Peg sprang up and walked across to her aunt and looked down at her.
"A thousand pounds a year!" She turned to Jerry and asked: "Does she get a thousand a year for abusin' me?"
"For taking care of you," corrected Jerry.
"Well, what do ye think of that?" cried Peg, gazing curiously at Mrs. Chichester. "A thousand pounds a year for makin' me miserable, an' the poor dead man thinkin' he was doin' me a favour!"
"I tell you this," went on Jerry, "because I don't want you to feel that you have been living on charity. You have not."
Peg suddenly blazed up:
"Well, I've been made to feel it," and she glared passionately at her aunt. "Why wasn't I told this before? If I'd known it I'd never have stayed with ye a minnit Who are YOU, I'd like to know, to bring me up any betther than me father? He's just as much a gentleman as any of yez. He never hurt a poor girl's feelin's just because she was poor. Suppose he hasn't any money? Nor ME? What of it? Is it a crime? What has yer money an' yer breedin' done for you? It's dried up the very blood in yer veins, that's what it has! Yer frightened to show one real, human, kindly impulse. Ye don't know what happiness an' freedom mean. An' if that is what money does, I don't want it. Give me what I've been used to—POVERTY. At least I can laugh sometimes from me heart, an' get some pleasure out o' life without disgracin' people!"
Peg's anger gave place to just as sudden a twinge of regret as she caught sight of Ethel, white-faced, and staring at her compassionately. She went across to Ethel and buried her face on her shoulder and wept as she wailed.
"Why WASN'T I told! I'd never have stayed! Why wasn't I told?"
And Ethel comforted her: