Peg O' My Heart Part 58

"Stains and all?"

"My dear Peg--"

"Perhaps they'll rub out. It's the prettiest one me aunt gave me--an' I put it on to-night--because--I thought you--that is, SOMEONE might come here to-night. At least, I HOPED he would, an' ye've come!" Suddenly she broke out pa.s.sionately: "Oh, ye must take me! Ye must! I haven't had a bit of pleasure since I've been here. It will be wondherful.

Besides I wouldn't rest all night with you dancin' over there an' me a prisoner over here."

"Now, Peg--" he tried to begin--

"It's no use, I tell ye. Ye've GOT to take me. An' if it goes against yer conscience to do it, I'LL take YOU. Stop, now! Listen! The moment they're all in bed, an' the lights are all out I'll creep down here an'

out through those windows an' you'll meet me at the foot o' the path.

An' it's no use ye sayin' anythin' because I'm just goin' to that dance. So make up yer mind to it." Jerry laughed uncomfortably. She was quite capable of doing such a thing and getting herself into a great deal of unnecessary trouble. So he tried to dissuade her. He laughed cheerfully.

"There may not be any occasion to do such a wild, foolish thing. Why, your aunt may be delighted."

"ME aunt has never been DELIGHTED since she was born!"

"Have you been annoying her again?"

"Faith, I'm always doin' that."

He looked at the litter of books on the table and picked up one.

"How are your studies progressing?"

"Just the way they always have," replied Peg. "Not at all."

"Why not?"

"I don't like studying," answered Peg earnestly.

"And are you going through life doing only the things you LIKE?"

"Sure, that's all life's for."

"Oh, no, it isn't. As you grow older you'll find the only real happiness in life is in doing things for others."

"Oh!" she said quickly: "I like doin' them NOW for others." She looked up at him a moment, then down at a book and finished under, her breath: "When I LIKE the OTHERS."

He looked at her intently a moment and was just going to speak when she broke in quickly:

"What's the use of learnin' the heights of mountains whose names I can't p.r.o.nounce and I'm never goin' to climb? And I'm very much surprised at me aunt allowin' me to read about the doin's of a lot of dead kings who did things we ought to thry and forget."

"They made history," said Jerry. "Well, they ought to have been ashamed of themselves. I don't care how high Mont Blanc is nor when William the Conqueror landed in England."

"Oh, nonsense!" reasoned Jerry--

"I tell ye I HATE English history. It makes all me Irish blood boil."

Suddenly she burst into a reproduction of the far-off father, suiting action to word and climaxing at the end, as she had so often heard him finish:

"'What IS England? What is it, I say. I'll tell ye! A mane little bit of counthry thramplin' down a fine race like OURS!' That's what me father sez, and that's the way he sez it. An' when he brings his fist down like that--" and she showed Jerry exactly how her father did it--"when he brings his fist down like THAT, it doesn't matther how many people are listenin' to him, there isn't one dares to conthradict him. Me father feels very strongly about English History. An' I don't want to learn it."

"Is it fair to your aunt?" asked Jerry.

Peg grew sullen and gloomy. She liked to be praised, but all she ever got in that house was blame. And now he was following the way of the others. It was hard. No one understood her.

"Is it fair to your aunt?" he repeated.

"No. I don't suppose it is."

"Is it fair to yourself?"

"That's right--scold me, lecture me! You sound just like me aunt, ye do."

"But you'll be at such a disadvantage by-and-by with other young ladies without half your intelligence just because they know things you refuse to learn. Then you'll be ashamed."

She looked at him pleadingly. "Are YOU ashamed of me? Because I'm ignorant? Are ye?"

"Not a bit," replied Jerry heartily. "I was just the same at your age.

I used to scamp at school and s.h.i.+rk at college until I found myself so far behind fellows I despised that _I_ was ashamed. Then I went after them tooth and nail until I caught them up and pa.s.sed them."

"Did ye?" cried Peg eagerly.

"I did."

"I will, too," she said.

"WILL you?"

She nodded vigorously:

"I will--INDEED I will. From now on I'll do everythin' they tell me an'

learn everythin' they teach me, if it kills me!"

"I wish you would," he said seriously.

"An' when I pa.s.s everybody else, an' know more than anyone EVER knew--will ye be very proud of me?"

"Yes, Peg. Even more than I am now."

"Are ye NOW?"

"I am. Proud to think you are my friend."

"Ye'd ha' won yer wager. We ARE friends, aren't we?"

"I am YOURS."

"Sure, I'm YOURS ALL RIGHT."