Yet, for many days, Peg was as Giles
Humphrey's right hand. I was shunned with a blush
and a hasty word, while the crusty old
millionnaire was nourished with kind attentions, and
sweet companionship. She helped him to his
coffee, she cut the pages of his newspaper, she
read to him, and adjusted his footstool. I
believe she even stitched him a pocket-handkerchief
or something, sitting by his side, with her
pale fair cheek turned towards him. She was the
envy of the drawing-room. If this pen had not
forsworn sentimentality, it might describe to
you how I groaned at times that circumstances
should have made of my Peg a desperate woman,
ready to marry a mummy as an escape from
poverty, and how at other times I scorned her
as an artful heartless Peg, not worth my pity.
But I may tell you how they whispered about
her all over the house. Whispers in the drawing-
room, whispers over the bedroom fires, whispers
all through the passages; on fine days even
whispers out in the garden, and away abroad
among the woods. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Peg
O'Shaughnessy was trying to entrap the
millionnaire. And, oh dear! who could say that
Lucretia Fitzgibbon was not kind, and even
sisterly, to the shy friendless girl, who was a
stranger among strangers?

And did no one dare to speak above a whisper,
you will ask, and say a word for Peg?
Oh, ay!—there was one good little lady of
small social consequence, who ventured to
suggest that the whole party stood aloof from
the girl, criticising her; that the poor thing
felt herself apart from the rest of the ladies;
that she had no pretty morning dresses to
eat her breakfast in, no handsome evening
dresses to eat her dinner in, no fine riding-
habit to go a-riding in; and that these wants
usually press upon the female mind. That she
had only one straight black gown for all times.
Further, that, being accustomed to wait on an
old man, her father, she had taken naturally to
waiting on Giles Humphrey, who was an elderly
man, to say the least; that her seat beside his
chair was a harbour to her—not a pleasant one,
perhaps, but still a harbour. These things were
said by the blessed little lady of small social
consequence, but who heard them?

It was at this period of affairs that one evening,
jewels being the subject of conversation,
Giles Humphrey, having drunk wine, set his
eyes a-twinkling, and began to brag of certain
wondrous trinkets which were in his possession,
and the like of which had never (said he)
gladdened the eyes of any of the assembled
company. A gentleman present, who was a judge
of such matters, twitted him to make good his
boast, whereupon the little man's slow blood
got up, and he rushed to his chamber, knocked
Jacko (so the black man was called, from
his likeness, I suppose, to a monkey) off his
perch on the coffer, and presently came down
with a bag full of jewels fit to startle the eyes of
any prince in the Arabian Nights. There were
necklaces, bracelets and bangles, bodkins for the
hair, and earrings weighty enough to tear the flesh
of delicate ears; gems of as many hues and
cuttings as puzzled Aladdin in the cave. There were
dazzling necks in plenty and arms bare to the
shoulder all round about Giles Humphrey, on
which he might have displayed his treasures to
advantage, but it was on Peg that he chose to
hang them. He stuck bodkins of blazing diamonds
in her hair; clasped a dozen chains and necklaces
round her neck till they dropped below her
waist, making her bust one flaring mass of splendour;
put bangles of gold on her ankles; and
made her bare one round white arm, which he
shackled with bracelets. Blushing with confusion,
and smiling in amusement at being so
bedizened, Peg looked as quaint and as radiant
as some rare old-fashioned princess stepped out
of an illuminated legend. Many an eye saw
beauty in her at that moment which it never had
seen before. For my part, I thought she had
looked more beautiful in the scarlet and white
flowers which I had given her for her bosom
that morning. Where, by the way, was Lucretia
Fitzgibbon during those five or ten minutes of
Peg's magnificence? Positively I forget. I
remember that a female voice (could it have
been hers?) murmured in a delicate under tone
that it was a pity Peg had not a right to wear
the jewels, since they became her so well; and
that this was the signal for my gallant uncle to
begin to unclasp them and gather them into
their casket again as fast as he could. As one
after another dropped away from her, Peg grew
pale and ceased to smile. Watching her
curiously, I saw a strangely eager stern look come
over her face as bauble after bauble disappeared.
Once, for a moment, her cheeks flushed, and a
flash of longing sprang into her eyes, but it
faded away again and left her pale and thoughtful.
I divined that she was thinking how
much a few of those trinkets would do towards
relieving the distresses of a poor old broken-
down father, and restoring the comfort of the
barren fallen home of the O'Shaughnessys. Oh,
Peg, Peg! Why did you let me see that look!
It happened that the last of the ornaments
which she relinquished—a certain bracelet—had
been clasped too tightly on the swell of her
plump arm, and there was a difficulty about
getting it unfastened. One after another, we all
tried our skill upon it, having each ample time
as we did so to observe the fashion and the
richness of the ornament. The groundwork was
a broad belt of gold, enriched with the most
exquisite Indian filigree work, and this band was
studded with at least a thousand tiny precious
stones of every hue. Mark that cursed bracelet
well, Tom, for it will reappear in my story.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at Aberdeen on
Wednesday 16th; at Glasgow on Friday 18th; at
Edinburgh on Saturday morning the 19th; at ST. JAMES'S HALL
on Tuesday the 22nd, and Tuesday the 29th; and at
Portsmouth on Thursday the 24th, and Friday the 25th of May