“My husband is much honored,” said she at one point, “and deems himself advanced by what the General would offer. Also, he sees nothing of the darkness into which I stare; he sees only the high station and the power of it, and the way shines to his feet. But I know what society will do; I have not been child and girl and woman in Washington without experience of it. Folk will turn from me and ignore me and seek to blot me out. If it were none save myself to be considered, I would abandon the field; I would hunt seclusion, cultivate obscurity as if it were a rose. But am I to become a drag on the man who loves me and gives me his name? Am I to be fetters for his feet--a stumbling-block before him?” “There is no need of this apprehension,” said I; “you should have a higher spirit, since you are innocent.” “Innocent, yes!” she cried, and her deep eyes glowed; “innocent, yes! As heaven hears me, innocent!” Her manner dismayed me with what it unveiled of suffering. Then in a lower tone, and with a kindle of that cynicism to come upon folk who, working no evil and doing no wrong, are yet made to find themselves fronted of adverse tides and blown against by winds of cruelty, “Innocent, yes; but what relief comes then? I am young; many are still children with my years. And, thanks to a tavern bringing up,”--here was hardness now--“I have so seen into the world's heart as to know that it is better to be a rogue called honest, than honest and called a rogue. That is true among men; I tell you it is doubly true among women.” To be open about it, I was shocked; not that what Peg said was either foolish or untrue. But to be capable of such talk, and she with that loving, patient mouth, showed how woeful must have been the lesson. But it gave me none the less a deal of sureness for the level character of her intellect, and I saw she carried within her head the rudiments of sense. “What is it you would ask of me?” said I, at last. “I can only promise beforehand anything in my power.” “I would ask nothing,” she replied, “save the assurance that you will be my husband's friend and mine. I see grief on its way as one sees a storm creep up the sky. Oh!” she suddenly cried with a sparkle of tears, “my husband! He must not be made ashamed for me! Rather than that, I would die!” Peg bowed her flower-like head and wept, I, sitting just across, doing nothing, saying nothing; which conduct was wise on my part, albeit I hadn't the wit to see it at the time, and was simply daunted to silence by a sorrow I knew not how to check. It was a tempest, truly, and swayed and bent her like a willow in a wind. At last she overtook herself; she smiled with all the brightness of nature, or the sun after a flurry of rain. “It will do me good,” she said; “and when the time comes I will be braver than you now think.”