"I've set my mind to goin' to the heathen, please sir, and I'm hopin' to bring on a friend of mine called Ellen to do it too. But if God don't think me fit, He'll let me know it somehow." And then Peggy marched away with a smiling countenance and a sore heart. "Collectin' in a stockin' is a help," she murmured to herself, "but it ain't half big enough for me to do, and I'm a-goin' to do as much as ever as I can, not as little!" She was very silent when she got back to Lucy, and when she went to bed shed some tears. "You feels quite low, Peggy," she murmured, between her sobs. "'Tis the miss of your stockin': seems as if there have been a death in yer room, but 'tis all foolishness! Think of where 'tis gone, and what that there money be a-goin' to do. And if you don't feel homey without a stockin', get out another and start fillin' it to-morrer!" With which resolve she fell asleep comforted. * * * * * It is an April day, and four years have passed since Peggy returned from London to her country home. She is standing under an apple-tree in the garden, and she is listening to a merry peal of bells. Albert Edward is sitting up on his haunches and watching her; but a sturdy young man is watching her too, and he is not, like Albert Edward, obliged to watch in silence, for he has a tongue in his head. "Peggy!" Such a start Peggy gave, and a rising blush comes into her cheeks that makes her almost pretty. "Now, Bill, whatever are you followin' me about for? I saw you in church a while ago, and that's enough for one day." "Father sent me," said the young fellow, a little awkwardly. "He wants to hear tell of the weddin'!" "You can tell him," said Peggy, gazing up into the pink-and-white blossoms above her. "You knows how nice Miss Joyce looked, and there isn't another captain in the world to beat our Captain D'Arcy! I'm goin' in directly to cheer Miss Helen up. She 've gone to her room to have a cry, and I come out here so soon as the carriage drove 'em away." "And what be you thinkin' of?" asked the young man, approaching her judiciously. "I was thinkin' of the way they shook my hands, the two of them," responded Peggy, with a rapt smile about her lips. "I telled you that they arsked me to go to Indy with them. I used to make up that I would be a missionary d'rectly I was growed-up, and it seemed as if God were givin' me a chance.