Peggy opened their young eyes very wide when Carlos declared she was
the most beautiful person he had ever seen, and Fernando responded with
fervour:

"She eess a _go_dess! the wairld _con_tains not of soche."

But the goddess could not dance, nor play "I spy!" and the girls soon
had it their own way again.

And so the day came when the dancing and playing must stop. The day
came, and the hour came; and a group, half sad, half joyful, was
gathered on the stone veranda, while White Eagle stood ready at the foot
of the steps, with William, waiting to drive the four travellers to the
ferry. Four; for Peggy was to be met in New York by a friend and
neighbour of her father's who was to take her home.

Peggy's eyes were red with weeping. Her hat was on wrong side before,
and her veil was tied in a hard knot, as it had been on the night of her
arrival; but Peggy did not care. She submitted while Margaret set the
hat straight; then clung round her neck, and sobbed till Carlos was
quite distracted. "Margaret, I--I want to tell you!" she whispered
through her tears. "I am going to be a different girl at home now. I am
going to--try--to remember the way you do things, and to be a little
like you. Oh, Margaret, only a little! but I want you to think that I am
trying, and--and--I will remember about my buttons--and--have my boots
blacked. Oh, Margaret, you have been so good to me, and I do love you
so, and now I--am--going away to leave you!"

Margaret was in tears, too, by this time, seventeen having got the upper
hand of thirty-seven completely.

"My dear!" she said. "My dear, darling little Peggy, I shall miss
you,--oh, so much! And dear, you have taught me as much as I have taught
you, and more. Think of the bog! oh, Peggy, think of the bog! and the
gutter-spout! I shall never be such a coward again, and all because of
you, Peggy. And we will write to each other, dear, every week, won't we?
and we will always be sisters, just the same as own sisters. Good-bye,
my little girl! good-bye, my dear little girl!"

The sobbing Peggy was lifted into the carriage; and now it was Rita's
turn to cling about Margaret with fondest words and caresses.

"Marguerite, we part!" she said. "_Tres chere_, how can I leave thee?
I--I have learned much since I came here. We are different, yes! but I
know that it is lovely to be good, though I am not good myself. You
would not have me good, Marguerite? It would destroy my personnel! But I
love