And she knows her boy and Peggy are safe.
"Thank God for all his mercies!" she says fervently, then, woman-like, bursts into tears.
[CHAPTER III--BURNLEY HALL, OLD AND NEW]
I have noticed more than once that although the life-story of some good old families in England may run long stagnant, still, when one important event does take place, strange thing after strange thing may happen, and the story rushes on with heedless speed, like rippling brooklets to the sea.
The St. Clairs may have been originally a Scottish family, or branch of some Highland clan, but they had been settled on a beautiful estate, far away in the wilds of Cornwall, for over one hundred and fifty years.
Stay, though, we are not going back so far as that. Old history, like old parchment, has a musty odour. Let us come down to more modern times.
When, then, young Roland's grandfather died, and died intestate, the whole of the large estate devolved upon his eldest son, with its fat rentals of fully four thousand a-year. Peggy St. Clair, our little heroine, was his only child, and said to be, even in her infancy, the very image of her dead-and-gone mother.
No wonder her father loved her.
But soon the first great event happened in the life-story of the St. Clairs. For, one sad day Peggy's father was borne home from the hunting-field grievously wounded.
All hope of recovery was abandoned by the doctor shortly after he had examined his patient.