,
she had walked with Sandy Watt on the Squid Cove road, the disloyalty
implied, mixed with fear of the consequences, made her too wretched to
repeat that lapse from a faithful and consistent conduct. She was
quite sure that Dickie Blue would be angered again if she did (he was
savagely angry)--that he would be driven away for good and all.

"You must not do it again, Peggy," Dickie Blue had admonished. "Now,
mind what I'm tellin' you!"

"I won't," the soft little Peggy promised in haste.

"Now, that's sensible," said Dickie Blue. He was in earnest. And his
purpose was high.

"Still an' all," Peggy began, "there's no harm----"

"What does a maid know about that?" Dickie interrupted. "It takes a
man t' know a man. The lad's not fit company for the likes o' you." It
was true. "You must look upon me, Peggy, as an elder brother, an' be
guided by my advice. I'll watch over you, Peggy, jus' as well as an
elder brother can."

"I'm grateful," Peggy murmured, flushed with pleasure in this
interest. "I thanks you."

"There's no call t' thank me," Dickie protested. "'Tis a pleasure t'
serve you."

"Thank you," said Peggy.

Skipper John Blue was a hearty old codger. Pretty Peggy Lacey, whose
father had been cast away in the _Sink or Swim_, long ago, on the
reefs off Thumb-an'-Finger of the Labrador, loved and used him like a
father and found him sufficient to her need. To pretty Peggy Lacey,
then, Skipper John cautiously repeated the substance of his
conversation with Dickie Blue, adding a whisper of artful advice and a
chuckle of delight in it. Peggy Lacey was appalled by the deceitful
practice disclosed by Skipper John, whose sophistication she suspected
and deplored. She had no notion at all, said she, that such evil as he
described could walk abroad and unshamed in the good world, and she
wondered what old mischief of his youth had informed him; and she
would die a maid, loveless and childless, she declared, rather than
have the guilt of a deception of such magnitude on her soul. Moreover,
where were the means to be procured for executing the enormity? There
was nothing of the sort, she was sure, in Trader Tom Jenkins's shop at
Scalawag Run. There was nothing of the sort to be had anywhere short
of St. John's; and as for sanctioning a plan so bold as sending a
letter and a post-office order to Skipper John's old friend in St.
John's, the lively widow o' the late Cap'n Saul Nash, o' the _Royal
Bloodhound_, pretty Pe