpath. Take your time about it, and give this note to Mrs. Webster
there. Bring us back an answer. We want her husband to supply us with
some wood for our fires."

Peggy departed with alacrity; Albert Edward accompanied her as a matter
of course. She was directed where to go, and lifted up her little heart
in gladness when she got out into the sweet spring air and sunshine.

"Oh!" she said, sniffing vigorously, "I feel as if I could h'eat the
air to-day. I'm quite hungry for it!"

The first field was crossed in peace. The second was full of young
bullocks. Peggy's heart came up in her mouth. She had not yet conquered
her fear of all cattle. She peeped cautiously over the stile, and
waited till some of the nearest ones moved away. Then, gathering
courage, she addressed Albert Edward.

"Look here, you've got to keep quiet. If you go barkin', they'll run at
us, I knows they will. You foller me."

Albert Edward wagged his tail in response, but instantly obeyed, only
out of the corner of his eyes he watched the cattle. Presently two of
them turned and steadfastly gazed at Peggy.

"Oh my! They're a-comin'! I'm a-goin to scream!"

She took to her heels, and Albert Edward, considering he was released
from his bond, dashed with a vigorous bark at the nearest bullock.

In a minute they were all in a commotion, and how Peggy ever got across
that field without being tossed or trampled upon, she never knew.

But she stood with beating heart when she had got through the gate, and
looked up into the sky.

"Oh God, I arsk you to take care of me. I'm dreadful frightened of
these here bulls. For Christ's sake. Amen."

Then she looked around her. What dangers awaited her in this field, she
wondered!

A light came into her eyes as she looked, and then wonder and
admiration hold her spellbound.

The field was full of sheep and tiny lambs. Peggy had never seen lambs
at play before. She stood and gazed in delight, and Albert Edward
looked alternately at the lambs and her with wistful eyes. If only he
could be allowed to chase them! But his conscience told him he could
not.

"I never, never see'd such darlin's! Oh, Peggy, you've come to a place
at last that is worth gettin' through those bulls to see! Oh, the
pretty little dears! Why, 'tis like bein' in a picture-book to be with
'em!"

A lark rose up singing before her. There seemed no end to the joys
of this afternoon. Long she lingered in that sunny meadow; but the
next field held a new joy, and only one or two horses at the farther
end were the disturbing elements. In a sunny hedge were clusters of
primroses. With a shriek of delight Peggy made a rush at them, and
when she gathered the first handful and inhaled their sweet scent, she
hugged and kissed them in ecstasy.

"I've never see'd 'em a-growin' wild. Oh! If only Mrs. Creak and Mrs.
Jones and h'Arthur were here! Now this is somethin' like bein' in the
country!"

She picked a large bunch, then renewed her way. Albert Edward had
turned up his nose at the primroses, but he was delighted to poke it
into the hedge, where he sniffed for rabbits, if not for the flowers
that grew there.

Peggy came to one more halt before she reached Mallow Farm, and this
was at a tiny cottage at the corner of a field. As she was passing by,
she heard some one calling. Curiosity made her put her head inside the
door, and there sat an old man cowering over a few lighted logs on a
wide open hearth.

"Do you want anybody, mister?"

The old man turned and looked at her.

"'Tis Bill I wants," he said peevishly. "Bill who works to the farm. He
said he'd be here to cook my taties, and 'tis gone four. I didn't have
none for dinner and wants some wi' my tea, and I've a-been and upset
the pot a-tryin' to put him on the fire, and the taties are burnt up.
Oh, dearie me! I'm a poor lone man who can't do nothink for himself!"

Peggy's quick eyes saw the overturned pot. She went forward and picked
it up.

"I'll peel a few taties in a minute and pop 'em on for you," she said
cheerfully. "You sit still, mister. I see the taties. They're on the
dresser there. Oh my! What a muck your things are in! Who cleans your
room for you?"

The old man began to cry.

"'Twas my poor Janie did it last. She only died six months ago. And
no neighbours be near—only the farm. Bill—he does what he can, but
he be a bit clumsy with his fingers; and I be terrible crippled with
rheumaticks. Thank 'ee kindly, my dear. You be new to these parts, I
reckon."

"I live with my missuses at Ivy Cottage," said Peggy, as she deftly
peeled the potatoes and dropped them in the pot. "I comes from London,
I does; but, oh my! What a sight the country be this arternoon!"

"What be the matter with it?"

"The matter! Why, the sun be shinin' and lambs be playin' and primroses
a-growin'. Look at my bunch! Did you ever see sich flowers? They hangs
'em round a black figure in London—on his birthday, I believe. That's
how I knows 'em. Beckyfield his name be. Funny his name bein' a kind o'
field; I never thought on that afore. Must have somethin' to do with
the primroses.

"Oh my! You oughter walk out, mister; 'twould cheer you up. There's
a kind of happy, wake-up feel outdoors to-day. And the birds are
a-singin' and a-flyin' up miles above yer head. There now, mister; tell
me where to get a drop o' water and I'll put the pot on for yer."

"'Tis to the pump outside."

Peggy found the pump and placed the pot on the fire.

"I'll ask my missus to let me come and see you one day," she said, with
a confidential little nod. "There's a good bit o' news and talk I could
give you about London."

"Ah, do 'ee come in agen, me dear. I be a poor lone old man, and no one
comes nigh me."

"All right, I'll turn up. Good arternoon!" She turned to the door and
almost ran into the arms of a tall young man.

Shyness was not one of Peggy's characteristics.

"I s'pose as how you're Bill," she said, with a queer look up at him.
"I've bin doin' what you oughter! Yer poor old father wants some one
to look arter him. Why don't yer keep the place clean? 'Tis as bad as
London for dirt and mess. You jest giv' it a good lick up afore I comes
this way agen!"

She marched off, Albert Edward at her heels, and Bill Somers stared
after her in stupid amazement.



CHAPTER VII

A FELLOW-GIRL

MALLOW FARM was reached at length, and Peggy's delight was great when
she found a gate that did not lead into the farmyard. The door was
opened by a bright, rosy-cheeked girl about Peggy's age, who said that
everybody had gone to market and she was alone in charge.

Peggy looked dismayed.

"Who are you?" she asked bluntly.

"I'm the servant."

"Reely? Well, I'd best leave the letter for your missus, and she'll
send an answer. Is this your first place?"

"Yes. Be you in a place?"

"My place is with the Miss Churchhills. They lives at Ivy Cottage. Real
ladies born they are. I comes from London."

"You don't say so!"

The girl stared at her as if she were some foreign product.

"Yes," Peggy went on, tilting her chin in the air, "I've seen a deal o'
London, too much by a long way, so I set my mind to get a place in the
country, and here I am. Don't you wear no caps?"

"No," said the girl, "us don't do with them in the farms. I've a sister
in proper service, and she do."

"Ah, well," said Peggy grandly, "they take a lot o' care and keepin'.
My name be Margaret Perkins. What be yours?"

"Ellen Tate. My home is in the village. I only come here four months
gone."

"Don't you like it?"

"No, I wants to go to a town. Tell about London. There are miles o'
shops, ain't there?"

"Miles and miles; but the country is a deal nicer."

"I'm sure it ain't."

"You has to pay for everything in London," Peggy said, slowly thinking
it out, "and the country gives it to you free. I picks up sticks for
the fires, and in London you'd pay a mint o' money for 'em. Look at
my primroses! I didn't pay nothin' for 'em. In London they'd cost a
shilling quite, and Miss Joyce brought some watercreases in the t'other
day from the stream. She got 'em free. In London you pays."

"Yes," assented Ellen; "you wants money if you goes to Lunnon. I knows
that."

"Have you got many friends?" demanded Peggy, looking at her with great
interest.

"Why, I haven't one."

"Would you like me as a friend? I think I'd like you. You see we be
both in service, and pretty near of an age. I'd like a friend in these
parts, and I believe we'd get on fine."

Ellen looked delighted.

"I'd like you first-rate, 'cause you'd tell about Lunnon. But what day
do you get out? I'd meet you on a Wednesday."

"Oh, I'll ask my missus, and let you know. I must be off now, for I
have my tea a-comin' on."

Peggy returned home safely, and in very good spirits.

"Please 'm," she said to Helen, as soon as she could get a chance,
"I've made two acquaintances this arternoon—an old man and a
fellow-girl, who is a servant. And, please 'm, I should like to see
'em both agen, and my fellow-girl and myself intends to be friends. I
h'aint got a friend here, for no one keeps servants in the village,
'cept the Rectory, and they do seem so grand up there. I hope you don't
h'object and I thought I'd ask you if I could have Ellen to tea once in
my kitching. I wouldn't ask you 'm to give her tea, but I'll manage and
half mine with her. I'll eat extry at dinner to make up, and she won't
take no notice if I don't seem to have the appetite for my food!"

Peggy paused for breath.

"I shall be glad for you to have a friend," Helen replied, "if she is
a good, steady girl, but I should like to know about her first. She is
Mrs. Webster's servant, I suppose?"

"Yes 'm. She seems a very nice girl 'm; o' course I dessay I could
learn her a few things. She don't wear no caps, but then she ain't with
real ladies. But if she ain't what I like 'm, when I gets to know her,
I'll learn her to be different, and if she won't be, well, I'll give
her up!"

Helen smiled, as she generally did when Peggy held forth.

But the friendship was formed, and Peggy and Ellen exchanged visits,
and walked out occasionally together.

"I would give a good deal to hear their conversation," said Joyce one
afternoon to her sister when Ellen had come to tea in the kitchen.
"Peggy's tongue never ceases; what does she find to talk about?"

If she could have heard them, this was what Peggy was saying—

"So you see, Ellen, I made up my mind then and there when the gentleman
spoke that I would be a missionary when I was growed-up."

"But," said Ellen, with round eyes, "you want to be eddicated, don't
yer? And how are you to get over the seas? And what will yer do when
yer gets there?"

"Oh, that 'll all come very easy," said Peggy loftily. "You has to make
up yer mind that you is goin', first thing; same as I did about goin'
into service. Then yer has to set to work to get yer clo's, same's I
did too. But my Miss Helen told me, 'tis very hot where the heathen
live, and they don't wear much clo's, not to speak of. So I dessay I
shall do fine. P'raps three cotton dresses, and a hat would last quite
a long time—and no jacket, you see—that 'ud save wonderful."

"But what would you do when you got there?" persisted Ellen.

"I'd have my Bible under my arm," said Peggy solemnly, "and I'd tell
'em all to come round me, very quiet like. I wouldn't have no pushin'
or fightin'. And then I'd read 'em about Jesus."

"And nothin' else?"

"Well," said Peggy, considering, "I think I'd tell 'em very distinckly
that Jesus died to let 'em go to heaven. I'd tell 'em He loved 'em, and
they must be good, and He'd help 'em if they arsked Him, same as He
does me."

"And then what?"

"Oh," said Peggy, still thoughtfully, "I s'pose they'd ask a few
questions, and then p'raps we'd 'ave a hymn, same as the street
preachers do in London, and then I'd have done till the next day. I
don't expec' it would be very differcult, Ellen—not if you set yer mind
to it."

"But I heard tell," said Ellen, "that people over the sea don't speak
English like us do, and can't understand it. Like a Frenchman who came
to our village inn once."

Peggy's face fell.

"I never heard that the heathen talked French. I hopes as how they
don't. I don't think they could be clever enough, Ellen. They be poor
ignorant critters, that be what they be, and wouldn't never have the
sense to speak in foreign langwidges—it be only eddicated ladies and
gents that do that."

With this reasoning she recovered her cheerfulness, until she
remembered sundry beggars she had seen in London who were not at all
educated, but talked in strange tongues.

"Anyhow," she said, after a pause, "if they does speak French, I'll
have to learn to speak it too. 'Tis wonderful what you does when you
grows up, Ellen. Most things come easy then. And I'll ask God to help
me, like He mostly does."

Ellen shook her little rough head doubtfully. "It don't sound as if
you'll do it, Peggy. It don't sound real. I h'ain't heard much of
heathen, but they live with lions and tigers, don't they? And I have
'eard tell that they eat one another up alive."

"I h'ain't heard that," said Peggy firmly, refusing to be deterred
from her purpose. "I believe that's a make-believe in story-books.
The gentleman the other evening called 'em 'poor critters sitting in
darkness, callin' out for light.' And he said we must take it to them."

"Then when you be growed-up, you won't be a servant any more?"

"I don't know quite, Ellen. You see, I ain't quite sure about
missionaries. Some on 'em p'raps goes to the heathen for a bit, and
then comes 'ome agen. And if my missuses ain't dead, I don't know as
how ever I shall leave 'em. But it isn't till I be quite growed-up, you
see, Ellen, and my missuses will be very old then—and p'raps they will
die—though I don't like to think of it."

Ellen subsided.

"You be a wonderful girl," she said. "I never have see'd any 'un quite
so queer as you be!"

One day Ellen was able to give Peggy a piece of news.

"My missus is goin' to have a lodger—a lady what's ill. She be comin'
to live with us for a month, and I'll have to wait on her!"

"Oh," said Peggy, with a long-drawn breath. "What a pity 'tis she's not
a sick capting!"

"Why?" asked Ellen.

"Is she comin' by herself? She ain't got no sick husban'?"

"No, that she ain't. I shouldn't like to wait on two sick folks—one be
bad enough. And how I be goin' to get through my work is the wonder!"

"Oh, but," said Peggy reprovingly, "this sick lady is who you must do
good to. Why, Ellen, 'tis splendid! You can be like the little Bible
maid—she had to wait on a lady, and she got her master healed, and
'twas talked of everywhere. You can guess how much her was thought of
to be put in the Bible! I wish I was you! Just for a bit, you know, to
see what I could do."

"I never does understand what you be at!" said Ellen. "What can I do
for a lady, 'cept to do what her wants?"

"You wait and see."

Peggy nodded her head mysteriously. She went on: "My Miss Helen told
me, there was people with sick souls as well as sick bodies, and my
teacher in London says to me just the same, only she was talkin' of
hearts instead. But I believe it means all the same. And you see,
Ellen, we've got to tell people who can cure 'em and then they goes.
That's all the Bible maid did, and that's all we've got to do. You find
out what your sick lady be like, and you tell me. I'll show you what
ter say to 'er!"

Ellen shook her head.

"I shan't do nothin' but wait on her," she said stubbornly.

They did not meet again till a fortnight elapsed, then Ellen was full
of information.

"She be a widder lady in black; and be very white in the face; and has
the headache, and lies on the sofy. And she has a stern face, and don't
smile much, but she talks to missus. She never says nothin' to me, and
I don't say nothin' to her."

"That do seem a pity," said Peggy slowly. "Can't you ask 'er if you
can't do nothink for her 'eadaches. Do ask her, Ellen!"

"She be a great reader," Ellen continued; "for she have books and
books, so her knows much more 'n I do about 'eadaches and everythin'!"

"You jest arsk her," urged Peggy.

Ellen would not promise, but one afternoon Peggy was sent to the farm
on an errand. And to her great delight she found the invalid lodger
sitting out in the garden. She had to pass her on the way to the house,
so Peggy at once seized her opportunity.

"Good arternoon 'm."

The lady glanced up. She had a book in her lap and another lay at
her feet. She seemed tired and unhappy. She looked at Peggy without
speaking, and, of course, Peggy hastened to introduce herself.

"If you please 'm, I'm Margaret Perkins—I'm Ellen's friend. P'raps
you've heerd her remark on me. I lives with my missuses at Ivy Cottage.
And, please 'm, have you the 'eadache to-day? And have you heard 'm
that puttin' yer hankychief in boilin' hot water and soppin' yer 'ead
with it is first-rate for the 'eadache? My aunt used for to do it, when
her were took bad with them. It's a thing I ain't troubled with myself
is the 'eadache, but 'tis very tryin' to bear' m, and I be mortal sorry
for yer!"

It was impossible to be angry with Peggy, as she stood there wagging
her head to and fro with great solemnity.

Mrs. Dale found herself smiling at the odd little figure before her,
and wondering at her eager interest in her welfare.

"I did not know myself and my headaches were topics of conversation
with any one," she said. "But I am much obliged to you for your
recommendation. I have tried hot water in times past. I do not always
suffer from headache. If that were all the matter with me I should be a
happy woman."

She murmured these last few words, but Peggy's quick ears caught them.

"Please 'm, I'm sorry. I be very happy myself, and would do anythink I
could for yer."

Again the lady looked at her with a sad smile.

"As you go through life, little girl, you will find there are many
things worse than a headache. May you never have the heartache that
often causes them."

She took up her book again, and there was something in her manner that
even awed Peggy.

She walked on to the farm door and delivered her message to Ellen.

"And, Ellen," she said, in an excited whisper, "I've see'd 'er, and
a-spoken to 'er, and 'tis what I thought. 'Tis a sick heart she has,
and you and me will see she gets it cured whiles she's here."

There was no opportunity for more conversation, for Mrs. Webster
appeared. She was a smiling, good-natured woman, and had a great liking
for Peggy.

"Miss Churchhill do be a kind lady," she said. "She have sent me
this recipe of her grandmother's for curin' spasms, which take me on
and off. Will you please take her back my respec' and thanks for it.
'Tisn't every lady will give a thought to other folks' aches and pains
and try to cure 'em!"

Peggy returned home full of thought. Later that day, just before her
bedtime, when she had washed up all her dishes and tidied up the
kitchen, Joyce came in and found her engrossed in a cookery-book; her
pen and ink, a sheet of paper, and her Bible also lay before her.

"What are you doing, Peggy?"

Peggy looked up with her usual pleased smile. "Please 'm, I'm tryin' to
write a recipe for the sick lady at Mallow Farm. I want to do it proper
like. 'Twas missus a-sendin' Mrs. Webster a recipe made me think on it.
Ellen seems as if she can't say nothin'! I do believe 'tis 'cause she
never were born nor brought up in London!"

"And what is this wonderful recipe, Peggy? How did this lady come to
ask you for one? Did you see her this afternoon?"

"Yes 'm. She were sittin' in the garding, and me and her had a few
words of talk together. I thought 'twas the 'eadache was makin' her
ill, but she told me 'twasn't, and when she told me, I was tooken aback
like, and didn't think of the right words, and so 'm I be sendin it to
her by Ellen."

"Sending her what?"

"The cure for a sick heart 'm. The cookery-book and the Bible is
helpin' me to do it."

Joyce retreated.

"Helen," she said, coming into the little drawing room where her
sister was seated working, "I think you had better look after Peggy.
I don't pretend to understand her theology, but she is going to treat
Mrs. Webster's lodger to some of it, and it is being done up in a very
unorthodox way!"

Helen looked up.

"You are always laughing at my little Peggy, Joyce, but I tell you she
sometimes shames me with her earnestness."

"Well, go and see what she's doing, for her originality may do mischief
sometimes."

Helen went off to the kitchen. She came back some minutes after, with a
crumpled piece of paper in her hand.

"I don't like to be always prying into her concerns," she said. "It is
no business of ours, and really I don't think her purposes are ever
harmful ones. So I did not ask her any questions, but she showed me
this, and asked me if it was spelt right, and I told her it was very
nice and came away. This is the rough copy."

Joyce bent over it and read—

   "An excellent recipe for a sick heart to be made well.

                          "INGREDIENTS.

   "You keeps quiet, and you puts your mind to it. First you kneels down
and arsks Jesus Christ to cure it, and make it well. Then you gives
it to Him to keep, for the Bible says, 'My Son give Me thine heart.'
Then He washes it 'whiter than snow,' same as Psalm says, and then when
He has cleaned it proper He comes and lives in it, same as He says,
'Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man open unto Me, I will
come in.' Then the sick heart begins to sing, because it's happy.

   "This recipe has never been known to fail.

   "Time in making: about half an hour."

Joyce looked at her sister, and Helen looked back at her in silence.

"I call it irreverent."

"She does not mean it to be so. She has been pondering every sentence.
She asked me about the time with the greatest solemnity. I could not
speak."

"It is almost clever," said Joyce. "What will she develop into, Helen?"

Helen shook her head.

"She is one of Christ's 'little ones,' Joyce—of that I am sure."

"If she sends it, make her strike out the time," said Joyce; "it seems
almost blasphemous. I will tell her so myself."

She went into the kitchen. Peggy was just going to bed.

"Peggy, you mustn't play at such a solemn thing as a heart being
changed by our Lord Himself."

Peggy's horror-stricken face was raised at once.

"Please 'm I never did!"

"But you've written that it can be done in half an hour. Do you know
some people spend a lifetime in seeking peace for their souls. It is a
tremendous transaction."

Peggy was silent for a minute; then tears began to gather slowly in
her big blue eyes. "Please 'm I thought Jesus Christ was ready always.
Teacher told me he wouldn't keep us waitin'. And, please 'm, I thought
p'raps she might think she'd be too busy to see to it. I didn't go for
to mean to play at it, please 'm, I really didn't!"

"You can't tie those kind of things down to time. It is irreverent,"
persisted Joyce, ignoring the tears.

"I warn't more nor harf an hour with teacher," sobbed Peggy. "She kep'
me back one Sunday 'cause I spoke to her. But I won't say nothin' about
time, please 'm. Only mayn't I put 'It won't take long if you put your
mind to it?'"

"You're a very little girl to be sending these messages to grown-up
people," said Joyce, eyeing her gravely.

But Peggy in an instant smiled so radiantly that Joyce felt quite
nonplussed.

"Yes 'm, like the little maid in the Bible sent the leper capting to be
cured. That's why, please 'm!"

Joyce left her.

"Peggy," she informed her sister, "is above and beyond me altogether!"



CHAPTER VIII

"A REAL LITTLE HOME MISSIONARY"

MRS. DALE was rather astonished one morning when, coming into her
sitting room to breakfast, she saw a rather crumpled note lying on her
plate, directed in an uneducated hand:—

                   "To Mrs. Webster's lady.

         "From Ellen's friend what spoke to you last
         Tuesday. With her respects and best wishes."

She was still more astonished when she opened and read Peggy's recipe.

And she read it, not once, nor twice, but she seemed to be weighing
every word; and then slowly her eyes filled with tears.

The interest of a little servant-maid in her welfare did not seem
impertinent; it touched the heart that had till now been filled with
aching bitterness.

When Ellen came to clear away the breakfast things she spoke to her.

"Did your little friend give you this note to give me?" she asked.

Ellen crimsoned, then answered nervously—

"Yes, please, mum. And I hope you'll excuse her, mum, if she have
written anythin' not proper, for Peggy be different like to most of the
folks here. You see, her come from Lunnon!"

"So do I," said Mrs. Dale pleasantly. "If she comes to see you again, I
should like to have a little chat with her."

"Yes, mum, thank you."

Ellen retreated in confusion; then she came back.

"If you please, mum, you won't let on to missus that I give you a
letter from Peggy. Her might think it forward, and I telled Peggy it
were."

Mrs. Dale promised, with a smile, that she would say nothing about it.
Two days later she was walking out when she met Peggy with a basket of
eggs on her arm.

Peggy smiled broadly, and Mrs. Dale stopped her.

"Thank you," she said, "for what you sent me the other day. I wonder
what made you do it?"

"Oh, please 'm," was the breathless reply, "I knowed you would be
glad to hear what would be good for yer 'eart. You did tell me 'm you
had the 'eartache, didn't you? And I has set my mind all along to
be like that there little captive maid in the Bible. Only she had a
sick capting, and I can't find one nowheres. And there be no prophets
nowadays—only doctors, and they don't seem certain sure of theirselves
bein' able to cure everybody. So, please 'm, I were very down'earted,
and then I were told by a missionary gent and my missus that some
people didn't know where to go to get their souls or 'earts cured. And,
please 'm, I thought I'd just like to tell 'em, and I hopes you'll be
quite well in your 'eart soon 'm; I does indeed."

Her big blue eyes looked so earnest and confiding that Mrs. Dale felt
she could not damp her ardour.

"Thank you, Peggy," she said. "You are the first person that I have
ever met in my life that has cared for my soul."

She walked on rapidly without another word, and Peggy stood staring
after her.

"Oh my! She is a nice lady. I do hopes she will be better soon."

She was very interested a few days afterwards when she heard that the
Miss Churchhills were going to call on Mrs. Webster's lodger, and she
ventured to ask Helen when she came back if she had seen her.

"Yes, I have, Peggy. I have discovered that my father knew her some
years ago. She used to be one of his Sunday school teachers. Then she
married, and has had a lot of trouble since. She has come into the
country to recruit her health."

Helen did not tell Peggy Mrs. Dale's history. It was a pitiable one.
She was tempted to marry a man she did not love, for the sake of a
home. Her husband proved to be an atheist and a drunkard; he led her a
miserable life. Three out of her four children died in their infancy.
Her only boy began to develop a taste for drink when he was only
fourteen, and was expelled from two different schools. She took him
abroad, and more to her relief than grief, he died of a rapid decline
when he was seventeen. Then she came back to her husband, and had now
only been a widow for a few months.

She said to Helen very sadly—

"My life seems finished, for all that makes life pleasant has gone from
me. I have no belongings, no religion, no hope; I bury myself in books,
but they are beginning to weary me."

"There is never an end of anything," said Helen softly. "Life is made
up of continual fresh beginnings, is it not?"

"Ah, that is talk—a mere platitude," Mrs. Dale said a little
impatiently. "I can never make a beginning."

"But out of chaos God can."

Helen could not resist this remark.

Mrs. Dale looked at her.

"I have lost my faith in God, and yet—"

She moved across to her writing-desk, and placed a slip of paper in
Helen's hand. It was Peggy's recipe.

"You may smile at it," she said; "but this has brought back such an
overwhelming charge of memories that I dare not say there is no God. I
believe it is the production of a small maid of yours. Was it her own
idea?"

"Entirely," said Helen, looking at the paper, with a grave smile; "but
there are great truths, Mrs. Dale, wrapped up in this small message."

"There are," responded Mrs. Dale; and then she talked of other matters.

"Peggy," said Helen to her sister afterwards, "is a real little home
missionary. However queer her methods are, she has the two requisites
for success—enthusiasm and perseverance."

"Yes," said Joyce, "but we engaged her to be our little servant; we
don't want her to be a missionary. However, I will say she shows both
enthusiasm and perseverance in our service; her scrubbing can be heard
half a mile off!"


Spring slowly turned to summer, and when the fresh-cut hay lay about in
the meadows a sad trouble came to Peggy.

She had been out one afternoon on an errand, and when she brought in
the tea her eyes were red and swollen. Helen was very busy that evening
getting some letters written for the foreign mail, but after tea, when
Joyce went out to the kitchen to fetch something, she came upon Peggy
sitting on a low stool by the fire, her apron up to her eyes, and great
sobs escaping her.

"Now what is the matter?" Joyce asked a little sharply. "Have you
broken anything?"

Peggy rose from her seat, and looked at Joyce with tragic eyes.

"No 'm, 'tis a deep trouble of my own, and I shan't never—no never—get
over it."

Joyce seated herself on the edge of the kitchen table, and prepared
herself for a little entertainment. She was sincerely fond of Peggy,
but she did not regard her little maid's personal experiences with such
sympathetic interest as her sister did.

"Well, what is it, Peggy? Has any one died?"

"'Tis worse 'm. My friend for life has giv' me up."

"Oh dear, that is sad! Is that a friend in London?"

"No 'm. 'Tis Ellen at the farm."

"You haven't known her for very long, Peggy. But why has she given you
up?"

The apron went up to the eyes again; and thou came the explanation,
poured forth with many sobs—

"'Tis like this 'm—it has struck me so sudden and so cruel that I'm
fairly dazed to think on 't. Me and Ellen were life friends. I was
bringin' on her fine to like the heathen, and she giv' me twopence
halfpenny last week for my stockin'. We was goin to grow up side by
side as it were, and I telled her everythink! And when you and Miss
Helen were dead 'm, we was goin' up to London to get ready for bein'
missionaries. That's what we arranged 'm.

"I never forgot Ellen in my prayers 'm—not once—and when I says 'Our
Father,' I thinks of Ellen and me right through. You see 'm, the two of
us made it seem right. I never could understand who the 'our' were. And
my heart and Ellen's were just made for one another. I often says to
her,—

"'Ellen,' I says, 'you listens and I talks; isn't that just right?' I
says.

"And she always said yes to everythink I said—leastways, after I had
learned her to, she did. And I was a-think-in' 'm that p'raps one day
you might let me go into the town by the carrier, and then I was goin'
to get Ellen a cap—a nice cap 'm—for present. I've always told her
she'd look 'andsome in a cap.

"Well 'm, to-day I went to the village and posted your letters, and I
was a-comin' across the fields, for 'tis shorter, and there were no
bulls in 'em, when I see'd Ellen sittin' on a stile, and a young man
beside her.

"I went up to her 'm, just as I always does, but the young man says in
my very face 'm, 'Who be this guy, Ellen?'

"And she laughed, though her cheeks were red, and she says, "'Tis Peggy
Perkins, servant down to Ivy Cottage.'

"'Tis Ellen's friend,' I said, lookin' at 'em straight. 'And, Ellen, I
wants to have a word with you.'

"Ellen tossed up her head 'm, and says, 'I'm busy to-day. Can't you see
it?' she says.

"'I sees you are idlin' with a strange young man,' I says.

"Then she turns upon me quite angry like. 'You go on, and mind your own
business. I ain't a-goin' to walk out with you no more.'

"And then she laughed and he laughed, and I says, 'You mean to break
our friendship, Ellen?'

"And she nodded; and then I come on home with a broken 'eart. He be a
stranger 'm, come to help Mr. Webster with his bay; and Ellen is on
with him, and off with me. I couldn't have believed she would have
laughed at me—I couldn't indeed; and all our years to come—hers and
mine—are no good at all now. And she don't love me no more. I h'ain't
got one friend in the whole big world, and, please 'm, I didn't think
Ellen would have done it!"

"Oh, well, Peggy, it isn't so bad. Cheer up! The young man will go
away, and Ellen will come back to you."

"Never 'm, never! I shouldn't arsk her to. I couldn't never trust her
agen."

"Well, Ellen is no great loss. There are other girls in the world quite
as nice as she."

[Illustration: "THEN I COME HOME WITH A BROKEN 'EART."]

"But I were a-bringin' of her on so," sobbed Peggy. "I couldn't never
make friends with no one else. She were a servant-maid just like me,
and we had points in common, and we could talk our missuses over, and
what we had for dinner, and the trouble the oving giv' us, and the cat
and dogs, and the mice, oh! Please 'm, I couldn't find another Ellen,
and she have broke my 'eart, she have!"

Joyce could not comfort her, neither could Helen. She cried herself
to sleep that night, and the perfidy of Ellen was a daily, hourly
nightmare to her.

"What's the good o' yer goin' on like this, Peggy?" she addressed
herself passionately one lovely June day. "Better be like Albert
Edward, and say nothin' to troubles that come to yer! He eats his food
and sleeps, and don't make much o' disappointments. And nobody cares
for your broken 'eart. The sun comes out just as fine, and the flowers
keep on a-growin', and the summer don't turn to winter to soot your
feelin's. You've been served shameful cruel, that you have, but just
set yer mind to it that you has to walk along by yourself till you be
growed-up. 'Tis wonderful what you can do if you sets your mind to it!"

And by dint of "setting her mind to it," Peggy did show a Spartan-like
cheeriness, but her happy smile seemed to have turned into a hard grin,
and Joyce could not stand it.

"Do, for goodness' sake, Peggy, keep from making such hideous faces!"
she exclaimed.

And Peggy hung her head at once.

"Please 'm, I were only tryin' to be cheerful," she said. "I ain't
a-goin' to cry no more."

"I'm glad to hear it. Ellen isn't worth the fuss; but you need not try
to wear a perpetual smile. It isn't natural."

"No 'm, it ain't," said Peggy, with a sigh of relief. "It be my outside
a-tryin' to smile, when my innards be still a-weepin'. But I'll do
better soon 'm—I reely will!"

Failing to have Ellen's company, she turned her attention to old Job
Somers, and whenever she could get an afternoon out, she spent it in
his cottage tidying him up.

"And, please 'm," she informed Helen, "we do a bit of sighin' together,
which be very comfortin'. For he have had a heap o' trouble, poor
old man, near as much as Bible Job did have—and we reads about him
together, and what he don't feel, I does, so every chapter seem to fit
us."

"But, Peggy," said Helen, "I don't think moaning over each other's
troubles will do you much good. I thought you were going to try to be
one of God's little messengers, and cheer people up."

Peggy gazed at Helen in silence, then without a word she moved away.
But she had learnt her lesson, and the next time she visited Job she
put it into practice.

"Good arternoon, Mr. Somers. How are you—rather sadly? But I think
you're lookin' a bit more spry."

"Oh no," said the old man, shaking his head; "I shan't never be better,
and Bill have taken to go to choir practice in the evenin'. They do
say he have a fine voice, but 'tis mortal dull for me, all alone! All
alone!"

"So it be; but, mister, I ain't a-goin' to groan no more, for I have
been a bad girl, forgettin' what I means to be, when I'm a growed-up.
And I've forgetted all about the singin' heart, mister, which you'd
best get as soon as you can."

"What be that? If Bill thinketh he can sing, 'tis more nor his old
father can do."

"Oh yes, 'tis certain sure you can. 'Tis what I ought to have told yer
this long while, but my trouble occpied me so. You do feel sick at
heart generally, don't yer?"

"Ay, I do that, my maid, I do sure enough!"

"Then I'll tell you how to make it change. You give it right up to
Jesus Christ, and He'll make a cure of it. You see, 'tis like this,
mister: When He came to earth, you remember, He were always a-goin'
about curin' sick folks. If any one had a sick body, and come along to
Him, He always cured it. Nowadays, He's a just goin about the earth,
a-curin' sick souls. O' course we don't see Him a-doin of it; He does
it very quiet and private like, but that be what is goin' on. Now,
wouldn't you like yours cured?"

"There's nought the matter with my soul," muttered the old man
peevishly.

"Oh," said Peggy, "there is, mister. Yer soul or yer heart, 'tis all
the same. You said 'twas sick. There be a deal o' folks with sick souls
I've heerd tell, and there be no medicine for 'em that you can buy, for
Jesus Christ don't mean 'em to be cured by anybody but Hisself. Now,
who's a-takin' care o' yer soul, mister?"

"Myself," answered the old man promptly. "'Tis my business, and no one
else's."

"You'll make a very bad job of it," said Peggy, shaking her head at
him. "I 'spect it wants a gran' clean-up inside, like this here room
that I've done so fine. Seems to me," she went on dreamily, "that souls
be very like rooms. They ain't fit to live in till the Lord comes along
and turns 'em clean inside out; gets rid o' the rubbish and dusts and
tidies 'em proper. Even then, if He's to live in 'em, I 'spect He finds
'em wantin' a clean, and dustin' every day. There be always such a lot
o' dirt and dust and rubbish in at the doors and windows, and if He
misses one day, I daresay they gets in a pretty mess."

"You be a strange little maid," said Job; "I can't foller the argyment!"

"I'm only telling yer the way to get yer soul made well and happy,"
repeated Peggy. "If you has Jesus a-livin' in it, you'll feel awful
well."

The entrance of Bill stopped further discussion. He looked at Peggy
with a pleased smile.

"You do be a neat-handed maid," he remarked. "How you do hearten up our
place!"

"'Tis you that untidies it after I goes," said Peggy, with her chin
in the air. "I never can make out what you does to get the place so
muddly."

She always gave herself airs with Bill; he seemed so big and clumsy
that she lost patience with him. He now stood in the middle of the
room, with his mouth partly open, rumpling his shock of thick hair with
his big hands.

"We oughter have womankind to set us to rights, and to keep us there,"
he murmured.

"No," said his father, "we'll do finely, Bill, without 'em."

"So you will," said Peggy brightly, taking her departure; "and I'll
give you a look up agen soon, mister; and you just do what I was
a-tellin' you of. 'Tis easy if you sets your mind to it."



CHAPTER IX

"I'M A-GOIN' BACK TO LONDON!"

ONE Monday morning Peggy was very busy making raspberry jam under
Helen's superintendence. Joyce had gone away for a week's visit to some
friends, and Helen was alone. Helen had just left the kitchen and gone
upstairs to get some jam papers, when Peggy heard a terrible crash and
heavy fall. She rushed out of the kitchen and, to her horror, found
that her mistress had fallen the whole length of the narrow flight of
stairs, and, in falling, had struck her head with considerable violence
against a corner of the wainscoting. She was lying unconscious at the
foot of the stairs, and blood was oozing slowly out from a cut on her
head.

For a moment Peggy lost her presence of mind. She uttered a loud
shriek, and rushing to the front door screamed, "Help! Murder! Thieves!
Fire!"

No one heard her cries, and, as she afterwards remarked, "'Twas as
well, for it were lies I shouted, but the words wouldn't come proper, I
were so full of horror, but I knowed the very worst had happened, and
so the worst slipped off my tongue!"

As no help came, she recovered herself, and valiantly tried to raise
poor Helen from the ground. This she found she could not do, so she
fetched a basin of warm water and a sponge, and bathed the cut, tying
a large pocket-handkerchief round it, and then, after placing a pillow
under Helen's head, dashed out of the house. Albert Edward darted after
her with a delightful bark, but he was ordered back immediately.

"Stay with missus, you bad dog, and take care of her till the doctor
comes!"

So back Albert Edward went, and lay down across Helen's feet with
a little wistful sigh. Peggy sped on to Mrs. Timson's, who was
fortunately at home.

"Dear heart!" she exclaimed, when the accident was made known to her.
"I'll go round to the poor dear at once! You'd best get the doctor, for
I've known 'em bleed to death afore any could get to 'em! Dr. Nairns be
the nearest, but 'tis six miles away. Run up to Farmer Bedford's. He
may send his lad and horse. Whatever you does, Peggy, be quick about
it."

There was no need to tell Peggy that. She was off like the wind, but,
alas Farmer Bedford and all his men were harvesting.

"Can you ride, my girl?" said Mrs. Bedford. "For we have our pony in
the stable. I could put a sack over him, and you're welcome to take him
if you like."

Peggy went to the stable, and eyed the white pony in terror.

"Would I be there double quick on him?"

"For certain you would. Here! We'll soon fix him; but, bless the girl!
You can't ride into Ferndale without a hat!"

Peggy put her hands up to her cap in dismay. But Mrs. Bedford seized
hold of a cotton sunbonnet, and clapped it over her head. Then she
assisted Peggy to mount.

But it was a dreadful moment to the inexperienced rider when the pony
ambled out of the yard. And before the gate was reached, he broke into
a canter, and over went Peggy, head foremost, into a heap of straw. She
picked herself up in a moment, and, barring a shaking, was none the
worse for her tumble; but nothing would induce her to mount again.

"I haven't the legs for ridin'," she explained; "and I'll not waste a
minute more time, but run off for the doctor at once."

Off she started, an odd little figure in her print gown and apron, and
a sunbonnet perched on the top of her cap. She soon found that too much
speed was a mistake, and she relapsed into a slow jog-trot along the
hot, dusty highroad. Oh, what an interminable way it seemed!

The sun beat fiercely down, and Peggy began to fear that her breath and
strength would give out. On she toiled, and at length raised a hot,
streaming face to the sky—

"Oh God, I arsks you to make me keep on, for 'tis my missus's life
I'm a-thinkin' of. I arsks you to make the road shorter, or my legs
stronger!"

And was it an answer to prayer, when the hot, pitiless sun became shut
off by a long line of woods on each side of the road? Peggy thought it
was, and smiled contentedly as she trudged bravely on. Milestone after
milestone she passed, and at last came in sight of the town.

People stared at her as she jog-trotted along in the middle of the
road, a panting, dusty little object, only once pausing to make sure of
the doctor's house.

But when she reached it, she could hardly make herself understood.
Happily the doctor had just come in from his morning rounds, and when
his servant told him, he came out to interview Peggy himself.

"Have you come from Sundale? Why, that is a long walk! An accident?
Yes. Take time, my girl. Here, sit down!"

Peggy swayed from side to side.

"Please, sir," she gasped, "my legs is done for. They've walked
theirselves silly!"

She remembered no more, for she fainted dead away. And it was some
minutes before Dr. Nairns could restore her to consciousness.

When she could tell him what had happened, he wasted no more time, but
had his trap round at once, perched Peggy up by his side, and drove
rapidly towards Sundale.

At first Peggy felt too shaken and exhausted to speak, but after a time
she found her tongue.

"You see, sir, that there hoss would have brought me quicker, but I
h'ain't been brought up to ridin', havin' come from London, please,
sir, and the hosses be mostly wanted for carts up there. If I'd
a-knowed you'd want to ride a hose when you go to service, I'd a-tried
to practise ridin'. I've see'd circus girls who don't think nothin' of
it, but I weren't acquainted with hoss-keepin' folks in London. I ought
to have kept on him, but he bumped so sudden, that it took me with a
shock. I do hope as how my missus ain't dead, I does indeed!"

A great sob stopped further utterance.

Dr. Nairns, with a little smile, tried to comfort her.

"I daresay we shall find her up and about," he said. "Perhaps she was
only stunned for a minute or two."

Peggy cheered up at once.

"Do you think so, sir? Well, p'raps she was, only 'twas a awful sight
to see. Have you been to see many stunned ladies, please, sir? Do they
get up the nex' mornin' same as if nothin' happened?"

"Sometimes they do."

"It must be wonderful nice to make sick folks well," went on Peggy.
"You does just what the Lord Jesus used to do. Now He have turned
people's sick bodies over to you, hasn't He, sir, while He looks after
the sick souls? And I'm a-tryin' to help in it, sir. It don't take a
very clever person to fetch a doctor, or to tell folks where to go for
one. I tries to tell 'em where to go for sick hearts and such-like;
and, please sir, ain't it a good thing the Lord don't live six miles
away from anybody, like you does?"

Dr. Nairns discovered that he was driving beside a little "character."
But Peggy's simplicity and faith touched him, as it did every one with
whom she came in contact. He let her talk on, and did not snub her, and
by and by they came to Sundale.

They found Helen still unconscious, but Mrs. Timson had managed to get
her on the sofa in the dining room, and, with Dr. Nairns' help and
instruction, they carried her upstairs to her own bed.

"Concussion of the brain," was the doctor's verdict. "You must
telegraph to her sister, and had better have a nurse," he told Peggy.

But she objected to the latter suggestion.

"Please, sir, I'm a first-rate nurse, and if Miss Joyce comes back, we
shall manage fine. I've nursed a crippled aunt, sir, from the time I
was a baby, and I did everythink for her! She could never use her legs
at all, sir."

"Well, well," said Dr. Nairns; "send for her sister. She will settle
it."

So Joyce was telegraphed for, and came back late that evening. Then
ensued some very anxious days and nights. Peggy was at her best. Joyce
forbade her to speak in the sick room, and when her talkative tongue
was silent, she proved a very quiet and skilful little nurse.

Helen slowly mended, but when she was convalescent, the doctor ordered
change of air for her, and after a good deal of anxious thought as to
ways and means, Joyce decided to take her to Bournemouth.

Then she had a talk with Peggy.

"We cannot afford to take you with us, Peggy, and you are too small
to be left in the house alone. We mean to shut it right up. Nov the
question is, what is to become of you?"

Poor Peggy's face fell considerably.

Joyce went on—

"You have been a good faithful little maid to us, and we don't want to
lose you. We thought that perhaps you might be able to take a temporary
situation with some one, and now we have heard of one. Mrs. Dale, who
you know came to see us yesterday, is going back to London, and has
offered to take you with her. If you would like to go, she wants to see
you this afternoon. We thought it would be very nice for you, as you
will be able to see your London friends again. And then when we come
back to the Cottage you will be here to meet us."

"Please 'm, how long will you be away?"

"Perhaps two months. We are not sure."

"And, please 'm, does Mrs. Dale want me to do cookin'? For you know 'm,
I ain't a very good hand at it yet, for you always does the sweets and
pastries."

"I don't think you will be required to do any cooking."

"Please 'm, I'll do my best."

Peggy's face was very grave, and it was graver still when she set out
to walk to Mallow Farm. She had not been there since Ellen had treated
her so badly, and she wondered what she should say to her if she saw
her.

On the way she met old Job Somers, hobbling between two sticks, a few
yards from his cottage.

Albert Edward who, as usual, accompanied Peggy, made a frantic dash
at his legs; but it was only a friendly recognition, and the old man
looked down at him with a pleased smile.

"He be a proper little dawg, so he be! And I be always pleased to see
'im, for I knows my tidy little maid be not far off."

"I'm a-going back to London," said Peggy, with serious face. "I hardly
knows what 'll happen to me now. 'Tis a shock my head hasn't got over,
for my missuses are goin' away and don't want me. And two months is a
long time, mister; and another place will be very anxious work for me."

"Dear life!" ejaculated the old man. "Bill and me will miss you sorely.
'Twas only yester-night Bill were sayin' p'raps one day he'd ask yer to
come and stop prop'ly with us. He do like the place kep' tidy."

Peggy was too full of the impending change in her prospects to realise
the full significance of this speech.

"Bill will have to keep the place tidy hisself till I comes back agen,"
she said. "I'll come in and say goodbye afore I goes, mister, but I
must hurry along and see Mrs. Dale now."

She reached the farm, and Ellen opened the door to her. For a moment
both girls looked at each other silently, but Ellen's cheeks were
crimson, and though she gave her head a little toss, she looked
thoroughly uncomfortable.

As for Peggy, her chin and nose were uptilted, and her voice as steady
as a rock.

"I wants to see Mrs. Dale."

Without a word Ellen ushered her into that lady's sitting room.

Mrs. Dale received Peggy very kindly.

"Your mistress has told you, Peggy," she began, "of my plan, has she
not? Would you like to come with me?"

"Please 'm, what will be my work? I should like better to come to you
than anybody else, please 'm."

"I have an elderly servant, Peggy, who wants a girl to help her in the
housework. You will not be in the kitchen at all except for meals. I
want a quiet, steady girl, who will do what she is told, and shall be
very glad to have you for the two months your mistresses are away.
After then, I think I shall be going abroad."

"I think I'm steady," said Peggy reflectively. She was not quite so
sure of herself now as she used to be. "And I tries to be quiet. My
missuses say my tongue be my worst trouble, but I will try to say
nothink to nobody if you wishes it 'm. And I won't speak never to you
unless you speaks to me first 'm. I think if I sets my mind to it, I
can do it 'm."

"I am sure you will, Peggy," said Mrs. Dale pleasantly. "I hear your
mistresses are leaving next week. I shall go up to town on Thursday
then, and would like you to travel with me."

"Yes 'm, thank you 'm. I will reely do my very best, please 'm."

The interview was over, and Peggy let herself out of the front door.
There was no sign of Ellen, but when she reached the garden gate there
was her former friend standing by it, with an awkward look of shame
upon her face.

"You might pass the time o' day wi' me, Peggy," she muttered.

Peggy stood still, and regarded her gravely.

"I'm a-goin' back to London," she said, in a solemn tone, "and so I
says goodbye to you, Ellen. I wishes you well, and I hopes as how
you'll never get a friend like yerself is. I forgives you for breakin'
wi' me, but I h'ain't got no more to say to yer."

"It were all that Ned Thorpe," said Ellen eagerly. "And he have gone
away, Peggy, and won't come back no more, and I've heard tell he's
goin' to be married soon. He carried on with one of the Rectory girls
same as me, and I never knowed it, and I do be sorry, Peggy, for I
liked you better 'n any girl I know."

Peggy's old pleased smile came back.

"Do you really mean it, Ellen? Oh my! How glad I be! Do you mean to
come back to me faithful?"

"Sure as I be standin' here I does," asserted Ellen; "and I be awful
sorry you be goin' to Lunnon, and I only wish Mrs. Dale would take me
too. Can't you ask her, Peggy? You and me would do for her grand!"

Peggy's eyes glistened.

"So we would; but she have got other servants, Ellen, and I'm all of
a tremble, for I've never been with proper servants afore, and hardly
knows what they be like. Oh, Ellen, I do be very glad you and me is
friends again!"

And in rapture Peggy flung herself into Ellen's arms, when they hugged
and kissed and promised to write to each other "every Sunday faithful!"

Peggy seemed to tread on air as she walked home that afternoon.

"Please 'm," she said to Helen. "I'm so full of egsitement that you
must 'scuse me smilin' a lot. Ellen have made it up, please 'm, and she
and me is where we was afore. And, please 'm, my heart is full up agen.
It have been dreadful empty since Ellen left me. And, please 'm, Mrs.
Dale is a-goin' to take me with her nex' week on Thursday."

The next week was a very busy one to Peggy. She seemed to have so much
to prepare and do. She went to old Job and paid him a farewell visit,
and then had the great joy of seeing her old pedlar again, and of
hearing from him that her words "had taken hold of him."

"You told me to come back and tell yer," the old man said, "if my old
dead soul were made alive agen. I didn't much believe I had one till
you spoke to me; but when I went my ways it seemed to be prickin' me
and a-heavin' of itself into my thoughts, and I couldn't sleep that
there night at all. And the nex' day and the nex' I were uncommon dull
and low, for I kep' thinkin' o' my old mother buried in churchyard
thirty years ago or more; but she were a very religious woman, she
were. And texes she used to say kep' comin' through me. 'Come unto
Me . . . and I will give you rest—' that were one on 'em.

"And then you says to me, 'You'll 'ave to go to get your soul cured,'
you says. And then last week I got tooked off to a mission service
by a neighbour, and then it all come up agen, and after fightin' and
strugglin' agen it, I giv' right in, and I kneels down and calls myself
a wicked sinner and beseeches of the Lord to save my unhappy old soul.
And, my girl, He listened to me, that He did, and 'tis wonnerful; and
I be trustin' Him to keep me and my soul together in His hands 'till
death us do part,' and then He'll take my soul to glory."

"Oh!" gasped Peggy. "I is uncommon glad, mister. I telled yer 'twould
make you happy, didn't I?"

"Yes," the old pedlar said, as he hoisted his pack on his shoulders and
went his way. "I be wery much obliged to you, me dear, and I'll thank
you if so be you offers just a prayer in company wi' me now and agen
that the Lord 'll, help me to live proper like, and not disgrace Him."

Peggy said nothing of this to any one, but it sent her about the house
with such a radiant face that Joyce said indignantly to her sister—

"I declare, Peggy seems quite delighted to leave us! I suppose she
really wants to get back to London. She is an ungrateful little thing,
after all we have done for her!"

But if she had heard Peggy talking to herself and Albert Edward the
last night in the kitchen, Joyce would not have judged her so hardly.

"How do you feel, Albert Edward? 'Tis an end and a beginnin' agen,
ain't it? And I'm dreadful sorry for the end. I always did have a
leanin' to the country, and it's come and gone very quick like. 'Tis
very well for you to take it so calm. Your missuses are a-goin to take
you with 'em, but they don't want me, and I shall miss 'em awful."

A little sob interrupted her speech. She continued, "But I ain't
a-goin' to fret, for Ellen and me is friends, and that there old pedlar
done what I told him to, and I shall see Mrs. Creak agen, and I likes
my new missus. And London do be very home-like after all said and done,
and you and me will be back here before long, Albert Edward, and if you
take my advice, when you comes to disagreeables, you'll set your mind
to make the best on 'em, like I does. And we won't think no more about
the goodbyes to-morrer, Albert Edward, or I shall be a-roarin' and
a-cryin' afore the time!"



CHAPTER X

"A SICK CAPTAIN!"

"YES, Mrs. Creak, 'tis me right enough! And how do you be? Ain't you
astonished to see me? And ain't I growed? Does I look nice? I hopes as
how I does, for I've put on my Sunday best to come and see you."

It was Peggy who spoke. She stood in the little sweet-shop, and it
seemed to her as she saw Mrs. Creak, with her mending basket behind the
counter, as if it were only yesterday she had been there.

Mrs. Creak put down her spectacles, and came out of her corner to
gather her into her arms and kiss her.

"Dearie me! Who'd have thought it? I always felt you'd do well, Peggy.
You were so set on service. You look quite fat and rosy. Let me have a
good sight of you!"

Peggy could bear inspection. She was in a neat black coat and gown, a
white tie round her throat, and a white straw hat with black ribbon on
her head.

Not pretty. Our Peggy would never be that, but fresh and bright and
happy, and Mrs. Creak nodded with smiling content at her.

"Now tell me how you be back in London? You must come into my back
parlour, and we'll have a cup o' tea together. Mine be just ready."

She led the way into a shining little parlour, with a bright fire in
the grate, and a tabby cat in full possession of the small gay-coloured
hearthrug.

Peggy proceeded to give an account of herself.

"And I've been in London a week 'm," she concluded with. "And I've
never seen such a 'andsome house as my missus has. I never thought I
would have come to it! 'Tis full of picturs, and curtings, and chiny,
and has three stairs all carpeted, and there is Lucy, the cook, and
Nesbitt, the 'ousemaid, and me to help Nesbitt. She's a bit grave 'm,
and don't like me talkin', and she be that partic'lar I has a hard job
to please her, but Lucy be awful good-natured, and my missus is very
kind. And this be my afternoon out 'm, and my missus have give me two
new print gowns. She said she liked me to look nice, and Lucy's niece
is a-makin of them."

"Why, you're gettin' on splendid," said cheery Mrs. Creak, when Peggy's
breath gave way. "I always says that some girls go up, and some goes
down, and 'tis their own doin', as a rule, which way 'tis. And how be
you managin' your money, dearie?"

"Oh," said Peggy, with a wise shake of her head, "I never spends no
more than I can help. I'm a-savin' of it slow and sure."

"A very good thing, Peggy; for the time will come when you may need it;
sickness or old age—"

"Oh, please 'm, I shouldn't think of savin' it for myself." Peggy
looked quite shocked. "Why, I never would be so greedy like. 'Tis for
other—Well, there 'm, I can't tell you, but I be savin' it sure enough,
and I means to. I have set my mind to it."

"And are you glad to get back to London, Peggy?"

"I is and I isn't 'm. 'Tis nice feelin' you're somebody in the country.
Why, Mrs. Creak, there isn't a man or woman in our village that don't
know me, and says 'Good evening' or 'Good mornin'' to me. You see we be
like one big family in the country; there be so few on us to know that
folks know everybody; and now in London, I be just like a fly. There be
too many like me to notice one in partic'lar.

"Oh, I likes the country 'm, I does indeed, but it ain't so clean as
it ought to be, and there be no water-carts nor mud-carts nor any
road-scrapers along the roads, so 'tis terrible for yer boots. But when
I come back to London and see'd the shops and people and hosses and
carriages, I could have hugged 'em in my arms 'm, I was that pleased to
see 'em agen. And how be Mrs. Jones and h'Arthur 'm? Do you see 'em?"

"Yes, I does on occasions, Peggy. You must just run in and see 'em for
a minute, if you've time."

"That I will. But oh my, Mrs. Creak! Ain't I glad I went to proper
service! Why, do you know, Nesbitt is gain' to learn me wait at table?
I'm a-tremblin' with the thought o' it, but I means to try my very
best. And if I can ketch hold of the dishes and hand them proper
without breakin', shan't I be just proud of myself!"

It was a happy little visit. Peggy ran over to Mrs. Jones, and was
embraced most warmly by mother and son.

When she returned to Mrs. Dale's house, she assured Nesbitt "that
visitin' old friends and places were most excitin' and agreeable."

"For, Nesbitt, I looks at myself as I were a year ago, and then at
myself now, and I says to myself, 'Why, Peggy, you was a dreadful
common girl when you first took a place, you didn't know nothin', and
you hadn't seen nothin', and now you feels as if you were full up with
h'information about house cookin' and housework.' And Nesbitt, I'm
awful glad I don't live in Bone Alley now!"

Peggy did not see much of her mistress. Mrs. Dale was out a good deal,
and she received a great many visitors, but one day she sent for her.
She was suffering from one of her headaches and lay in a darkened room.

"Peggy, I remember you telling me of hot water fomentations. I wonder
if you could bring me some hot water and try it. As Nesbitt is out this
afternoon, I must rely on you."

Peggy was delighted at the honour conferred upon her. She was away and
back again in a very few minutes, and as she bathed her mistress's
forehead, she said softly—

"I does wish I knew a certain cure for the headache. You has had yer
heart cured, but the head is the trouble."

"I don't think I have had my heart cured," said Mrs. Dale, half-smiling.

Peggy looked at her gravely. "I thought you did, please 'm. I thought
you wanted it made well, and that's what made me tell you."

"Yes," said Mrs. Dale, "but I haven't followed your prescription,
Peggy."

Peggy looked troubled, but for once her tongue failed her.

Mrs. Dale went on—

"A patient must always believe in their doctor, Peggy, must they not?
And they must be ready to take the medicine he gives them."

"In course they must, please 'm."

"And there are some people, Peggy, who find it difficult to get back
the belief they once had. They would like to cure themselves if they
knew how; they can't throw off their own efforts, and do nothing."

"Like the leper capting," said Peggy thoughtfully. "He was in a temper,
when he was told he must just wash hisself."

"You know your Bible well."

And Mrs. Dale gave a little weary sigh.

"Please 'm, isn't your head a little better?"

"I think it is, but I can't talk any more. Do you think your
Soul Doctor, Peggy, would take a patient that had spoken against
Him—slandered Him, in fact—a patient that had once been to Him, and
then had handed her case over to His enemy to take care of?"

Peggy's brows contracted with puzzled thought.

"He'd never send no one away, please 'm, would He? I come across a
verse in the Bible, please 'm, that says, 'They that are whole have no
need of the physician, but they that are sick!'"

"That will do, Peggy. Thank you. Now leave me."

And Peggy stole out of the room with a dim idea that her mistress was
not yet heart-whole.

"She 've never gone and done what I telled her," was her assertion to
herself.

And that night, by her bedside, she added this petition to her evening
prayer, "And if you please, God, I arsks you to show my missus the way
to Jesus, for she seems to have never got to Him yet!"


A few days after this, Nesbitt informed Peggy that the spare room must
be got ready for a visitor.

"It's mistress's nephew, the only relation she has in the world, and
he's a-coming home from India—been sent home because he is ill."

"I think I like sick folks," announced Peggy; "I feels so very much at
home with 'em. You see, I've nussed an aunt who was sick all my life,
so I seems to know just how to manage 'em."

"You won't be called on to have anything to do with this gentleman,"
said Nesbitt crushingly.

But Peggy was not easily snubbed. She continued to take an increasing
interest in the coming guest, and when she was told his name was
Captain D'Arcy, she was silent from sheer astonishment.

"What's the matter with you?" asked good-natured Lucy, as the three
were having their supper in the kitchen together, and Nesbitt had
mentioned Mrs. Dale's nephew by name.

Peggy drew a long breath, and put down her cup of cocoa that she was
raising to her lips.

"I've a-dreamed and dreamed, and longed for a place," she said
emphatically, "with a sick capting, and now it's come to me, I hardly
knows how to take it in!"

"You've a lot of silly foolishness in your head," said Nesbitt
severely, "that ought to be knocked out of it!"

"Lor, Nesbitt! Let her talk. I likes to hear 'er!" said Lucy. "Tell us
why you're so taken with sick gents, Peggy."

"Well," said Peggy earnestly, "'tis like this. I heard tell of a
servant-maid in the Bible, and I took a strordinary liking to her. It
didn't say much about her looks, or what kind o' home she had, but
'twas what she did. And I've always said to myself, that if I ever
found myself in a place like hers, I'd try and see if I couldn't do
somethink like her. And—" here Peggy hushed her voice to a solemn
whisper, "she were waitin' on a lady, and there were a sick capting in
the house!"

"Well, what o' that?" said Lucy, laughing.

Nesbitt looked at her in stern disapproval, but the bell rang, and she
had to go to her mistress.

Peggy hardly noticed her departure.

"The sick capting had a illness that couldn't be cured," she continued,
in solemn tones, "and the servant-maid got him well by tellin' him who
to go to. She sent him to some one who cured him."

"I believe I have heard the story," said Lucy indifferently. "Wasn't he
a leper, and didn't he go to Elisha?"

"Yes," said Peggy, "but 'twas the girl who sent him."

"I don't see much sense in that story," said Lucy, with a yawn. "You
reads yourself silly over your Bible, Peggy."

Peggy said no more.

She watched Captain D'Arcy arrive the next day with the greatest
interest. He was helped out of a cab by a soldier servant, and seemed
to be in very feeble health. His servant, Tom Bennett by name, proved a
welcome addition to the household. He was a bright cheery man, devoted
to his young master, and full of tales about his courage and endurance
in foreign parts. He told a wonderful story of the capture of a tiger,
and the three maidservants listened with breathless interest to this
and other adventures.

Peggy was full of curiosity, and her many questions amused Tom Bennett
greatly.

"Please, sir," she said, "have you ever seen a heathen or a missionary?"

"I believe I has," was the smiling reply. "Why, bless your heart, every
blacky is a heathen, and they be as plentiful as flies where we've come
from."

"And what does they talk? Is it English?"

"They talks gibberish; Hindustani mostly, but there be several mixed-up
langwidges which be past me altogether."

Peggy's face fell. "And you've seen a missionary?"

"Yes. Is he a natural curiosity, do you think? They ain't much in
my line, missionaries ain't, nor yet in the captin's, so we didn't
introduce ourselves. They be just a set o' parsons, and has churches
and schools same as in England."

"But," said Peggy hesitatingly, "there be some women and girl
missionaries out in Indy, I knows there be."

"You're quite right; I've seen a few. But they keeps theirselves to
their schools and such-like. They ain't in the captin's set, nor in
mine."

He laughed as he spoke.

Peggy, for a wonder, subsided, but she thought the more. And then one
day she saw Captain D'Arcy himself.

Nesbitt was out for the afternoon, and Peggy took tea into the library.
Mrs. Dale had been called away on business, and her nephew lay on a
couch by the fire, covered with a fur rug. Peggy regarded him with
reverence and awe; but not all her training by her former mistresses,
nor by Nesbitt, had cured her of beginning conversations with any and
every one that she saw.

"Please, sir, I hopes you're feelin' better," she said, as she
carefully put down the tea-tray.

Captain D'Arcy turned a surprised and languid look upon her, then a
twinkle came into his eyes.

"I'm getting on first-rate, thanks," he said.

"If I can do anythink, sir, to make you better, I would," persisted
Peggy, regarding him with anxious, earnest eyes.

"I'm afraid you can't," was the amused rejoinder, "unless you can give
me a new inside. India ruins a man's digestion, and plays the dickens
with him generally!"

Peggy's blue eyes fairly sparkled with delight.

"Oh, please sir, I knows who will make you new inside. I knows the very
One. Please, sir, may I tell you?"

Without waiting for a reply, she went on—

"'Tis the Lord Jesus, sir. He says He'll give us new hearts if we ask
of Him. If you go to Him, please sir, He'll make your heart quite well.
He will, indeed, for I knows heaps o' people that have had their hearts
put right, and I has myself, sir, for I give it into His hands, and He
done it. Please, sir, you'll excuse my mentionin' it, but I should like
you to get well, and it do seem as if you've got the right illness to
be cured. 'Tis just the inside on us that the Lord can cure. For the
Bible says, 'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you.'"

She paused for breath, and Captain D'Arcy was so taken aback, that he
remained quite silent.

Peggy had said her say and withdrew, excited and trembling at her
audacity.

"You've done it, Peggy. You've tolded him where to go, and 'tis his
sick heart that be makin' his body bad—he telled me so. Oh, I does hope
he'll go and be cured—I does, indeed!"

But not a word did she say of her interview to the servants in the
kitchen. She kept her own counsel. She had had her opportunity and she
used it.

"I'm as good as the girl in the Bible, now," she said to herself, with
a happy sigh. "She telled a sick capting who would cure him, and I've
done it too. I can't do no more. I wonder if he'll go."

"Aunt Alice," said Captain D'Arcy that afternoon. "You have an
extraordinary specimen of a maid in your household."

"You must mean Peggy," said Mrs. Dale smiling. "I daresay she does
look queer, but she is a rough diamond, Harry. She is a true, faithful
little soul, who puts her heart into her work. She is not my servant
really, but I am taking her to oblige some friends whilst they are
away. Do you remember a Mr. Churchhill, a clergyman in the East End? I
used to work with him many years ago."

"I remember two little girls, when I was a very small boy, coming to
tea with you once. Joy, or Joyce, one of them was called. She and I
vowed perpetual friendship, or something of the sort. Where are they
now?"

"The father died quite recently, and they are left very badly off, I
am afraid. They took a small cottage in the country, and had Peggy as
their maid. I was lodging in a farmhouse near them this summer, so
renewed my acquaintance with them. They are at Bournemouth now, for
Helen Churchhill has been ill and wanted a change of air. They shut up
their cottage, and I promised to take charge of Peggy meanwhile."

"Is she by way of being a saint or a simpleton?" asked Captain D'Arcy
languidly.

His aunt looked sharply at him.

"Has she been talking to you? Her tongue cannot be restrained, but she
means no harm."

Captain D'Arcy gave a short laugh.

"She stood up there by her tea-tray, and preached at me. One of the
shortest straightest sermons that I had ever heard, but the suddenness
with which she plunged into her subject was rather startling!"

Mrs. Dale looked grave.

"I am sorry if she annoyed you, Harry; I must say her zeal outruns her
discretion sometimes. But her motive is good, and she has been the
means of bringing me into touch with things that for a long time I
pushed into the background."

It cost Mrs. Dale some considerable effort to say those few words.

Her nephew whistled softly.

"She is an original," he said. "Don't forbid her to speak, Aunt. I
shall be interested in seeing how she will follow it up."

"I don't think you will find she refers to it again. As far as I
gather, Peggy gives her message and leaves it. She won't trouble you
any more."



CHAPTER XI

"A LITTLE TRUMP!"

CAPTAIN D'ARCY did not see Peggy again for some weeks. He was rapidly
recovering his health, and one morning walked into the library to find
Peggy relighting the fire which had gone out.

"Hulloo," he said, "are you getting any more sermons ready?"

Peggy stood up demurely.

"Please, sir, I don't have no sermons," she said.

"But you preached me one last time I saw you."

Peggy's cheeks became hot and red.

"Please, sir, I couldn't preach. I never has been taught nothin', but
when I grows up, sir, I hopes to go and be a missionary."

"That's not surprising. I wonder you aren't off now."

"Don't you think me too small, please, sir?"

"You're not too small to preach at home. Now what good do you think
you do by it? And what good do you imagine the missionaries do to the
heathen abroad? They are much happier left alone."

"Please, sir, 'tis only to tell 'em about Jesus. They doesn't know He
died for them—the missionary gent said so at the meeting."

"Well, why should they know it?"

Peggy looked very grave.

"They has a right to know it, please, sir. And our Lord said they was
to."

It was not many that could worst Captain D'Arcy in an argument; he
whistled and walked out of the room.

"She isn't a simpleton," was his murmured comment. And he did not try
to tackle Peggy again.


Peggy's conversations with Tom Bennett were lengthier and more
unsatisfactory. He would greet her in the morning with such mild chaff
as "Good mornin', Mrs. Missionary, is your passage took for Indy or
Africa?" or, "Seen any heathen, Miss Peggy, this mornin'? Wish I could
get you a blackymore. Perhaps they may keep some at the Zoo. Why don't
you go and inquire there?"

Peggy would not be wise enough to be silent. She plunged into talk at
once, and would get so heated and excited over it that even Lucy would
have to call her to order.

At last experience taught her that many words were wasted on Tom.

"I ain't a-goin' to argify no more," she said one day, "for you laughs
at everythink, Mr. Bennett. 'Tis a pity you weren't born a heathen; you
seems to think so well o' their darkness. But I ain't a-goin' to alter
myself because you laughs so, and I'm a-goin' out to Indy if I grows
up and can manage it. And I shall tell them heathen what you said of
'em—that they didn't want no Bibles."

"Oh, they'll like 'em," put in the irrepressible Tom; "they'll eat 'em
up quite cheerful like, and ask for more."

"And I would rather," said Peggy, ignoring this sally, "be our black
cat here, Mr. Bennett, with no head, nor understandin', nor nothink,
than be you, who can understand what's told you to do, and only makes
a mock at it. And I won't talk no more to you. I ain't angry, but I
pities you. And I hopes as how you won't speak to me no more, except to
pass the time o' day, and then we won't be able to argify."

This attitude of mind she preserved, and there was peace accordingly in
the kitchen.


Captain D'Arcy was soon quite convalescent. His servant was full of
importance one day.

"The captin and me has been to the War Office, and the captin has
been asked a good many questions about our expedition up them heathen
mountains. I told you that we were only just back when our major died,
and the captin was taken ill. It seems that they be very interested in
our doin's up in them outlandish parts, and the captin has to prepare
some reports about 'em. He be in high feather about it, and he'll be
knee-deep in pen and ink and paper for the next few weeks, you mark my
words if he don't!"

Tom Bennett's assertion proved true. Captain D'Arcy spent most of his
days now in the library, writing and rewriting his papers for the War
Office. His aunt remonstrated one evening as she was going to bed, and
he assured her that he had still a couple of hours' work before he
could retire.

"You will not regain your strength at this rate, Harry."

"My dear Aunt, I am as fit as a fiddle. But I think to-night will see
me through."

Two hours after, he was finishing his last sheet, and his last cigar.

"There," he said to himself, as he rose from the library table, and
pitched his cigar-stump into the waste-paper basket, "I've finished at
last, thank goodness! Now to bed!"

He locked up his papers in his despatch-box, which he left on a shelf
in the corner of the room, and then, turning out the gas, he went
lightheartedly upstairs.

The library fire was smouldering, and cast no light upon its
surroundings; yet slowly a small flame danced and flickered, and
gradually filled the room with light. It did not come from the grate,
but from the waste-paper basket. Captain D'Arcy's cigar had set light
to some fragments of paper, and it was the beginning of a greater
conflagration. Slowly the contents of the basket were consumed; then
the basket itself, and as it collapsed, it rolled into the folds of a
muslin curtain near. The household was wrapped in sleep, no passing
policeman gave an alarm, and so the fire slowly and surely made its way.

Peggy was sleeping in a top room with Nesbitt, when she was startled
out of her sleep by shouts in the street.

She sat up in bed, then shook Nesbitt.

"Nesbitt, there's a fire in our street. Do you hear them shoutin'?"

Nesbitt sprang out of bed and looked out of the window.

She started back with a terror-stricken face. "'Tis our house, Peggy!
Wake cook, and let's fly!"

At the same moment Captain D'Arcy's voice could be heard below, and in
another moment the frightened servants were dashing downstairs.

Volumes of smoke were issuing from the library door, but the stairs and
hall were untouched, and all reached the pavement outside in safety.
It is true they were very indifferently clad. Mrs. Dale was in her fur
cloak, but Lucy and Nesbitt only had their thin waterproofs on, and as
for Peggy she was so occupied in getting hold of her beloved stocking,
that she only had time to wrap a counterpane round her shoulders.

Firemen were already on the scene. The library faced the front, and the
flames were pouring out of the windows. An opposite neighbour offered
Mrs. Dale shelter. Turning to her nephew, who looked quite distraught,
she said—

"We must thank God we are all safe."

Captain D'Arcy muttered an expletive—

"My papers are in there in my despatch-box! I'd give ten pounds to get
them out!"

"Where did you leave them?"

"On the corner shelf by the bookcase."

"I am afraid they are doomed. How trying for you!"

Then calling the servants to follow her, Mrs. Dale went into the
opposite house.

But Peggy did not go. She had heard the few words about Captain
D'Arcy's papers.

"Peggy," she murmured to herself, "You've got to go and get 'em; set
your mind to it!"

And silently she slipped into the house again.

A fireman saw her go, and raised a shout of warning.

Then a thrill ran through the crowd when they know that some one was
within. For a moment or two they waited in breathless expectancy
for her to reappear. The passage, was already smoking, and the hose
was kept steadily playing upon it. A fireman dashed up the steps to
the door, and disappeared. He was only just in time, for out of the
burning, smoking room staggered a little figure, and dropped like a
stone at his feet. Holding her in his arms, he faced the crowd, and a
ringing cheer went up—a cheer that brought Mrs. Dale and her nephew to
the windows, wondering at the cause.

Nesbitt burst into the room and enlightened them.

"Oh, if you please, ma'am, Peggy is burnt to death!"

It was a startling announcement, but when Mrs. Dale saw the blackened
and unconscious little figure she almost feared it was true. In one
hand she still grasped her stocking, in the other was Captain D'Arcy's
despatch-box.

The young man took it from her clasp with some emotion.

"What a little trump! She must have heard my words, and gone straight
to get it."

After a short consultation, poor Peggy was conveyed in a cab to
the nearest hospital, Captain D'Arcy going with her himself. And,
thoroughly unstrung, Mrs. Dale sat down and burst into tears. Nesbitt
drew near to sympathise, but hardly to comfort.

"Lucy and I have often said, ma'am, that she be quite unnatural for
goodness. They say them that have short lives have to make up for it,
and gets all their goodness crammed up one end, so to speak. I never
did hear a young girl so simple and earnest about her religion, and we
have remarked that she would die early. They always do, that class o'
girl, but it do seem so terrible an end. I really don't think, ma'am,
there were any life in her when she were brought out. She must have
been suffocated where she dropped, and perhaps it was a mercy!"

"Faithful unto death!" murmured Mrs. Dale, trying to compose herself.
"Oh, Peggy, how you have shamed us all!"

A couple of hours later the fire was extinguished, and the crowd
dispersed. Only one or two firemen and police guarded the house.

In the early morning Captain D'Arcy returned to his aunt.

"She is alive, Aunt, but very badly burnt. I am afraid she may not
recover."

And this was the fear of both nurses and doctors who attended her.


The days and nights seemed a long delirium of pain and fever to Peggy.
But the day came when she recovered consciousness, and began to inquire
where she was.

"In a hosspital," she repeated weakly; "and, has missus got another
girl to do my work? What's been the matter with me?"

"You got burnt," said the nurse gently; "but you are getting better.
Don't think about it."

Peggy moved her head restlessly on the pillow; then she put one of her
bandaged hands to her head.

"I feel so light-headed; where be my hair? Have you cropped me like the
workhouse girls?" A frightened look was in her eyes.

The nurse wondered at her vanity.

"Your hair was burnt," she said. "It had to be cut off."

Peggy looked at her in dismay; then tears trickled down her cheeks.

"How can I fasten my caps on?" she sobbed. "I'd jist got 'em to look so
nice. I'll never be able to go back to my place. If my hair be gone,
caps is no use, and my missus won't have girls with no caps."

"Look here," said the nurse determinedly, "you leave your caps and your
hair alone. You won't be fit for service yet awhile, and by that time,
who knows? Your hair will be grown, and you'll be your old self again.
Now drink this beef-tea, and stop talking!"

Peggy lay back exhausted, and resigned. That was the only murmur that
ever passed her lips.

As she regained her health, her spirits returned, and she was soon with
her bright smile and quaint speeches a favourite patient.

The first Saturday after she recovered consciousness, she had a
visitor. Captain D'Arcy himself came into the ward.

It was a proud moment in her life; and in spite of the pain she was
suffering, her eyes lighted up with delight.

"Well, Peggy," said the young man, "I thought I must come and thank you
in person for what you did for me. You are getting on first-rate, I
hope?"

"Yes, sir. Please, sir, excuse me arskin', but did I drop my stockin'?
I've kep' thinkin' on it, and I feel sure I had it in my hand."

Captain D'Arcy smiled.

"Yes, I think my aunt has it in her keeping. You had it right enough."

"And please, sir, is your papers safe too?"

"All safe. They would have been a great loss to me. And I am deeply
grateful to you."

He pulled out of his waistcoat pocket two five-pound notes, and put
them on her pillow.

Peggy's face grew very red.

"Please, sir, I don't want no money. Oh please, sir, you didn't think I
went to get 'em for money?"

Tears were in her eyes. Such a little brought them there now.

"Of course not," said Captain D'Arcy hurriedly; "but I'm going away,
Peggy, and I wanted to give you a little present before I left. You
know the fire was my fault I am afraid; and certainly it was my fault
that you nearly lost your life. You will greatly oblige me if you take
this."

Peggy's smile shone out.

"Thank you very, very much, sir. I'll take it for my stockin', and it
will be lovely! And, please sir, are you going back to Indy?"

"Not just yet. I am going to visit some friends first."

"I shall always think on you, please sir," said Peggy earnestly. "I
always have longed to meet you, and I never did think I'd have done it.
And, please sir, I does hope I told you right the fust time I sawed
you. I was in such a hurry to get it out, that p'raps I said it wrong."

"Oh no, your sermon was quite plain," said the young man, looking
at her this time without the customary twinkle in his eye. "I shall
remember it, Peggy, every word. I shall never be able to say that I
didn't know who to go to for a new heart. I haven't got that article
yet, but I daresay I might be the better for it."

Peggy looked at him in perplexity.

"'Twas the sick capting in the Bible goin' so quick and getting cured,
that made me think you would p'raps," she said wistfully. "I always did
want to be that there maid, and when I really did meet a sick capting I
was so overjoyed that my heart nearly busted!"

"A sick captain in the Bible," said Captain D'Arcy, looking at her
meditatively; "now who was he, I wonder?"

"'Twas a leper captin, and the maid were waitin' on his lady, and she
told him to go to Elisha, and he went, and he was told to wash hisself,
and he wouldn't, and then he did, and he come home quite well!"

"How interesting! And do you think I want washing?" The twinkle was in
the captain's eye again.

"I believe your inside does," said Peggy. "You said it was awful bad,
didn't you, sir?"

"Did I? Well, Peggy, if I ever follow your advice, I will let you know.
Now you hurry up and get well. Have you got all you want?"

Peggy smiled. "I has everythink, please sir."

"That's right. Goodbye."

He nodded to her and was gone.

Peggy fingered her bank-notes with her bandaged hands. When the nurse
came to her, she said—

"Nurse, I ain't quite sure of my sight yet; How many shillin's is there
in those two bits o' paper?"

Peggy would not confess her ignorance of the value of bank-notes. She
had never seen one in her life before.

"Shillings!" laughed the nurse. "Pounds, you mean. You have ten pounds
there, Peggy. Shall I take care of them for you?"

Peggy was silent from sheer astonishment.

"But 'tis more than a whole year's wages!" she gasped. "Oh, how could
he giv' it! Oh my! What a full stockin' I shall have!"

She lay and thought of her beloved stocking, and when her burns were
about to be dressed, she would say to herself—

"Now keep up, Peggy, and think of yer stockin'! That will make yer take
no notice of the pain! And think o' the time comin' when the gold will
roll out, and you'll hand it up to the missionaries!"



CHAPTER XII

VISITORS

PEGGY had other visitors besides Captain D'Arcy. Mrs. Dale, and Lucy,
and Mrs. Creak all came. Nesbitt said 'horsepitals give her the
shivers, and she'd never been inside one since her mother had died
there,' but Peggy was quite content with a message from her. Lucy was
the one she liked best, and Lucy was full of news.

"Yes, we're back in the house again, and 'tis only the library be quite
destroyed. I says that the water have done more damage than the fire.
You should just see the hall and staircase! The gilt pictures and
the carpets be properly ruined! Of course they put the fire out, so
we mustn't grumble, but 'twill cost a pretty penny to redecorate the
ceilings and walls. I'm a-goin' to be left to take care of the house,
for Mrs. Dale be going abroad very soon now, and Nesbitt, she goes with
her."

"And where shall I go when I come out?" asked Peggy, with a long face.

"Back to your own ladies, won't you? But you'll be with us before Mrs.
Dale goes, I expect, won't you?"

Peggy looked doubtful.

"'Tis my skin, Lucy. It seems to be so long in comin'. And 'tis awful
painful on my legs. I feel as if I shan't never be able to bend of 'em!"

"Mr. Bennett, he have gone off with the captain, and he thinks you an
awful plucky girl, Peggy. What did you do it for? A lot of old papers
be not worth burnin' yourself to death for!"

"I had to do it," said Peggy earnestly. "I b'lieve I'd do it to-mower,
Lucy, if it all happened over agen. I had to do somethin' for that
there capting, and he wanted 'em ever so bad!"

"You be a queer little creature! Mr. Bennett, he says, 'Of course I'd
a-gone and got a baby out,' he says, 'for a man feels that be worth
it,' he says, 'but not the captain's papers, for they be only ink and
paper, and not worth riskin' flesh and blood for. People,' he says,
'only laughs at you for doin' foolhardy things like that,' he says."

"I don't think much of Mr. Bennett," said Peggy, tilting up her chin
in her old fashion; "he speaks so shockin' of the missionaries and
heathen. I s'pose 'twere the way he was brought up, but 'tis awful to
hear him. He says he'd have gone into the fire to save a baby, but I
knows he wouldn't if it had been a heathen. And a heathen is just as
good as a baby, Lucy, every bit!"

"I don't know much about 'em," confessed Lucy, "but me and Nesbitt do
miss Mr. Bennett. He were such a cheerful young man!"

Mrs. Creak came and wept over Peggy.

"I feel as if you belongs to me, dearie, I do indeed; and I was that
proud of your gettin' into good service. And now you be all thrown
back, and I've worritted and worritted until it come to me what a
wicked old woman I was, for the Almighty cares for His own, and He were
not likely to forget you."

"Should think not," said Peggy, with shining eyes; "why, I arsks Him
about thousands of things, now I'm all day in bed. I'm afraid I bothers
Him awful, but I arsks Him to take no notice of the things He don't
approve of, and I tries and not arsks Him the same question twice over."


As Peggy got better, she began to take a lively interest in her
fellow-sufferers.

A young woman in the next bed to her had been brought in with a broken
leg. When she began to get better, she was very troubled about her home
and little ones; an older woman on the other side of Peggy carried on a
long conversation with her one afternoon, in which Peggy joined.

"Take the rest while you can get it, my girl, and be thankful for it.
Who's lookin' after the children?"

"My husban's sister. She come up from Kent, and she's a clean, decent
body, but I'm pinin' to ketch a sight o' my baby. He be only ten months
old."

"Then you've nought to worry over. Look at me. I'm thankin' my luck
ev'ry day for my tumble downstairs and my shoulder bein' put out! Why,
I'm close on forty, and I've reared and brought up fourteen children,
and worked hard at washin' for other folks, and never all those years
have I lain abed, and been waited on like this here! I'm a-enjoyin' the
rest of it wonderful.

"I've been to Margit on Bank 'Olidays, and to 'Ampstead 'Eath, but
you're on the go all day with children a-tuggin' at yer, and havin' to
watch yer man lest he got too fond o' his glasses. I never, all the
twenty years o' my married life, have laid still and done nothin'. Why,
'tis like a little bit of 'eaven!"

The speaker rested her head back on her pillow with a satisfied sigh.

Peggy looked at her and smiled.

"I s'pose God knewed you wanted a bit o' time to rest yerself, that's
why you be here!"

"I don't want no rest," moaned the young wife; "I wants my Jack and my
little 'uns! There be Martha a-rummagin' in my boxes and drawers, and
puttin' things tidy, as she calls it, and I shan't know a corner when I
goes back."

"Don't you fret," said Peggy, with an encouraging nod at her. "'Tis
better to tidy a place than to untidy it, and maybe she'll have the
place dressed up fine to welcome yer. Don't you go for to make the
worst o' things. You jest think o' the nice bits, and leave the nasty
ones alone. I means to set my mind to think the very best always. And
it do come true.

"I used to dream when I was a girl, afore I ever went to service, or
wored caps, that I'd be a servant to real ladies one day, and live in
a house with picturs and carpets, and have as much coal on the fire
as ever I wanted, and it all comed to pass. And if you makes up to
yourself about the day you goes home, it'll cheer you wonderful. May I
make it up?"

Without waiting for assent, Peggy went on eagerly, "'Twill be like
this. You'll go home in a cab, a-ridin' through the streets like a
dook, and your street neighbours will put their heads out o' window to
see who it is ridin' up so fine, and then your husban' will lift you
out ever so tender, and carry you in, and there 'll be all yer little
'uns with clean faces and shiny hair and best frocks, and Martha will
be smilin' too, and the room will be as clean as on a Sunday, and there
'll be a grand tea, watercreases and s'rimps, and maybe a currant cake,
and you'll be sat in an easy-chair, and they'll all be waitin' on yer,
and yer husband 'll say, 'My girl, we're awful glad to get you back!'
He 'll say, 'We never knowed your vally till you were away from us!'"

The poor young woman began to sob, but she was comforted.

"You do put things egsackly as they be!" she said admiringly, drying
her tears. "Yes, it will be beautiful to be 'ome agen! I'll try and
think of it."


Peggy had also a word for the doctors.

One of them stood over her one morning, and complimented her on her
recovery.

"You have a splendid constitution," he said. "I've known some less
badly burnt than you succumb to the shock."

"Please, sir, does that mean die? I never should a thought o' doin'
that, for I means to be a missionary when I grows up, and I knows that
God likes me to be it, so He'll take care on me, and not let me die
till I've been and done it."

The doctor looked at her with an amused smile.

Peggy continued, looking at him earnestly—"I s'pose you are very
disappointed, sir, ain't you, when you can't make people well?"

"Well, yes, I think we are."

"It must be tryin' to you," said Peggy; "I does feel for you gentlemen,
when you come round in the mornin's and finds your physic ain't doin'
no good. There ain't a doctor in London, sir, is there, that be quite
certain of curin' folks?"

"Not if the disease is too far gone," said the doctor, "or is
incurable."

"Yes," said Peggy, the dreamy look taking possession of her blue eyes;
"and I s'pose some leaves their souls till they be too far gone; that
be why I does want to hurry off to the heathen."

"And what are you going to do to them?"

"Only tell 'em who can cure their souls, sir. It do seem so dreadful
for some on 'em to have to wait till I gets out at 'em."

"So you mean to be a preacher? Are you a Salvation lass?"

"Please, sir, I'm a servant-maid."

Up went Peggy's chin at once. If she had been a duchess, she could not
have owned it with greater pride.

"And I'm in a real good place," she went on, with a little nod at him,
"and I'm partickly anxious to get back as quick as ever as I can."

"Well, we'll make a good job of you," said the doctor, "but I think if
I were you, I'd stick to your place and leave the heathen alone."

"'Tis what I looks forward to—the heathen," said Peggy; then she
rapidly changed the subject.

"I s'pose, sir, none of you gentlemen doctors is ever sick yourselves?"

"Sometimes we are," said the doctor, laughing.

"I never heerd tell of a sick doctor in the Bible," pursued Peggy
meditatively; "sick captings, and kings, and women, and lots o' common
folk, but no doctors that I remembers, but I daresay, sir, your souls
is like other folk. And you can't doctor 'em yourselves, can you, sir?"

"We think we can," the doctor said, with a laugh.

"Ah," said Peggy, shaking her head; "but you can't, sir. 'Tisn't to be
done by no one but Jesus Christ; the Bible says so. He be lookin' after
souls, ain't He? And He don't want no one else to meddle with His work.
I thinks sometimes that it be very gran' to be a doctor, for you and
the Lord gets curin' together, and He gives you the bodies to see what
you can do with 'em, and He takes the souls. But, please sir, I really
thinks you're mistook to think you can cure your own soul."

"Ah, well," said the doctor, moving off, "perhaps I am mistaken. I must
think about it."


It was a happy day to Peggy when her right hand and arm was free of its
bandages. She straightway implored her nurse for ink and paper.

"I have so many friends, Nurse, that I must let 'em know about me. And
them in the country looks for letters, I can tell you. Why, when I
first went away from London, I arsked the postman every time I see'd
him if he'd got a letter for me, and I went on arskin' him till I got
it, and then, oh my! Wasn't I proud and pleased!"

Her first letter was to Ellen, and ran as follows:—

   "MY DEAR FRIEND ELLEN,—I do hope you are quite well, for I can't say
I'm quite yet. I dessay you may have heerd tell of me. I had a accident
which was a running in of a burning room to get a box of papers, which
so caught me on fire, that I fell on the floor, and had to be carried
to hosspital. Fire is a crool thing to hurt, Ellen, and if it hadn't
been for the heathen I means to go to, I thinks I should have died
right off where I drops. But I'm getting on remarkable, and likes my
bed, and the doctors and nusses is nice, but my hare is cut off, which
makes me feel bad becorse of my caps, I thinks and thinks, Ellen how
I shall do, and I means to stick them on with gum in the bottles they
sells. And now Ellen I arsks you to rite to me quick, for I wants
to know how Mister Job is, and give him my love, and do you love me
faithful like a friend Ellen, and I never will have a friend but you.

   "Mrs. Banner in next bed to me is going home to-morrer, and I hopes
for next week. I hopes to come back with my ladies soon. Has you been in
a hosspital, Ellen? It is a big white room with beds and nusses, and you
has cards above your bed a-tellin' everybody how ill you is, and a map
of your temper, which seems to go up and down they says, for they does
it with pencil, but I don't feel in a temper—nothing different to what
I always did. And the doctors walks in every day, and there is hunderds
of them. In London you has crowds of doctors if you're ill, and they
all tries to see you at once, but I likes them and I smiles and I
says nothing. Now I must say goodbye Ellen, I am your loving faithful
beloved friend—

                           "PEGGY.

   "PS.—I hopes you has not forgotten the heathen."

The last visitor that Peggy saw before she came out of hospital was
Joyce.

It was a great surprise to her, and Joyce, looking down upon her thin
little face, which seemed to have got so white and transparent, felt
distinctly shocked at her appearance.

"Why there's nothing of you left, Peggy! I heard you were quite
convalescent. You are not fit for work yet."

"Please 'm, my last missus has gone abroad, and she said I might help
Lucy to take care of the house till you wanted me agen, and, please 'm,
will you be goin' back to the country soon?"

"Not just yet. Miss Helen is paying other visits, and I have been doing
the same. We did not hurry to go back, and it is just as well. We were
so sorry to hear about you Peggy, and yet we felt quite proud of you. I
have been staying in the same house as Captain D'Arcy, and he told us
all about it!"

"Do you know my capting?" asked Peggy breathlessly. "He come to see
me here one day. He's a nice gent, he is—much nicer than his man, Mr.
Bennett."

"How do you expect to work, you poor little creature?" said Joyce,
looking at her with pity. "Why, I am sure you have grown much smaller;
you look fit for nothing at all."

"Please 'm, 'tis my hair," Peggy explained anxiously. "And, please 'm,
my caps will make me look big agen. I'm a-longin to get 'em on my 'ead.
I do feel so undressed, please 'm, without 'em!"

Joyce laughed. "I think you ought to go to a convalescent home first,
before you think of wearing caps again. I shall talk to my sister about
it."

Peggy did not look overjoyed at such a prospect. "Please 'm, I ain't
got no likin' for 'omes and such-like. They has so many rules I've
heerd tell, and I can't abear rules, leastways not when they be printed
up in big letters. I shall be first-rate to work 'm when I gets out of
this. I likes it very fair 'm, but the vittles be very sloppy, 'tis
mostly in basins and cups. And I sometimes think a sausage or bit o'
tripe would fill me out wonderful!"

Then she began to ask about Helen.

"She be reely quite well agen 'm? I be very glad, for 'twas the
awfullest thing I ever see'd, her lyin on her 'ead! I shan't never
forget it. And I shall be very glad to get back to my country home 'm;
I'm quite one with Mrs. Creak, that it do beat London holler!"

"I'm glad you think so. And now I must go. We will write to you, Peggy,
when we want you to come back to us. We have settled with Mrs. Dale to
do that. Goodbye."

Joyce held out her hand, and Peggy took it with awe.

"I feels like a lady born when my missuses shake hands with me," she
assured the nurse afterwards.



CHAPTER XIII

THE COLLECTION

"LUCY, Lucy! Do you think I could go to a meetin' this evening? 'Tis on
big bill posters that there be four missionaries a-goin to speak; and
'tis in a hall, only two streets off!"

Of course it was Peggy who spoke. She burst breathlessly into the
kitchen with her news, and roused Lucy from an afternoon siesta.

"Bless the girl! What a fuss!" exclaimed Lucy rather grumpily. "Of
course you can go if you have a mind to. I'm a-goin' to visit friends
to-night, but I shall be home early."

Peggy had been out of hospital a fortnight, and the very next week she
was going back to Sundale again. Her hair was still a trial to her, and
her hands and arms were scarred with the traces of the fire. But her
spirit was undaunted, and when Lucy pitied her, she said stoutly—

"I was never a beauty, and I ain't a-goin' to pity myself. I keeps
myself clean and tidy, and I don't takes notice o' nothink else."

She was full of excitement over this missionary meeting—and no wonder,
for she intended to take the proceeds of her savings to it. She had
changed her two five-pound notes into gold, and her stocking was quite
full of odd silver and pence. The meeting commenced at seven, but at
six Peggy was waiting outside the hall for the door to be opened. With
a radiant smile she took her seat, clutching her precious stocking,
which she held under her jacket, lest any evil-minded person should see
it and snatch it from her.

There were a great many people at the meeting, for it was an unusual
gathering; and Peggy recognised several of the clergymen on the
platform. The first speakers were decidedly uninteresting, she thought.
The report which was read was quite above her head.

But when the missionaries began to speak, Peggy's attention was
rivetted. She followed their words with breathless interest. If they
raised a laugh in their audience, Peggy joined heartily; if they told a
sad story, big tears came to her eyes.

And when at last a hymn was given out, and the collection-plates came
round, her cup of joy was full.

To the consternation and dismay of a very bashful young man, who held
the plate towards her, Peggy slowly and deliberately hoisted her black
stocking up, and deposited it bodily on the top of the coins.

"'Tis my stockin', young man," she asserted in a loud whisper,
distinctly audible to her nearest neighbours. "Take it on up, and don't
yer drop it, for 'tis awful heavy!"

For a moment the youth hesitated; but Peggy's terrific frown and
piercing whisper sent him flying from her.

"Don't you touch it, young man! It's for them there missionaries to
take to the heathen! 'Tis my stockin', I tell you! Don't you lay your
finger on it, for I've got my eye on yer!"

Her eyes did indeed follow him, but the collection was taken into an
inner room. And after lingering some minutes after the meeting was
over, Peggy slowly went towards the door.

"What does yer expect?" she asked herself angrily. "You've sent your
stockin' in, and there be an end to it. Do yer wants 'em all to come
round you and praise yer up? You be a downright silly, Peg, that be
what yer be!"

She was just on the threshold of the door when a hand was laid on her
arm.

Looking up she saw a little shabbily dressed woman standing by her.

"I was sitting behind you and saw you lift a stocking upon the plate,"
she said gently. "Do you mind telling me what was in it?"

"My savin's," said Peggy, a little shyly. "You see 'm, I've bin
expectin' to go to a meetin' for a long while, and so I've saved up for
it."

"I wonder how much you have been able to save?"

[Illustration: "I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YER!"]

"You see 'm, I've had one or two presents. One very big one—a whole
ten pounds—that makes it come very high, and my missuses has made me
buy some clothes, so I only got together three pounds two shillings and
ninepence halfpenny."

"And what wages do you get?"

"I'm goin' to get eight pounds a year this year 'm."

The lady walked on. She had an income herself of eight hundred a year,
and had put half a crown into the plate. Her money was her god, and
she even grudged spending it on herself. She had been persuaded to
go to the meeting to hear her nephew speak, for he was one of the
missionaries, and she had felt almost sorry that she allowed a generous
impulse to induce her to part with half a crown, when sixpence would
have sufficed.

But Peggy's pride and delight in her stocking had amused and touched
her. Shame filled her soul when she contrasted the two offerings and
respective incomes. She went home and sent an anonymous cheque for
£100 to the Society, and no one knew that a little servant-maid was
responsible for it.

Peggy was stopped once more, and this time it was a clergyman.

"Are you the little girl who sent up £13 odd in a stocking?"

Peggy beamed.

"Yes, please sir; but it were more than that: thirteen pounds two
shillings and ninepence halfpenny. I hopes as how that young man didn't
drop none! He looked quite scared."

"Has the stocking any history?" asked the clergyman, smiling.

Peggy stared at him, then answered with a little scorn in her tone—

"Why no, sir! A stockin' don't have no history. 'Tis only kings and
queens and big men have history, same as I used to learn about at
school!"

"But where did you get so much money?" said the clergyman.

"'Twas a present, sir, from my sick capting, and the rest I saved
myself."

"And how long have you been interested in missionary work?"

"Oh, ever so long, since I went to a meetin' near a year ago. I'm
a-goin' to be a missionary myself one day, but—" here a frightened look
stole into her eyes—"I shan't never have to speak on a platform like
the missionary gents do, shall I, sir?"

"You might be called upon to do worse things than that, if you were a
missionary," said the clergyman, smiling. "Why do you want to be one?"

"Oh, please sir, because of the heathen, who don't know nothin', and
the missionaries say they can't get round and tell 'em all!"

"No, we can't do that," said the clergyman, a little sadly.

"Please, sir, have you ever been out amongst the heathen?"

"Yes, for fifteen years I have been in India."

"Oh!" gasped Peggy, in awe and delight. "But you weren't one of 'em
that spoke, sir?"

"No, I was listening to younger and fresher men than myself, and found
it good to do so."

"Please, sir," said Peggy, with bright eyes and crimson cheeks, "I've
never met a heathen, but a missionary is as next-door as good; could
you shake hands with me, please sir?"

"Indeed I will, with pleasure."

Peggy almost felt as proud as if she were shaking hands with the King.

"Thank you, sir, very much," she said; "and please can you tell me if
there is heathen who speaks English anywheres, as them's the ones I
must go to, for I'm not eddicated for French and such-like."

"I think you will have to content yourself with speaking to the heathen
at home," the clergyman said, still smiling. "There are plenty of them,
my girl. Perhaps God will show you that you can serve Him best at home.
And certainly if you send your savings to enable others to go out, you
will be taking part in the great work of evangelising the world."

Peggy's face dropped.

"I've set my mind to goin' to the heathen, please sir, and I'm hopin'
to bring on a friend of mine called Ellen to do it too. But if God
don't think me fit, He'll let me know it somehow."

And then Peggy marched away with a smiling countenance and a sore heart.

"Collectin' in a stockin' is a help," she murmured to herself, "but it
ain't half big enough for me to do, and I'm a-goin' to do as much as
ever as I can, not as little!"

She was very silent when she got back to Lucy, and when she went to bed
shed some tears.

"You feels quite low, Peggy," she murmured, between her sobs. "'Tis the
miss of your stockin': seems as if there have been a death in yer room,
but 'tis all foolishness! Think of where 'tis gone, and what that there
money be a-goin' to do. And if you don't feel homey without a stockin',
get out another and start fillin' it to-morrer!"

With which resolve she fell asleep comforted.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is an April day, and four years have passed since Peggy returned
from London to her country home.

She is standing under an apple-tree in the garden, and she is listening
to a merry peal of bells.

Albert Edward is sitting up on his haunches and watching her; but
a sturdy young man is watching her too, and he is not, like Albert
Edward, obliged to watch in silence, for he has a tongue in his head.

"Peggy!"

Such a start Peggy gave, and a rising blush comes into her cheeks that
makes her almost pretty.

"Now, Bill, whatever are you followin' me about for? I saw you in
church a while ago, and that's enough for one day."

"Father sent me," said the young fellow, a little awkwardly. "He wants
to hear tell of the weddin'!"

"You can tell him," said Peggy, gazing up into the pink-and-white
blossoms above her. "You knows how nice Miss Joyce looked, and there
isn't another captain in the world to beat our Captain D'Arcy! I'm
goin' in directly to cheer Miss Helen up. She 've gone to her room to
have a cry, and I come out here so soon as the carriage drove 'em away."

"And what be you thinkin' of?" asked the young man, approaching her
judiciously.

"I was thinkin' of the way they shook my hands, the two of them,"
responded Peggy, with a rapt smile about her lips. "I telled you that
they arsked me to go to Indy with them. I used to make up that I would
be a missionary d'rectly I was growed-up, and it seemed as if God were
givin' me a chance.

"But I've been learnin' different, and now Miss Helen have got so
crippled with rheumatics, I'm not goin' to leave her. I had a long
talk with her the t'other day. There be some that has to talk to folks
at home, and some that has to go abroad, and as long as we tells each
other about Jesus, and can give a helpin' hand, we be doin' work for
God. I be but a ignorant, uneddicated girl, and I'm beginnin' to see my
head is not so clever as I used to think it was. And our Lord did say,
'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men,' and if Miss Joyce and
her captain follow Him to Indy, I can follow Him in Sundale.

"I never will give up thinkin' about they heathen, Bill. They be
twisted right round my heart, so to speak, and I be still collectin'
for them, and prayin' for them. But I'm goin' to do my dooty to my
missus, and be faithful in the small things—"

Bill listened so far, and then he held out his hands.

"Come, Peggy," he said wistfully; "you come and do your dooty to me.
I've been waitin' all this year, and father wants you awful bad!"

Peggy shook her head, but a light came into her eyes.

"You must wait a bit longer, Bill. My missus is goin' next year, she
tells me, to live with an old cousin of hers, and then I shall be free."

"You promise faithful, Peggy, that 'twill be next year? Them weddin'
bells be in my heart and brain to-day."

"If you and me means to do God's work together, Bill, I'll come to you
then."

Peggy spoke in hushed tones, but Bill drew her to him.

"My lass, you've taught me and father the way to heaven, and 'tisn't
likely I'll hold back from doing what the Lord wills!"

Peggy's eyes filled with tears.

"And oh! Bill, what do you think Captain D'Arcy said to me to-day when
he shook hands? He looked at me, and said,—

"'Goodbye, Peggy. I have a good many things to thank you for, but the
best day's work you ever did was giving me that message the first day
you saw me. You told a "sick captain" where to go to be cured, and
though he took over a twelvemonth to make up his mind, he did it at
last, and owes his complete recovery to you!'

"Those be his very words, and I cries when I think on 'em, for it makes
me so overjoyed. I arsked God before I ever come to service that I
might help a sick captain, and that's the way He has answered me!"



UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.








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