“Oh glory! All right, Uncle Paul, I’ll do me level best.”
“I think you will, my poor child. Now run upstairs, wash your face and hands, then go to the schoolroom and try to copy the way Molly speaks and the way Jessie speaks. They will be having supper together in the schoolroom, and I want you to have it with them,”
“I’d like to confess a bit before I go, your mightiness.”
“To confess?”
“Why, this. It’s only right I should tell ye. Herself locked me up because I spilt me tay down in the drawin’-room. She locked me up in me room for many a long hour.”
“If I had been at home I wouldn’t have left you so long by yourself.”
“Oh blessings on ye, I didn’t miss ye. I wasn’t a bit unhappy when I was on the roof, an’ jumped on the back o’ Pat, an’ had tay wetted fresh for me by Mary, an’ lumps o’ cake to swallow, an’ the turkey-cock to pull by the tail and run round and round wid it. It wasn’t lonely I was, yer mightiness.”
“Little Peggy, you are absolutely the most distracting child I ever came across. I don’t know who Pat is or who Mary is.”
“They’re the people in your own farmyard, yer honour. I jumped on Pat’s back, an’ didn’t he let out a screech too, be the same token!”
“Well, all these things, my dear, you must not do again, that’s all. I will not speak of this adventure, and don’t you, dear. Now go and get ready for supper, and meet your cousins in the schoolroom. When Mary comes I’m sure you will begin to say it is very nice to be a little lady—to be an Irish lady, remember. If you don’t fall in love with Mary Welsh you will be the first young person who ever did not.”