“Arrah no, not quite,” said Peggy, “but I hate herself and Jessie. I don’t mind Molly one way or t’other.”
“The person you speak of as ‘herself’ happens to be my wife. Jessie is my daughter. Do you think that it is pleasant to me to hear that you, a little ignorant girl, hate them when they wish to be so kind to you?”
“Bedad, it mayn’t be pleasant, but it’s thrue.”
“Now, Peggy, I have told you about your father. I have one or two other things to say. Your father was my greatest friend; once he saved my life. It was a long time ago. I’ll tell you that story some day. There is nothing under the sun I would not do for your father; his death was a very bitter grief to me, and the one consolation I had when he passed away, was the thought of looking after his child; the only thing I am sorry for is this—that he didn’t put you into my care a long time ago. Peggy, my dear, I have no intention of letting you go; you must submit to the new life. It is the life you were born to, remember.”
Peggy fidgeted restlessly. “I don’t like it a bit, yer mightiness,” she said.
“Peggy dear, you must not call me ‘your mightiness.’ There are a great many words you must forget.”
“An’ however am I to do that, yer—yer honour?”
“That is not a right way to speak to me either. You and I are, I hope, a gentleman and a lady.”
“Bedad, thin, I’m no lady.”
“Then, Peggy, you honestly say to my face that you deny your own father, for there never was, in the course of the world’s history, a better gentleman than Peter Desmond.”