"Peggy."
Mr. Montfort curled his moustaches in silence for some minutes, when the reading was over.
"Dear little girl!" he said at last. "Good little Peggy! So she will learn to cook, will she? And she is getting hold of her mother! This is as it should be, Margaret, eh?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Margaret. "Oh, Uncle John, this letter makes me feel so happy about the child. At first, you know, she missed us all more than she should have,—really. And—and I think that, except for Hugh, perhaps they did not receive her in quite the way they might have, laughing at her a good deal, and sneering when she tried to make little improvements. I don't mean Aunt Susan or Uncle James, but the younger children, and George, who must be—whom I don't fancy, somehow. And she has been so brave, and has tried so hard to be patient and gentle. I think our Peggy will make a very fine woman, don't you, uncle?"
"I do, my love. I have a great tenderness for Peggy. When she is at school, she must come here for her vacations, or some of them, at least."
"And she owes this all to you!" cried Margaret, with shining eyes. "If she had never come here, Uncle John, I feel as if she might have grown up—well, pretty wild and rough, I am afraid. Oh, she ought to love you, and she does."
"Humph!" said Mr. Montfort, dryly. "Yes, my dear, she does, and I am very glad of the dear little girl's love. But as for owing it all to me, why, Margaret, there may be two opinions about that. Well, and what says our Bird of Paradise?"
"Rita? Oh, uncle, I don't know what you will think of this letter."
"Don't read it, my dear, if you think it is meant for you alone. You can tell me if she is well and happy."
"That is just it, Uncle John. She wants to go to Europe, and her father does not approve of her going just at present, and so—well, you shall hear part of it, at any rate.