At Castle Morony the beginning of the passing away of the mystery was hailed with great delight. It took place in this wise. A little girl who had been brought up there in the kitchen, and had reached the age of fifteen under the eyes of Ada and Edith,--a slip of a girl, whose feet our two girls had begun to trammel with shoes and stockings, and who was old enough to be proud of the finery though she could not bear the confinement,--had gone under the system of boycotting, when all the other servants had gone also. Peter, who was very stern in his discipline to the younger people, had caught hold of her before she went, and had brought her to Mr. Jones, recommending that at any rate her dress should be stripped from her back, and her shoes and stockings from her feet. "If you war to wallop her, sir, into the bargain, it would be a good deed done," Peter had said to his master. "Why should I wallop her for leaving my service?" "She ain't guv' no notice," said the indignant Peter. "And if I were to wallop you because you had taken it into your stupid head to leave me at a moment's notice, should I be justified in doing so?" "There is differences," said Peter, drawing himself up. "You are stronger, you mean, and Feemy Carroll is weak. Let her go her own gait as she pleases. How am I to take upon myself to say that she is not right to go? And for the shoes and stockings, let them go with her, and the dress also, if I am supposed to have any property in it. Fancy a Landleaguer in Parliament asking an indignant question as to my detaining forcibly an unwilling female servant. Let them all go; the sooner we learn to serve ourselves the better for us. I suppose you will go too before long." This had been unkind, and Peter had made a speech in which he had said so. But the little affair had taken place in the beginning of the boycotting disarrangements, and Mr. Jones had been bitter in spirit. Now the girls had shown how deftly they could do the work, and had begun to talk pleasantly how well they could manage to save the wages and the food. "It's my food you'll have to save, and my wages," said Captain Clayton. But this had been before he had a hole driven through him, and he was only awed by a frown. But now news was brought in that Feemy had crept in at the back door. "Drat her imperence," said Peter, who brought in the news. "It's like her ways to come when she can't get a morsel of wholesome food elsewhere."