Mrs. Neal, it seems, had broken her long silence and had been heard to allude to "my daughter Peggy in New York." Some years had passed since the farm-gate clicked behind that forlorn and outcast girl, and in all that time the mother had never spoken the daughter's name, nor had any one dared more than once to question her. Letitia had tried once, but once only, to intercede for the pupil she had loved, the manner of whose departure was well enough understood in the town and country-side, though where she had gone remained a mystery.
On leaving the farm that September evening, Peggy, with a desperate and tear-stained face, had been met by a neighbor girl, who as a confidant in happier hours, was intrusted with the story. It was not a long one. The mother had pointed to the gate.
"Look there!" she cried. "He went that way. I guess you'll find him, if you try, you—"
Then her mother struck her, Peggy said. She did not know it was the name which felled her.
Now after silence which had seemed like death to the lonely woman in the hills, Peggy had written home to her, to beg forgiveness, to say that in a life of ease and luxury in a great city, she could not help thinking of the farm, which seemed a dream to her; she could never return to it, she said, but she wondered if her father was living, and if her mother had still some heart for her wayward daughter, and would write sometimes. She said nothing of a child. That she was still unmarried seemed evident from the signature—"Your loving, loving Peggy Neal." That some good-fortune had befallen her in spite of that sad beginning in her native fields, was quite as clear, for the paper on which she had scrawled her message was of finest texture and delicately perfumed; and, what was more, between its pages the mother had found a sum of money, how much or little no one knew.
It was observed that the mother's face had relaxed a little. That she had answered her daughter's message was asserted positively by Mrs. Bell, though what that answer was, and whether forgiveness or not, she did not know. It was assumed, however, to have been a pardon, for the mother seemed pleased with the daughter's progress in the world, which must have seemed to her the realization, however ironical, of her discarded hopes; and it was she herself who had divulged the contents of the letter. To the cautious curiosity manifested by elderly ladies of Grassy Ford, who called upon her now more often than had been their wont, as she took some pleasure in reminding them, to their obvious discomfiture, and to all other hints and allusions she turned her deafer ear, while to direct questions she contented herself with the simple answer:
"Peggy's well."
"You hear from her often, I suppose?" some caller ventured. The reply was puzzling:
"Oh, a mother's apt to."
She said it so sadly, looking away across the farm, that Letitia's informant as she told the story burst into tears.