And four for a birth.”
“No, I have never heard that rhyme.”
“Oh me word! There be some things yer ignorant about, missy.”
“Well, I am going down to get some food for you and me, and you must keep looking at me and eat just as I do, and then to-morrow morning when you come down to breakfast I’ll teach you how to eat and what to do. I’m going to love you, Peggy, so you must love me.”
The sweet brown eyes looked into the sweet blue ones, and at that moment a swift, indescribable rush of sympathy passed from one girl to the other.
CHAPTER IV.
ADVENTURES AT FARMER ANDERSON’S.
Peggy, notwithstanding the strangeness of her lot, slept softly and soundly in that delicious bed. Never before had she known the cool, delightful feel of fine linen sheets, never before had her curly head reposed on a pillow of down. She slept, and in her sleep Molly and Jessie stole softly into the room to look at her. Shading a candle, they bent forward, and certainly their present view of the little face was all that was charming. Not a trace of lack of refinement could be perceived in those delicate features, those long, curly black lashes, the true symbol of an Irish girl, and the well-formed, sensitive little red mouth.
“Oh, we’ll win her yet!” whispered Molly. “And she’s worth winning,” she added; “she’s a perfect darling.”
Even Jessie was silent with regard to the Irish child while the guardian angel of sleep protected her.
But when Peggy awoke the next morning matters were very different. She awoke early, as was her habit in Old Ireland. The stable clock had struck four when she opened her eyes and stared about her. She had been dreaming of the little old homestead and the hins and the turkeys—wasn’t Colleen Bawn going to bring out her clutch of eggs that very mortal day? “Twenty fluffy, downy chicks, as sure as I’m alive,” whispered Peggy; and then she sat up in bed and stared around her. How far off—oh how far off!—was Colleen Bawn and her brood of little yellow chicks; how far away were the rest of the hins, and the pigeens—bless ’em—and the little turkey poults, and the—the—oh all the home-things! What right had she, Peggy Desmond, to be here, in this awful grand room, for all the world like a palace fit for a king? How hateful was this soft white bed to one accustomed to sleep on feathers, it is true, but with the coarsest sheets and with the roughest blankets? And what right, for that matter, had she to be in bed at all, at all, at this hour, instead of up and busy? At home, wouldn’t her work come handy to her—cows to milk, calves to cosset, lambs to pet, and all the other creatures to supply with their breakfast? “Oh wurra me!” thought Peggy, “whativer’ll they do widout me at all? Why, me grandma, she ain’t got the strength enough to rise with the lark; it’s ‘Peggy mavourneen,’ she’ll be callin’ for an’ there’ll be niver a Peggy mavourneen to listen. Oh but I can’t stand this, I can’t! And be the powers, what’s more! I’ll get up and dress me anyhow. Then I’ll get out. Maybe there’ll be a hin or a cock or a bit ov a wee calf for me to pet. I suppose they have a back yard. I’ll make for it an’ see what sort o’ place they kape. Wouldn’t me heart light up if I saw a big dirty pigeen?”