| Molly and Jessie stole softly into the room to look at her | [Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| “That man, Peggy, is your father” | [63] |
| In an instant Peggy had sprung on his back and was careering round and round the paddock | [148] |
| “Glory be!” answered Peggy; “you ask Kitty if she’d like me to finish that sentence” | [243] |
PEGGY FROM KERRY.
CHAPTER I.
AT HOME.
“It’s really the most horrible thing!” said Mrs. Wyndham. “I don’t know what to do about it; and your father is so determined! I can’t shake his confidence that he is right, do as I will.”
“But what is it, mother? Whatever can be the matter?” asked Molly Wyndham, a sweet, gentle-looking girl of about fifteen years of age.
“Yes, what is it?” chimed in Jessie, another daughter, one year Molly’s senior.
“Why, it’s this, my dears. I assure you it has quite prostrated me, and it’s all on your account.”
Jessie, brimful of curiosity, wanted to ply her mother with questions; but Molly took a wiser course.
“Jess,” she said, “can’t you see how tired and fagged the mums looks?—Sit in this easy-chair, mums, and take things quietly for a minute.”
Mrs. Wyndham’s eyes filled with tears. She was a really kind-hearted woman and was much loved in the neighbourhood of Preston Manor, her husband’s beautiful house. She was kind to her poor neighbours, and liked well her position as Lady Bountiful to the parish. But, with all her open-handedness and generosity, there was a streak of worldliness in Mrs. Wyndham, and that worldliness made what was just going to happen intensely disagreeable to her. She was proud of her home, her children, her husband, proud of her husband’s position as the Squire of Preston Manor; and just now, as she considered it, that pride of hers was to receive a fall. The girls Molly and Jessie, the Wyndhams’ only daughters—there was a son called Jack some years older—were enjoying their Easter holidays when the blow, so unlooked-for, so unexpected, fell.