nised her aunt. She shook her head.

"Ye don't look a bit like me poor mother did."

"What have you there?" asked Mrs. Chichester.

"Me poor mother's picture," replied Peg softly.

"Let me see it!" and Mrs. Chichester held out her hand for it. Peg
showed it to Mrs. Chichester, all the while keeping a jealous hold on a
corner of the frame. No one would ever take it away from her. The old
lady looked at it intently. Finally she said:

"She had changed very much since I last saw her--and in one year."

"Sorrow and poverty did that, Aunt Monica," and the tears sprang
unbidden into Peg's eyes.

"AUNT will be quite sufficient. Put it away," and Mrs. Chichester
released the miniature.

Peg hid it immediately in her bosom.

"Sit down," directed the old lady in the manner of a judge preparing to
condemn a felon.

Peg sprawled into a chair with a great sigh of relief.

"Thank ye, ant--AUNT," she said. Then she looked at them all
alternately and laughed heartily:

"Sure I had no idea in the wurrld I had such fine relations. Although
of course my father often said to me, 'Now, Peg,' he would say, 'now,
Peg, ye've got some grand folks on yer mother's side'--"

"Folks! Really--Ethel!" cried Alaric disgustedly.

"Yes, that's what he said. Grand FOLKS on me mother's side."

Mrs. Chichester silenced Peg.

"That will do. Don't sprawl in that way. Sit up. Try and remember where
you are. Look at your cousin," and the mother indicated Ethel. Peg sat
up demurely and looked at Ethel. She chuckled to herself as she turned
back to Mrs. Chichester:

"Is she me cousin?"

"She is," replied the mother.

"And I am too," said Alaric. "Cousin Alaric."

Peg looked him all over and laughed openly. Then she turned to Ethel
again, and then looked all around the room and appeared quite puzzled.
Finally she asked Mrs. Chichester the following amazing question:

"Where's her husband?"

Ethel sprang to her feet. The blow was going to fall. She was to be
disgraced before her family by that beggar-brat. It was unbearable.

Mrs. Chichester said in astonishment: "Her HUSBAND?"

"Yes," replied Peg insistently. "I saw her husband when I came in here
first. I've been in this room before, ye know. I came in through those
windows and I saw, her and her husband, she was--"

"What in heaven's name does she mean?" cried Alaric.

Peg persisted: "I tell ye it was SHE sent me to the kitchen--she and
HIM."

"Him? Who in the world does she m