“Sally doesn’t think thee so, Clifford. She hath a high opinion of thee. She told me to tell thee something at the very last—— And that would be now, would it not?”
“Now, or never, Peggy. What did she say?” He listened eagerly.
“She said that she considered thee the finest gentleman that she ever knew.”
“She said that?” The youth caught his breath quickly.
“Just that, Clifford. The finest gentleman that she ever knew,” repeated the maiden impressively. “Was not that much to say?”
“It was, my cousin. It overwhelms me.” His eyes were misty, and in them there was wonder too. “It is the highest praise that she could have spoken. ’Tis strange that she should so speak; because, Peggy, I have always wanted to be a gentleman. Oh, I am by birth, I know. I don’t mean that. I mean just and honorable, chivalrous and gallant, performing heroic deeds, and—and all the rest of it,” he finished boyishly.
“And thee is all that, Clifford,” said Peggy gently.
“No,” he said with unwonted humility. “I would like to be, but I am, in truth, a pretty stiff, stubborn, unreasonable sort of fellow. You have had cause to know that, Peggy. And so hath Sally. If life were, by any chance, given me I should try to be all that she thinks me; but I am to die. To die——” He stopped suddenly, and his eyes began to glow. “’Fore George!” he cried, “if I cannot live I can die as she would have the ‘finest gentleman’ to die! What if it is on the scaffold, and not the battle-field? Though it be not a glorious death, it can be glorified! How could she know that that was just what I would need to put me on my mettle? How could she know?”
“Then it hath helped thee, Clifford?” spoke Peggy, marveling at the transformation in him.