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             Secret History Revealed by Lady Peggy O'Malley

                      By C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

        Author of "The Lightning Conductor Discovers America," "A
        Soldier of the Legion," "Lady Betty Across the Water," Etc.

With Frontispiece in Colors
By CLARENCE ROWE

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangements with Doubleday, Page and Company

_Copyright, 1915, by_
C. N. & A. M. Williamson

_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian_




[Illustration: _"As I kicked it away, one of the slippers flew off and
seemed spitefully to follow the coat."_]




CHAPTER I


If I didn't tell this, nobody else ever would; certainly not Diana, nor
Major Vandyke--still less Eagle himself--I mean Captain Eagleston March;
and they and I are the only ones who know, except a few such people as
presidents and secretaries of war and generals, who never tell anything
even under torture. Besides, there is the unofficial part. Without that,
the drama would be like a play in three acts, with the first and third
acts chopped off. The presidents and secretaries of war and generals
know nothing about the unofficial part.

It's strange how the biggest things of life grow out of the tiniest
ones. There _is_ the old simile of the acorn and the oak, for instance.
But oaks take a long time to grow, and everybody concerned in oak
culture is calmly expecting them to do it. Imagine an acorn exploding to
let out an oak huge enough to shadow the world!

If, two years ago, when I was sixteen, I hadn't wanted money to buy a
white frock with roses on it, which I saw in Selfridge's window, a
secret crisis between the United States and Mexico would have been
avoided; and the career of a splendid soldier would not have been
broken.

One month before I met the white dress, Diana and Father and I had come
from home--that's Ballyconal--to see what good we could do with a season
in London; good for Diana, I mean, and I put her before Father because
he does so himself. Every one else he puts far, far behind, like the
beasts following Noah into the Ark. Not that I'm sure, without looking
them up, that they did follow Noah. But if it had been Father, he would
have arranged it in that way, to escape seeing their ugly faces or
smelling those who were not nice to smell.

I suppose I should have been left at Ballyconal, with nothing to do but
study my beloved French and Spanish, my sole accomplishments; only
Father had contrived to let the place, through the New York _Herald_, to
an American family who, poor dears, snapped it up by cable from the
description in the advertisement of "a wonderful XII Century Castle."
Besides, Diana couldn't afford a maid. And that's why I was taken to
America afterward. I can do hair beautifully. So, when one thinks back,
Fate had begun to weave a web long before the making of that white
dress. None of those tremendous things would have happened to change
heaven knows how many lives, if I hadn't been born with the knack of a
hairdresser, inherited perhaps from some bourgeoise ancestress of mine
on Mother's side.

When the American family found out what Ballyconal was really like, and
the twelfth-century rats had crept out from the hinterland of the old
wainscoting ("rich in ancient oak," the advertisement stated), to
scamper over its faces by night, and door knobs had come off in its
hands by day, or torn carpets had tripped it up and sprained its ankles,
it said bad words about deceitful, stoney-broke Irish earls, and fled at
the end of a fortnight, having paid for two months in advance at the
rate of thirty-five guineas a week. Father had been sadly sure that the
Americans would do that very thing, so he had counted on getting only
the advance money and no more. This meant cheap lodgings for us, which
spoiled Diana's chances from the start, as she told Father the minute
she saw the house. It was in a fairly good neighbourhood, and the
address looked fashionable on paper; but man, and especially girl, may
not live on neighbourhood and paper alone, even if the latter can be
peppered with coronets.

I don't know what curse or mildew collects on poor Irish earls, but it
sim