and turning to
Jerry said: "Faith, there's nothin' good about it but it's colour!" In
a few moments she sat down to the first formal meal is the bosom of the
Chichester family.

CHAPTER VII

THE PASSING OF THE FIRST MONTH

The days that followed were never-to-be-forgotten ones for Peg. Her
nature was in continual revolt. The teaching of her whole lifetime she
was told to correct. Everything she SAID, everything she LOOKED,
everything she DID was wrong.

Tutors were engaged to prepare her for the position she might one day
enjoy through her dead uncle's will. They did not remain long. She
showed either marked incapacity to acquire the slightest veneer of
culture--else it was pure wilfulness.

The only gleams of relief she had were on the occasions when Jerry
visited the family. Whenever they could avoid Mrs. Chichester's
watchful eyes they would chat and laugh and play like children. She
could not understand him--he was always discovering new traits in her.
They became great friends.

Her letters to her father were, at first, very bitter, regarding her
treatment by the family. Indeed so resentful did they become that her
father wrote to her in reply urging her, if she was so unhappy, to at
once return to him on the next steamer. But she did NOT. Little by
little the letters softened. Occasionally, toward the end of that first
month they seemed almost contented. Her father marvelled at the cause.

The month she had promised to stay was drawing to an end. But one more
day remained. It was to be a memorable one for Peg.

Jerry had endeavoured at various times to encourage her to study. He
would question her, and chide her and try to stimulate her. One day he
gave her a large, handsomely-bound volume and asked her to read it at
odd times and he would examine her in it when she had mastered its
contents. She opened it wonderingly and found it to be "Love Stories of
the World."

It became Peg's treasure. She kept it hidden from every one in the
house. She made a cover for it out of a piece of cloth so that no one
could see the ornate binding. She would read it at night in her room,
by day out in the fields or by the sea. But her favourite time and
place was in the living-room, every evening after dinner. She would
surround herself with books--a geography, a history of England, a huge
atlas, a treatise on simple arithmetic and put the great book in the
centre; making of it an island--the fount of knowledge.