“No, it isn’t that, Molly; it’s something very different, something very sad. Poor Captain Desmond has just died of typhoid fever in India, and now, my darlings, comes the crux. He wrote on his deathbed to your father, making a sort of confession. He said that long ago, in Ireland, in the County Kerry, he met a beautiful Irish peasant girl, fell in love with her, and married her. They had one little daughter, and the mother died at the child’s birth. The little girl was brought up by her maternal grandparents until they died; then for the last five or six years some people of the name of O’Flynn took charge of her, her father paying them for doing so. The O’Flynns are very poor and common sort of people. The girl is fifteen years of age, and has lived all her life in Irish cabins in the County Kerry. Now, Peter Desmond on his deathbed told your father that the child is penniless, except for a small annuity which she will get from the Government as his daughter. He has asked your father to adopt this poor girl, to bring her here—here!—and to let her grow up as a lady; and your father says he will. Nothing will turn him, no amount of imploring on my part; he has made up his mind. Captain Desmond was his dearest friend. He is going to Ireland to-night to fetch this child—Peggy, he calls her. Now, what is to be done?” Mrs. Wyndham burst into tears. “To think of such a creature coming to us!” she said. “Why, even the servants would be ashamed of her.” Jess, the eldest girl, was quite silent; but Molly, after a moment’s pause, kissed her mother’s flushed cheek and said: “Well, mums, I do think that father could do nothing else.” Mrs. Wyndham gazed at the child in despair. “It’s very hard on mums, I must say,” exclaimed Jessie. “Yes, of course,” answered Molly; “but still it’s right. Right things are often hard,” she added.—“And, mother, we’ll look after her; you mustn’t be worried,” continued the girl. “But it is on account of you both that I am so unhappy. Oh,” continued the good lady, “you have never seen an Irish peasant! She is a most disgraceful creature!” “Oh mother, but this girl is a lady by birth!” “On her father’s side,” said Mrs. Wyndham; “but what about her mother? Her father, as well as I can tell, has never troubled himself even to see her, and now he hands her over to us. I do call it terrible!” As Mrs. Wyndham spoke she rose from her chair and stood for a few minutes looking out of the window at the peaceful landscape. “Mother,” said Jessie suddenly, “couldn’t she go to school for a bit—until she’s polished up a little, I mean? Oh, I don’t mean to our school, of course, but to some other school.” “I thought of that, my dears; but your father won’t have it. He says that if the child comes here she is to be treated from the first as a lady, as a daughter of the house; and if possible, and we can get Mrs. Fleming to take her, she is to go to your school at The Red Gables.” “Oh mother!”