d.

But it seemed an impossibility, and her nearest approach to it lay in
Mrs. Harold's affection for her.

Peggy was not ungrateful, but what had befallen the usual order of
things? Was this aunt, with whom, try as she would, she could not feel
anything in common, about to establish herself in the home, every turn
and corner of which was so dear to her, and utterly disrupt it? For this
Peggy felt pretty sure she would do if left a free hand. Already she had
most of the old servants in a state of ferment, if not open hostility.
They plainly regarded her as an interloper, resented her assumption of
rule and her interference in the innumerable little details of the
household economy. Her very evident lack of the qualities which,
according to their standards, stood for "de true an' endurin' quality
raisin'," made them distrust her.

Now the "time was certainly out of joint" and poor little Peggy began to
wonder if she had to complete the quotation.

All that has been written had passed like a whirlwind through Peggy's
harassed brain in much less time than it has taken to put it on paper.
It was all a jumble to poor Peggy; vague, yet very real; understood yet
baffling. The only real evidences of her unhappiness and doubt were the
tears and sobs, and these soon called, by some telepathic message of
love and a life's devotion, the faithful old nurse who had been the
comforter of her childish woes. For days Mammy had been "as res'less an'
onsettled as a yo'ng tuckey long 'bout Thanksgivin' time," as she
expressed it, and had found it difficult to settle down to her ordinary
routine of work during the preceding two weeks. She prowled about the
house and the premises "fer all de 'roun worl' like yo' huntin'
speerits," declared Aunt Cynthia, the cook.

"Huh!" retorted Mammy, "I on'y wisht I could feel dat dey was frien'ly
ones, but I has a percolation dat dey's comin' from _below_ stidder
_above_."

So perhaps this explains why she went up to Peggy's room at an hour
which she usually spent in her own quarters mending. Long before she
reached the room she became aware of sounds which acted upon her as a
spark to a powder magazine, for Mammy's loving old ears lay very close
to her heart.

With a pious "Ma Lawd-God-Amighty, what done happen?" she flew down the
broad hall and, being a privileged character, entered the room without
knocking. The next second she was holding Peggy in her arms and almost
sobbing herself as she b