She looked down at the picture of a man, a man with a kind, brave, noble face, the eyes were shining with a strange sort of wistfulness. The lips were firm and beautifully curved, the brow was broad, but it was the expression which made the face altogether charming.
“THAT MAN, PEGGY, IS YOUR FATHER.”—Page [63].
“That man, Peggy, is your father.”
“Glory”——began Peggy.
“Peggy, he was a gentleman.” The child was silent. “Your mother was a very beautiful peasant woman; your father loved her and married her, and afterwards, when you were born, she died, poor thing! Your father was very poor then, very poor; he was in India with his regiment, and could not come home to take care of his little baby, but he loved her very much. He often wrote to me, and told me about her. He sent all the money he could spare to the people who looked after you, Peggy, and when at last he came to die he wrote me a long letter, a very long letter; it was all about you and his love for you. He said in that letter, ‘I want you to bring Peggy up as your own child, and, above all things, I want her to be a lady. I want her to be good and never to tell lies, and to put honour first, and I want her to learn all those things that ladies ought to know. I want her to be a comfort to you and to your wife and to your girls. I think she will be, if she is her mother’s child and mine. Tell her when you see her, all that I want her to be, and give her, when you think she is fit to receive it, the letter which I enclose for her. It is a letter partly from me and partly from that poor, sweet young mother whom she never saw. But don’t give Peggy either of these letters until she is fit to receive them.’ In the letter which your father wrote to me, Peggy, he said that I was to bring you up as I thought right; and he further said that he felt that he, perhaps, would be not far away, and would be listening to you, and watching you when you were striving to overcome the many faults which you learnt when you were a little girl in a cabin in Ireland.”
“And how am I to forget, bedad?” said Peggy. Her voice had altered in tone, and there were tears in her eyes. “Give me that letter o’ me father’s,” she said, “and I’ll run away an’ not bother ye any more.”
“I couldn’t do that, Peggy. Your father when he wrote said that you were not to receive his letter until you were fit to read it, until you were sufficiently trained to appreciate what he has written for your guidance, until you love me enough to love his message to you. Peggy, look at me.”
The child turned and stared.
“At the present moment I am afraid, my poor little girl, that you are hating me.”