"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."