“No, Uncle Paul, neither she nor me fits, so to spake, that’s why I don’t ask for her; I don’t want to see her at all, at all, nor to hear her spoke of for that matter. Tell me how the little downy chicks are. Oh Uncle Paul, aren’t creatures much nicer than men and women, an’ than girls? I used to think, Uncle Paul, that perhaps girls were as nice as kittens an’ little hins an’ little chicks; but now—they’re the worst of all, the very worst of all. Oh Uncle Paul!”
“Poor child!” said Mr. Wyndham. He talked to her for a little longer and then left her.
He said to Mrs. Fleming: “There’s no doubt that some of the girls have treated Peggy very unkindly. If you would like, my dear friend, I will remove her from the school. What do you think?”
But he was astonished at the bright colour which rushed into Mrs. Fleming’s face. “By no manner of means,” she answered; “do you think that I am going to be conquered by some of my own girls? No, indeed, my dear friend, I will find out what happened before long, in some sort of fashion. Certainly Peggy is not to go; when Peggy is well I shall make a certain amount of fuss about her, and in that way punish those who have treated her so unkindly.”
The subject of the great prize was kept in abeyance on account of Peggy Desmond; but by-and-by she got slowly well, and before the half-term was over was able to limp about the house again, although she could not run as she used to do. The roses had faded from her face, too, leaving it pale and very tired-looking. She was now passionately devoted to Mrs. Fleming, would do anything in the world for the head-mistress, and she also loved Mademoiselle.
“I want to learn the French,” Peggy said, “because I won’t be makin’ the mistakes that are always croppin’ up in that English. Oh thin, ma’am, it’s a poor tongue whin ye come to consider of it; it ain’t kept the colour in it that the Irish has.”
“But, my child, you don’t talk Irish.”
“The Irish-English, ma’am, is what I’m manin’.”
“Meaning, dear—say meaning.”
“Now, ma’am, don’t that sound thin-like; isn’t maning much richer?”