“Peg is a grand girl!” mused the General. “It is pity, too; she should have been a man and a soldier. And then the pure taste of her! You have heard of a peck, more or less, of diamonds which Eaton brought on from the North? I looked to see them wreathed about Peg's neck or arms or fingers or wherever heaven meant they should go. And, mind you! not a trace of them. 'Why,' says our Peg, when I would question her, 'they were of such wondrous richness I thought it shame to wear them in my own drawing room--and me no more than a girl--and set them against older, better folk who would be my guests. It would have been to over-crow them, and as though I sought to pamper vanity at their cost. Wherefore, in compliment, I would not wear them, but put them all aside. Now, this bit of coral is better, since more modest. It was from a sweetheart, and is the one thing I love best of all the world.' Was there not fineness for you?” demanded the General. “Was there not magnanimity? What other woman between the poles could have withstood her hands from those gems? Or who, from mere kindness and to spare the women about her their own envy, would have thrust them away to don that coral trifle in their stead? A tavern's daughter, forsooth! Why, such a spirit would give a grace beyond her title to a duchess! I know of nothing more good or noble to tell the silken nature of our little Peg.” CHAPTER XIII--THE SON OF THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHTER Peg's war for social eminence would now move bravely. The tale of that double reception with its polite throngs pushing forward in honor of her and her “good little secretary,” and the General's presence thereat, stately yet deferential, fluttered from lip to lip like some bright bird. And, as such birds will, the farther it fluttered the brighter it grew. I've told you how I own no warrant, whether of education or natural trend, to descant on wax-lights and polished floors and satins; but so far as I might trap the murmur of folk who should have such matters of gossamer and music on their tongues' ends, the most guarded decision went to it that Peg's position had become thereby as surely fixed as the pole-star, and might with as much safety be observed and steered by whenever any of your blind mariners of the drawing rooms should lose a course or find himself in deep, strange waters.