His aunt looked sharply at him. "Has she been talking to you? Her tongue cannot be restrained, but she means no harm." Captain D'Arcy gave a short laugh. "She stood up there by her tea-tray, and preached at me. One of the shortest straightest sermons that I had ever heard, but the suddenness with which she plunged into her subject was rather startling!" Mrs. Dale looked grave. "I am sorry if she annoyed you, Harry; I must say her zeal outruns her discretion sometimes. But her motive is good, and she has been the means of bringing me into touch with things that for a long time I pushed into the background." It cost Mrs. Dale some considerable effort to say those few words. Her nephew whistled softly. "She is an original," he said. "Don't forbid her to speak, Aunt. I shall be interested in seeing how she will follow it up." "I don't think you will find she refers to it again. As far as I gather, Peggy gives her message and leaves it. She won't trouble you any more." CHAPTER XI "A LITTLE TRUMP!" CAPTAIN D'ARCY did not see Peggy again for some weeks. He was rapidly recovering his health, and one morning walked into the library to find Peggy relighting the fire which had gone out. "Hulloo," he said, "are you getting any more sermons ready?" Peggy stood up demurely. "Please, sir, I don't have no sermons," she said. "But you preached me one last time I saw you." Peggy's cheeks became hot and red. "Please, sir, I couldn't preach. I never has been taught nothin', but when I grows up, sir, I hopes to go and be a missionary." "That's not surprising. I wonder you aren't off now." "Don't you think me too small, please, sir?" "You're not too small to preach at home. Now what good do you think you do by it? And what good do you imagine the missionaries do to the heathen abroad? They are much happier left alone." "Please, sir, 'tis only to tell 'em about Jesus. They doesn't know He died for them—the missionary gent said so at the meeting." "Well, why should they know it?" Peggy looked very grave. "They has a right to know it, please, sir. And our Lord said they was to." It was not many that could worst Captain D'Arcy in an argument; he whistled and walked out of the room. "She isn't a simpleton," was his murmured comment. And he did not try to tackle Peggy again. Peggy's conversations with Tom Bennett were lengthier and more unsatisfactory. He would greet her in the morning with such mild chaff as "Good mornin', Mrs. Missionary, is your passage took for Indy or Africa?" or, "Seen any heathen, Miss Peggy, this mornin'? Wish I could get you a blackymore. Perhaps they may keep some at the Zoo. Why don't you go and inquire there?" Peggy would not be wise enough to be silent. She plunged into talk at once, and would get so heated and excited over it that even Lucy would have to call her to order. At last experience taught her that many words were wasted on Tom.