The Reverend Campbell rolled forth the foregoing, and never halt or pause; with the last word he was down upon his knees, expanding into a gale of prayer. It is not for me to pass upon such sacred petitions, but the Reverend Campbell's effort grated on my conscience as crude, and, if the term be not improper, vulgar. The General, who was still in his chair, bowed head in hand and sat silent throughout. He made neither sign nor sound; and yet it must have galled him like musketry, that prayer. It was when the Reverend Campbell stood again on his feet, and the magpie one had rearranged her feathers, that their glances took in Peg where she now stood near the fire. She was silent, collected, and her calm look rested upon the Reverend Campbell and the magpie one. It was a steady glance of unseeing indifference and unacquaintance, and as though the pair were strangers to her. Their actions, however, would smack of something nearer. No sooner did they behold Peg, than with one impulse they started towards her, faces a garden of smiles. “Why, my dear Mrs. Eaton!” cried the magpie one. “My dear, recovered lamb!” exclaimed the Reverend Campbell. The two made for Peg with exuberant hands extended. Peg waved them off. “You make a mistake,” said Peg. Her words took flight evenly and with nothing of disturbance. “I do not know you.” Then, as the Reverend Campbell and his magpie love seemed but half checked: “And I will not know you.” These closing words were vibrant of a nipping vigor, and Peg's leopard teeth came together with a click, and, as it were, for emphasis. Peg turned to me: “Will you take me to my carriage?” With that, the General arose and cavaliered Peg to the door. “Give my thanks to your good mother, child,” said the General, his fond eye pleasant with the reflection of Peg's pretty face; “tell her I shall profit by her kindness. I feel half restored with merely having the Dandelion Water on my shelf.” Closing the door after us, the General returned to the Reverend Campbell and his magpie love. “There is no story with it.” Peg replied, when I put those queries the situation suggested. “They are folk of treachery; that is it. They have been my persecutors as much as any. And with more shame for them, since they have pretended friendship for my family, and had support from my father for year piled upon year.” “And is that the whole of it?” I asked.