Neil Stewart started.  “Was this little person who talked in such a matter-of-fact way about “taking on new hands” his little Peggy?

“Yes, yes—­I dare say,” he answered in a sort of daze.

Peggy seemed unaware of anything the least unusual and continued: 

“I want you to see this family.  It is Joshua Jozadak Jubal Jones’.  They might all be of an age, but they are not—­quite.  Come here, boys, and see Master Captain,” called Peggy to the three piccaninnies who were peeping around the corner of the cottage.  Three black, grinning little faces, topped by the kinkiest of woolly heads, came slowly at her bidding, each one glancing half-proudly, yet more or less panic-stricken, at the big man in white flannels.

“Hello, boys.  Whose sons are you?  Miss Peggy tells me you are brothers.”

“Yas, sir.  We is.  We’s Joshua Jozadak Jubal Jones’s boys.  I’se Gus—­de ol’es.  Der’s nine haid o’ us, but we’s de oniest boys.  De yethers ain’ nothin’ but gurls.”

“And how old are you!”

“I’se nine I reckons.”

“And what is your name?”

“My name Gus, sah.”

“That’s only half a name.  Your whole name is really Augustus remember.”  The “Massa Captain’s” voice boomed with the sound of the sea.  Augustus and his brothers were duly impressed.  If Gus really meant Augustus, why Augustus he would be henceforth.  The Massa Captain had said it and what the Massa Captain said—­went, especially when he gave a bright new dime to enforce the order.

“And your name?” continued the questioner, pointing at number two.

“I’se jist Jule, sah,” was the shy reply.

“That’s a nickname too.  I can’t have such slipshod, no-account names for my hands’ children.  It isn’t dignified.  It isn’t respectful.  It’s a disgrace to Miss Peggy.  Do you hear?”

“Yas—­yas—­sir.  We—­we hears,” answered the little darkies in chorus, the whites of their eyes rolling and their knees fairly smiting together.  How could they have been guilty of thus slighting their adored young mistress?

“Please, sah, wha’s his name ef taint Jule?” Augustus plucked up heart of grace to ask.

“He is Julius, Jul-I-us, do you understand?”

“Yas—­sir.  Yas—­sir.”  Another dime helped the memory box.

“And your name?” asked the Massa Captain of quaking number three.

There was a long, significant pause, then contortions as though number three were suffering from a violent attack of colic.  At length, after two or three futile attempts he blurted out: 

“I’se—­I’se Billyus, sah!”

There was a terrific explosion, then Neil Stewart tossed the redoubtable Billyus a quarter, crying:  “You win,” and walked away with Peggy, his laughter now and again borne back to his beneficiaries.

Peggy never knew where that month slipped to with its long rides on Shashai, Daddy Neil riding the Emperor, the magnificent sire of all the small fry upon the place, from those who had already gone, or were about to be sent out into the great world beyond the limits of Severndale, to Roy, the latest arrival.  Neil Stewart wondered and marveled more and more as each day slipped by.