Peggy raised her eyebrows, puckered her pretty lips, and looked straight up into the sky as if striving to solve a riddle.
"For my life I cannot guess," she said at last, "unless—unless it was that wretched woman who broke her promise."
"Thou hast keen insight for one of thy years."
"Then it was she!"
"It was no other."
"Tell me her name, that I may go to her and denounce her to her face."
"Strangers know her as Mistress Margaret Neville. To her friends she is plain Peggy. Now denounce her to her face if thou wilt."
Tripping to the edge of the bank, the girl bent over till she could catch the reflection of her curls and dancing eyes in the water.
"Plain Peggy," she said, shaking her finger at the image below with a wicked smile, "you must be a bad baggage. It seems you have broken your promise to marry a gentleman here, and such a perfect gentleman! he says so himself,—one who never gets angry, never butts with his head at doors, never shames his mother. Why, plain Peggy, you must be a fool to lose such a chance; but since you have thrown away such a treasure, I trust you will meet the punishment you do deserve, and that he will go away and never—never—never speak—to you again!"
With this Peggy turned sharply on her heel, burning with curiosity to see the effect of her words. Poor, discomfited little maiden! Romney had withdrawn to the edge of the wharf, and there, close beside her, with his horse's bridle over his arm, stood Councillor Claiborne.