“And you won’t mind her if she laughs at you because you don’t speak English like us?”
“Yerra, she won’t try that on again, or she’ll get more than she gives, that’s all! I’m ashamed of the way ye all spake the beautiful tongue; ye don’t know how to spake so as to put colour into it, it’s exactly like a gray day, a rainy an’ misty day, a soft day, as we call it in Ould Ireland, the way ye spake; but when I spake, bedad, out comes the sun, and the flowers bloom, and the sky is heavenly blue. Oh, give me Ould Ireland an’ the way we talk the tongue in my land of the mountain and the lake!”
Hannah stared at her little companion. “How beautiful you are!” she said.
“Don’t ye be flatterin’ me up now, for I’m not goin’ to belave it, an’ that’s a fact. Tell me about that Imp—the black thing, I call her.”
So Hannah, nothing loath, complied. She gave a vivid, and on the whole a fairly truthful, history of The Imp—of her conduct with regard to the Dodds, who were enormously rich and toadied The Imp to any extent; of little Elisabeth Douglas, who had been taken in hand by The Imp, and was being fast spoilt by her.
“It is the very last straw, the child taking to you,” said Hannah, “but I am right glad of it, for the poor little thing was learning nothing but mischief from that dreadful girl.”
Peggy sat and thought. “Seems as though my work was cut out for me,” she said. “Well, now thin, Hannah, I don’t pertend for one minute that I’ve tuk to ye; I’ll have to prove ye well first; but as to bein’ afraid, there’s niver a scrap o’ fear in me heart an’ niver were. But I’ve got to please a young lady called Mary Welsh, an’ because o’ her I’ve got to learn yer cold, colourless English, an’ because of her I’ve got to do me lessons as well as I can; but she niver told me about any Imp. I’ll soon settle her.”
“Peggy,” said Hannah at that moment, “we’d best be going home; it would never do for The Imp to find us during your very first morning out of doors without leave.”
Peggy hesitated for a minute. The delightful fresh morning air soothed her, the companionship of Hannah was the reverse of disagreeable, the knowledge that she certainly would have to get the upper hand of The Imp, and would have to win little Elisabeth over to her side put a fresh interest into her life. On the whole, therefore, she was satisfied to return to the house with Hannah as guide. The girls managed to get back again to the dormitory and to lie down in their beds, well covered up, just as though they had not been out at all, before the housemaid came round with cans of hot water, which she put into every room. She looked slightly amazed when she saw Peggy’s basin quite full of soapy water; but, beyond emptying the basin, took no further notice of it.
Meanwhile, upstairs a very different scene was being enacted. The Imp had drawn her satellites round her, and their determination was to get Peggy Desmond entirely under the control of this latter young person before the day was out. The fourth girl in the upper dormitory was called Sophia Marshall, and she was completely and absolutely under the power both of the Dodds and The Imp. She was a mild, good-humoured-looking girl, who always did precisely what she was told, tried to learn her lessons well and to keep out of scrapes, but was on the whole very much afraid of her room-fellows. Annie Dodd had a short conversation with Sophia that morning. Sophia, who, in her heart admired Peggy beyond description for fighting The Imp, was forced to pretend to be altogether on the other side. A very slight sketch was given to Sophia of what the day’s proceedings were to be, and then the girls went downstairs. They all met soon afterwards in the chapel which belonged to the school. There Mrs. Fleming read a short prayer and a few verses of the Bible and the girls went into the refectory for breakfast. Peggy, to her secret disgust, was put beside The Imp at breakfast time. How this was managed nobody quite knew, but it seemed to come naturally. At the other side of Peggy, to her great delight, sat little Elisabeth Douglas.