so old as to have fallen into my second
childhood."

"Compliments aside, then, will you proceed to whatever business has
brought you here?"

"I want a thousand dollars."

"A thousand dollars!" repeated John Somerville. "Very likely, I should
like that amount myself. You have not come here to tell me that?"

"I have come here to ask that amount of you."

"Suppose I should say that your husband is the proper person for you to
apply to in such a case."

"I think I am more likely to get it out of you," answered Peg, coolly.
"My husband couldn't supply me with a thousand cents, even if he were
willing, which is not likely."

"Much as I am flattered by your application," said Somerville, "since it
would seem to place me next in your estimation to your husband, I cannot
help suggesting that it is not usual to bestow such a sum on a stranger,
or even a friend, without an equivalent rendered."

"I am ready to give you an equivalent."

"Of what value?"

"I am willing to be silent."

"And how can your silence benefit me?"

John Somerville asked this question with an assumption of indifference,
but his fingers twitched nervously.

"That _you_ will be best able to estimate," said Peg.

"Explain yourself."

"I can do that in a few words. You employed me to kidnap a child.
I believe the law has something to say about that. At any rate, the
child's mother may have."

"What do you know about the child's mother?" demanded Somerville,
hastily.

"All about her!" returned Peg, emphatically.

"How am I to know that? It is easy to claim the knowledge."

"Shall I tell you all? In the first place she married your cousin,
_after rejecting you_. You never forgave her for this. When a year
after marriage her husband died, you renewed your proposals. They
were rejected, and you were forbidden to renew the subject on pain of
forfeiting her friendship forever. You left her presence, determined to
be revenged. With this object you sought Dick and myself, and employed
us to kidnap the child. There is the whole story, briefly told."

John Somerville listened, with compressed lips and pale face.

"Woman, how came this within your knowledge?" he demanded, coarsely.

"That is of no consequence," said Peg. "It was for my interest to find
out, and I did so."

"Well?"

"I know one thing more--the residence of the child's mother. I hesitated
this morning whether to come here, or carry Ida to her mother, trusting
to her to repa