"To be sure, for mamma's sake," said Susan, satisfied; "but surely, other people, when she knew so many, must have loved mamma. Peggy, what can make papa so stiff and hard to strangers, and putting everybody out of the house, and never letting us make any friends--what do you think it can be?" Peggy drew a long breath, which seemed to end in some inward words, said for her own private relief and satisfaction. "Your papa has his own reasons, Miss Susan, and that's neither for you nor me; but you see he lets Mr. Edward come. Who can tell how many more?--for Mr. Edward has the tongue of a nightingale, and steals folks's hearts." "I wish he would sing into papa's," said Susan, laughing; "there's never any music at Marchmain, Peggy. Oh, I wonder when Uncle Edward will come; look out and see if there's anybody in the road; such a morning! and Horace will come in all muddy and sulky, and not get goodtempered the whole of the day. Peggy," cried Susan, jumping down from the chair she had mounted to look out, "are boys _always_ so dreadfully cross?" "Indeed, Miss Susan, they're little to be trusted," said Peggy, with a grave face of wisdom, prudently refraining from blaming Horace, while she inculcated the moral lessons supposed to be most advantageous to feminine youth. Susan shrugged her shoulders with a private internal reflection, which perhaps meant, "I should like to judge for myself;" but which said, "I am very glad, then, that we see so little of them." For people don't permit themselves to be very ingenuous, even in their thoughts--at least women and young girls do not. "I suppose, then," she said very demurely aloud, "there never was but one Uncle Edward in the whole world, Peggy." "Eh, honey! if there were a hunderd the world would be saved, like the Lord said to Abraham," cried Peggy. "My heart jumped when the master said it last night. I said to myself, 'a good man's coming, and a blessing will come with him.' If I saw you out of this, you two unfortunate things, I would be content to go foot foremost the same day to Lanwoth Church." "That would be cheerful and pleasant for us, I am sure," cried Susan; "I wonder how you dare say such a thing, Peggy--all about your own nonsense, and not a word of Uncle Edward! But, I say, Peggy--oh! tell me--Uncle Edward's not a _young_ man?" Peggy took time to consider, pausing in her work for the purpose, with her hands covered with flour--for it was baking day. "I'm bound to allow he cannot be young--nay, it's fifteen years since he was home," cried Peggy, with a sigh. "Time flies!--it was the very same year, Miss Susan, that your mamma died." Susan paused with a question on her lips, awed by these last words; for she understood dimly that it was in some season of extreme and mysterious calamity that her mother's life concluded. She could not have told how this impression had settled on her mind, but there it certainly was.