initial commit of ebook 36015HEADmain

1 files changed, 5343 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/36015.txt b/36015.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49da835
--- /dev/null
+++ b/36015.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5343 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Miss Peggy, by Mrs. Molesworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Little Miss Peggy
+       Only a Nursery Story
+
+Author: Mrs. Molesworth
+
+Illustrator: Walter Crane
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2011 [EBook #36015]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE MISS PEGGY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE MISS PEGGY:
+
+ONLY A NURSERY STORY
+
+
+          "Would I could paint the serious brow,
+             The eyes that look the world in face,
+           Half-questioning, doubting, wondering how
+             This happens thus, or that finds place."
+                                    _My Opposite Neighbour._
+
+[Illustration: "'What is the matter, little girls?' said the lady." P.
+181]
+
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE MISS PEGGY:
+
+ONLY A NURSERY SToRY
+
+BY
+
+MRS. MoLESWoRTH
+
+WITH PICTURES
+
+BY
+
+WALTER CRANE
+
+
+          LoNDoN:
+          MACMILLAN & Co.
+          AND NEW YORK
+          1887
+
+
+          To the Memory of
+
+          E. L.
+
+          THE DEAR YOUNG FRIEND
+
+          WHO SUGGESTED ITS NAME TO THIS LITTLE STORY,
+
+          AND FROM WHOSE LATE HOME,
+
+          SO INTIMATELY ASSOCIATED WITH HER,
+
+          THIS DEDICATION IS MADE.
+
+          BINDON, _August_ 1887.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+          CHAPTER I                                  PAGE
+          A BREAKFAST PARTY                            1
+
+          CHAPTER II
+          THE WHITE SPOT ON THE HILL                  18
+
+          CHAPTER III
+          "THE CHILDREN AT THE BACK"                  33
+
+          CHAPTER IV
+          "REAL" FANCIES                              48
+
+          CHAPTER V
+          THE LITTLE RED SHOES                        65
+
+          CHAPTER VI
+          FELLOW-FEELINGS AND SLIPPERS                81
+
+          CHAPTER VII
+          A BUN TO THE GOOD                           98
+
+          CHAPTER VIII
+          UNDER THE BIG UMBRELLA                     114
+
+          CHAPTER IX
+          THE OPPOSITE HOUSE                         131
+
+          CHAPTER X
+          "SOAP-BUBBLING"                            145
+
+          CHAPTER XI
+          UP FERNLEY ROAD                            162
+
+          CHAPTER XII
+          THE SHOES-LADY AGAIN                       178
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "WHAT IS THE MATTER, LITTLE GIRLS?" SAID THE LADY.   _Frontispiece_
+
+
+                                                            PAGE
+
+  HE HAD TO DRUM WITH A SPOON, FIRST IN ONE FAT HAND AND
+      THEN IN THE OTHER                                        2
+
+  THEY WERE SETTLED ON THE HEARTH-RUG--BABY ON PEGGY'S LAP    17
+
+  "SEE HAL," SHE SAID, "OVER THERE, FAR, FAR AWAY, NEELY IN
+      THE SKY, DOES YOU SEE THAT BLUEY HILL?"                 27
+
+  SHE WAS RATHER A TERRIBLE-LOOKING OLD WOMAN; SHE ALWAYS
+      WORE A SHORT BED-GOWN ... AND SHE WAS GENERALLY TO
+      BE SEEN WITH A PIPE IN HER MOUTH                        35
+
+  "TELL ME WHAT THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE IS REELY LIKE"         52
+
+  PEGGY STOOD STILL, HER EYES FIXED ON THE BABY SHOES         68
+
+  "HERE'S THE OTHER SHOE, I'VE JUST FOUNDED IT"               92
+
+  SUDDENLY A WINDOW ABOVE OPENED, AND MOTHER WHELAN'S
+      BEFRILLED FACE WAS THRUST OUT                          109
+
+  AN UMBRELLA ROLLING ITSELF ABOUT ON THE PAVEMENT           127
+
+  "TO BE SURE," SHE SAID, IN HER MOST GRACIOUS TONE.
+      "'TIS THE BEAUTIFUL PIPES I HAVE"                      138
+
+  THE BOYS, BOY-LIKE, THOUGHT LITTLE BUT OF WHO COULD
+      BLOW THE BIGGEST BUBBLES                               149
+
+  HUSHED LIGHT SMILEY TO SLEEP, HER ARM CLASPED ROUND
+      PEGGY                                                  177
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A BREAKFAST PARTY
+
+          "Henry was every morning fed
+           With a full mess of milk and bread."
+                                          MARY LAMB.
+
+
+"NO," said Peggy to herself, with a little sigh, "the naughty clouds has
+covered it up to-day. I can't see it."
+
+"Miss Peggy," came nurse's voice from the other side of the room, "your
+breakfast's waiting. Come to the table, my dear, and stand quiet while
+Master Thor says the grace."
+
+[Illustration: "--Baby, who required a great deal of room to himself at
+table, baby though he was. He had so many things to do during a meal,
+you see, which grown-up children think quite unnecessary. He had to drum
+with a spoon, first in one fat hand and then in the other; he had to dip
+his crust first in nurse's cup of tea and next in Hal's jug of milk to
+see which tasted best, and there would have been no fun in doing either
+if he hadn't had to stretch a long way across; and besides all this he
+felt really obliged now and then to put his feet upon the table for a
+change, one at a time, of course."]
+
+Nurse spoke kindly, but she meant what she said. Peggy turned slowly
+from the window and took her place among her brothers. She, and Thorold
+and Terence, the two oldest boys, sat opposite nurse, and beside nurse
+was Baby, who required a great deal of room to himself at table, baby
+though he was. He had so many things to do during a meal, you see,
+which grown-up children think quite unnecessary. He had to drum with a
+spoon, first in one fat hand and then in the other; he had to dip his
+crust first in nurse's cup of tea and next in Hal's jug of milk to see
+which tasted best, and there would have been no fun in doing either if
+he hadn't had to stretch a long way across; and besides all this he felt
+really obliged now and then to put his feet upon the table for a change,
+one at a time, of course. For even he, clever as he was, could not have
+got both together out of the bars of his chair without toppling over.
+Nurse had for some time past been speaking about beginning "to break
+Master Baby in," but so far it had not got beyond speaking, and she
+contented herself with seating him beside her and giving him a good
+quarter of the table to himself, the only objection to which was that it
+gave things in general a rather lopsided appearance.
+
+At the two ends sat Baldwin and Hal. Hal's real name, of course, was
+Henry, though he was never called by it. Baldwin, on the contrary, had
+no short name, partly perhaps because mamma thought "Baldie" sounded so
+ugly, and partly because there was something about Baldwin himself
+which made one not inclined to shorten his name. It suited him so well,
+for he was broad and comfortable and slow. He was never in a hurry, and
+he gave you the feeling that you needn't be in a hurry either. There was
+plenty of time for everything, for saying the whole of his name as well
+as for everything else.
+
+That made a lot of brothers, didn't it? Five, counting baby, and to
+match them, or rather not to match them--for five and one are not a
+match at all--only one little girl! She wondered about it a good deal,
+when she had nothing else more interesting to wonder about. It seemed so
+very badly managed that she should have five brothers, and that the five
+brothers should only have one sister each. It wasn't always so, she
+knew. The children at the back had plenty of both brothers and sisters;
+she had found that out already. But I must not begin just yet about the
+children at the back; you will hear about them in good time.
+
+There was a nice bowl of bread-and-milk at each child's place, and as
+bread-and-milk is much better hot than cold, it was generally eaten up
+quickly. But this morning, even after the grace was said, and the four
+brothers who weren't baby had got on very well with theirs, Peggy sat,
+spoon in hand, gazing before her and not eating at all.
+
+"What's the matter, Miss Peggy?" said nurse, when she had at last made
+Baby understand that he really _wasn't_ to try to put his toes into her
+tea-cup, which had struck him suddenly as a very beautiful thing to do;
+"you've not begun to eat. Are you waiting for the sugar or the salt, or
+can't you fix which you want this morning?"
+
+For there was a very nice and interesting rule in that nursery that
+every morning each child might choose whether he or she would have salt
+or sugar in the bread and milk. The only thing was that they had to be
+quick about choosing, and that was not always very easy.
+
+Peggy looked up when nurse spoke to her.
+
+"Peggy wasn't 'toosing," she said. Then she grew a little red. "_I_
+wasn't 'toosing," she went on. For Peggy was five--five a good while
+ago--and she wanted to leave off baby ways of talking. "I was
+wondering."
+
+"Well, eat your breakfast, and when you've got half-way down the bowl
+you can tell us what you were wondering about," said nurse.
+
+Peggy's spoon, already laden, continued its journey to her mouth. But
+when it got there, and its contents were safely deposited between her
+two red lips, she gave a little cry.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "it doesn't taste good. There's no salt or sugar."
+
+"'Cos you didn't put any in, you silly girl," said Thor. "I saw, but I
+thought it'd be a good lesson. People shouldn't wonder when they're
+eating."
+
+"Peggy wasn't eating; she was only going to eat," said Terry. "Never
+mind, Peg-top. Thor shan't tease you. Which'll you have? Say quick," and
+he pulled forward the sugar-basin and the salt-cellar in front of his
+sister.
+
+"Sugar, pelease," said Peggy. "It's so 'told this morning."
+
+At this Thor burst out laughing.
+
+"What a Peggy-speech," he said. "Sugar's no warmer than salt."
+
+"Yes," said Baldwin, solemnly, from the other end of the table. "'Tis.
+There's sugar in toffee and in jam, and they're hot, leastways they're
+hot to be made. And there's salt in ices, for mamma said they're made
+with salt."
+
+"What rubbish!" said Thor. "Nurse, isn't it rubbish? And when did you
+ever see ices, I'd like to know, Baldwin?"
+
+"I did," Baldwin maintained. "Onst. But I'll not tell you when, if you
+say rubbish."
+
+"It is rubbish all the same, and I'll prove it," said Thor. "You know
+that nice smooth white sugar on the top of bridescake?--well, they ice
+that to put it on--I know they do. Don't they, nurse?"
+
+"They call it icing, to be sure," nurse replied. "But that's no proof
+that ices themselves mayn't be made with salt, Master Thor, for when you
+come to think of it ices have sugar in them."
+
+"To be sure they have," Thor cried, triumphantly. "Nurse has proved
+it--that sugar's no warmer than salt," which was not what nurse had
+intended to say at all.
+
+But now Peggy, who all this time had been steadily eating, looked up
+again.
+
+"Peggy was wondering," she said, "what's clouds. Is clouds alive?"
+
+Thor was all ready with his "you silly girl" again, but this time Terry
+was before him.
+
+"They can't be alive," he said. "They've got no hands, or feet, or
+mouths, and noses, and eyes, and----"
+
+"They _has_ noses," said Peggy, eagerly. "Peggy's seen them, and they
+has wings--the little ones has wings, they fly so fast. And p'raps they
+has got proper faces on their other sides, to look at the sun with. I've
+seen shiny bits of the other sides turned over."
+
+"Yes," said Baldwin, solemnly again, as if that settled it, "so has I."
+
+"But they're not alive, Peggy, they're really not. They fly because the
+wind blows them," said Terence.
+
+"Oh!" said Peggy, with a deep-drawn breath, "I see. Then if we all
+blowed very hard at the window, if we all blowed together, couldn't we
+blow them away? I do so want to blow them away when they come over my
+hills."
+
+But when she had said this she grew very red, just as if she had told
+something she had not meant to tell, and if any one had looked at her
+quite close they would have seen that there were tears in her eyes.
+Fortunately, however, no one had noticed her last words, for Thorold and
+Terence too had burst out laughing at the beginning of her speech.
+
+"Fancy us all blowing out of the window together," they said. And they
+began puffing out their cheeks and pretending to blow very hard, which
+made them look so funny that Peggy herself burst out laughing too.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said Thor, when they were tired of laughing, "that
+reminds me of soap-bubbles, we haven't had any for such a time. Nurse,
+will you remember to let us have them the first wet half-holiday?
+Mamma'll let us if you will."
+
+"And the pipes?" said nurse. "There was six new got the last time, and
+they were to last, certain sure till the next time, and then----"
+
+"Oh I know," said Thor, "we took them to school and never brought them
+back. Never mind--we'll get some more from old Mother Whelan. She always
+keeps lots. We'll keep our halfpennies for two Saturdays--that'll do.
+But we must be going, Terry and Baldwin. _I'm_ all ready."
+
+And he jumped up as he spoke, and pulled his satchel of books from under
+his chair, where he had put them to be all ready. Baldwin slowly got
+down from his place, for he was not only broad, but his legs were very
+short, and came up to nurse to be helped on with his little overcoat,
+while Terence began rushing about the room in a fuss, looking for one of
+his books, which as usual couldn't be found at the last minute.
+
+"I had it just before breakfast, I'm _sure_ I had," he went on
+repeating. "I haven't finished learning it, and I meant to look it over.
+Oh dear, what shall I do?"
+
+The nursery party was too accustomed to Terry's misfortunes to be much
+upset by them. Peggy sat still for a moment or two considering. Then she
+spoke.
+
+"Terry," she said, "look in Baby's cot."
+
+Off flew Terence, returning in triumph, grammar in hand.
+
+"I'll learn it on the way to school. How did you know it was there,
+Peggy?"
+
+"I sawed you reaching over to kiss Baby when you comed in to ask nurse
+for a new shoe-lace this morning," said Peggy, with great pride.
+
+"Good girl," said Terence, as he slammed the door and rushed downstairs
+to overtake his two brothers.
+
+The nursery seemed very quiet when the three big boys had gone. Quiet
+but not idle; there was always a great deal to do first thing of a
+morning, and Peggy had her own share of the doing to see to. She took
+off her own breakfast pinafore and put on a quite clean one--one that
+looked quite clean anyway, just as if it had never been on, even though
+it had really been used two or three times. Peggy called it her "prayers
+pinafore," and it always lasted a whole week, as it was only worn to go
+down to the dining-room for five or ten minutes. Then she washed her
+hands and stood still for nurse to give a tidying touch to her soft fair
+hair, though it really didn't need it,--Peggy's hair never looked
+messy,--and then she took off Hal's over pinafore which he wore on the
+top of his blouse at meal-times, and helped him to wash his hands, by
+which time nurse and baby were also ready, and the little procession set
+off on their journey. If the prayers bell had not sounded yet, or did
+not sound as they made their way down, nurse would stop at mamma's door
+and tap, and the answer was sure to be "Come in." Then nurse would go on
+downstairs with Baby, and Peggy and Hal would trot in to see mamma, and
+wait a moment or two till she was ready. She was almost always nearly
+ready, unless she was very, very tired; and in that case she would tell
+them to go downstairs and come up and see her again after prayers, as
+she was going to have breakfast in bed. They rather liked these days,
+though of course they were sorry for mamma to be so tired, but it was
+very interesting to watch her having her breakfast, and generally one
+or two dainty bits of toast and marmalade would find their way to the
+two little mouths.
+
+It was only since last winter that mamma had been so often tired and not
+able to get up early. Before then she used always to come up to the
+nursery to see her six children at breakfast, and prayers were early
+enough for the three boys to stay for them, instead of having them at
+school. For mamma was not at all a "lazy" mother, as you might think if
+I did not explain. But last winter she had been very ill indeed, so ill
+that papa looked dreadfully unhappy, and the boys had to take off their
+boots downstairs so as not to make any noise when they passed her door,
+and the days seemed very long to Peggy and Hal, worst to Peggy of
+course, for Hal was still so little that almost all his life belonged to
+the nursery. It was during that time that Peggy first found out the
+white spot on the hill, which I am going to tell you about, for she used
+to climb up on the window-sill and sit there looking out at whatever
+there was to see for hours at a time.
+
+This morning mamma was evidently not tired, for just as the children
+got to the landing on to which her door opened, out she came.
+
+"Well, darlings," she said, "there you are! Have the boys got off to
+school all rightly, nurse?"
+
+"Oh yes, ma'am," nurse was beginning, but Peggy interrupted her.
+
+"Terry loosed his book, mamma dear, and Peg--_I_ founded it; I knewed
+where it was 'cos I used my eyes like you said."
+
+"That was a very good thing," said mamma. She had talked to Peggy about
+using her eyes a good deal, for Peggy had rather a trick of going to
+sleep with her eyes open, like many children, and it becomes a very
+tiresome trick if it isn't cured, and makes one miss a great many
+chances of being useful to others, and of enjoying pleasant things one's
+self. "Poor Terry--I wish he wasn't so careless. Where was his book this
+time?"
+
+"In such a funny place, mamma dear," said Peggy. "In Baby's cot," and at
+the sound of his name Baby crowed, which made both Peggy and Hal burst
+out laughing, so that mamma had to hold their hands firmly to prevent
+their tumbling down stairs.
+
+After prayers were over nurse took Baby and Hal away, but papa said
+Peggy might stay for a few minutes.
+
+"I've scarcely seen you the last day or two, old woman," he said; "you
+were fast asleep when I came home. What have you been about?"
+
+"About," Peggy repeated, looking puzzled.
+
+"Well--what have you been doing with yourself?" he said again.
+
+"I've been doing nothing with _myself_," Peggy replied, gravely. "I've
+done my lessons and my sewing, and I've used my eyes."
+
+"Well, and isn't all that yourself?" asked papa, who was rather a tease.
+"You've done your sewing with your fingers and your lessons with your
+mind, and you've used your eyes for both--mind, fingers, eyes--those are
+all parts of yourself."
+
+Peggy spread out her two hands on the table and looked at the ten pink
+fingers.
+
+"Them's my fingers," she said, "but I don't know where that other thing
+is--that what thinks. I'd like to know where it is. Papa, can't you tell
+me?"
+
+There came a puzzled look into her soft gray eyes--mamma knew that look;
+when it stayed long it was rather apt to turn into tears.
+
+"Arthur," she said to Peggy's papa, "you're too fond of teasing. Peggy
+dear, nobody can see that part of you; there are many things we can't
+ever see, or hear, or touch, which are real things all the same."
+
+Peggy's face lightened up again. She nodded her head softly, as if to
+say that she understood. Then she got down from her chair and went up to
+her father to kiss him and say good-bye.
+
+"Going already, Peg!" he said. "Don't you like papa teasing you?"
+
+"I don't mind," said Peggy, graciously; "you're only a big boy, papa.
+I'm going 'cos nurse wants me to keep Baby quiet while she makes the
+beds."
+
+But when she got round to the other side of the table to her mother, she
+lingered a moment.
+
+"Mamma," she whispered, "_it's_ not there this morning--Peggy's fairy
+house. It's all hided up. Mamma----"
+
+"Well, darling?"
+
+"Are you _sure_ it'll come back again?"
+
+"Quite sure, dear. It's only hidden by the clouds, as I've told you
+before. You know you've often been afraid it was gone, and it's always
+come again."
+
+"Yes, to be sure," said Peggy. "What a silly little girl I am, mamma
+dear."
+
+And she laughed her own little gentle laugh. I can't tell how it was
+that Peggy's little laugh used sometimes to bring tears to her mother's
+eyes.
+
+When she got up to the nursery again she found she was very much wanted.
+Nurse was in the night nursery which opened into the day one, and looked
+out to the back of the house just as the other looked to the front. And
+Baby was sitting on the hearth-rug, with Hal beside him, both seeming
+far from happy.
+
+"Baby's defful c'oss, Peggy," said poor Hal.
+
+And Baby, though he couldn't speak, pouted out his lips and looked very
+savage at Hal, which of course was very unreasonable and ungrateful of
+him, as Hal had been doing everything he could to amuse him, and had
+only objected to Baby pulling him across the floor by his curls.
+
+"Oh Baby," said Peggy, "that isn't good. Poor Hal's hair--see how you've
+tugged it."
+
+For Baby was still grasping some golden threads in his plump fists.
+
+"Him sinks zem's feaders," said Hal, apologetically. He was so fond of
+Baby that he couldn't bear any one to say anything against him except
+himself.
+
+"But Baby must learn hairs isn't feathers," said Peggy, solemnly. "And
+it isn't good to let him pull the feathers out of his parrot either,
+Hal," she continued, "for some day he might have a _live_ parrot, and
+then it would be cooel, and the parrot would _bite_ him--yes it would,
+Baby."
+
+This was too much for Baby. He drew the corner of his mouth down, then
+he opened it wide, very wide, and was just going to roar when Peggy
+threw her arms round him and kissed him vigorously.
+
+"He's sorry, Hal--dear Baby--he's so very sorry. Kiss him, Hal. Let's
+all kiss together," and the three soft faces all met in a bunch, which
+Baby found so amusing that instead of continuing his preparations for a
+good cry, he thought better of it, and went off into a laugh.
+
+"That's right," said Peggy. "Now if you'll both be very good boys I'll
+tell you a story. Just wait a minute till I've tooked off my prayers
+pinafore."
+
+She jumped up to do so. While she was unfastening it her eyes moved to
+the window; she gave a little cry and ran forward. The day was clearing
+up, the sun was beginning faintly to shine, and the clouds were
+breaking.
+
+[Illustration: "And in another moment they were settled on the
+hearth-rug--Baby on Peggy's lap--on, and off it too, for it was much too
+small to accommodate the whole of him; Hal on the floor beside her, his
+curly head leaning on his sister's shoulder in blissful and trustful
+content."
+
+P. 17]
+
+"Mamma was right," exclaimed Peggy, joyfully; "I can see it--I can
+see it! I can see my white house again, my dear little fairy house."
+
+She would have stayed there gazing out contentedly half the morning if
+her little brothers had not called her back.
+
+"Peggy," said Hal, plaintively, "do tum. Baby's pulling Hal's 'air
+adain."
+
+"Peggy's coming, dear," said the motherly little voice.
+
+And in another moment they were settled on the hearth-rug--Baby on
+Peggy's lap--on, and off it too, for it was much too small to
+accommodate the whole of him; Hal on the floor beside her, his curly
+head leaning on his sister's shoulder in blissful and trustful content.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WHITE SPOT ON THE HILL
+
+          "O reader! had you in your mind
+           Such stores as silent thought can bring,
+           O gentle reader! you would find
+           A tale in everything.
+           What more I have to say is short,
+           And you must kindly take it:
+           It is no tale; but, should you think,
+           Perhaps a tale you'll make it."
+                                     W. WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+"TELLING stories," when the teller is only five and some months old, and
+the hearers one and a quarter and three, is rather a curious
+performance. But Peggy was well used to it, and when in good spirits
+quite able to battle with the difficulties of amusing Hal and Baby at
+the same time. And these difficulties were not small, for, compared with
+Baby, Hal was really "grown-up."
+
+It is all very well for people who don't know much about tiny children
+to speak of them all together, up to--six or seven, let us say--as
+"babies," but we who think we _do_ know something about them, can assure
+the rest of the world that this is an immense mistake. One year in
+nursery arithmetic counts for ten or even more in _real_ "grown-up"
+life. There was a great difference between Peggy and Hal for instance,
+but a still greater between Hal and Baby, and had there been a new baby
+below him again, of course it would have been the greatest of all. Peggy
+could not have explained this in words, but she knew it thoroughly all
+the same, and she had learnt to take it into account in her treatment of
+the two, especially in her stories telling. In reality the story itself
+was all for Hal, but there was a sort of running accompaniment for Baby
+which he enjoyed very much, and which, to tell the truth, I rather think
+Hal found amusing too, though he pretended it was for Baby's sake.
+
+This morning her glance out of the window had made Peggy feel so happy
+that the story promised to be a great success. She sat still for a
+minute or two, her arms clasped round Baby's waist, gently rocking
+herself and him to and fro, while her gray eyes stared before her, as if
+reading stories in the carpet or on the wall.
+
+"Peggy," said Hal at last, giving her a hug--he had been waiting what he
+thought a very long time--"Peggy, 'do on--no, I mean begin, p'ease."
+
+"Yes, Hal, d'reckly," said Peggy. "It's coming, Hal, yes, now I think
+it's comed. Should we do piggies first, to please Baby before we begin?"
+
+"Piggies is _so_ silly," said Hal, disdainfully.
+
+"Well, we'll kiss him instead--another kiss all together, he does so
+like that;" and when the kissing was over--"now, Baby dear, listen, and
+p'raps you'll understand _some_, and if you're good we'll have piggies
+soon."
+
+Baby gave a kind of grunt; perhaps he was thinking of the pigs, but most
+likely it was just his way of saying he would be very good.
+
+"There was onst," Peggy began, "a little girl who lived in a big house
+all by herself."
+
+"Hadn't she no mamma, or nurse, or--or--brudders?" Hal interrupted.
+
+"No, not none," Peggy went on. "She lived quite alone, and she didn't
+like it. The house was as big as a--as a church, and she hadn't no bed,
+and no chairs or tables, and there was very, _very_ high stairs."
+
+"Is there stairs in churches?" asked Hal.
+
+Peggy looked rather puzzled.
+
+"Yes, I think there is," she said. "There's people high up in churches,
+so there must be stairs. But I didn't say it _were_ a church, Hal; I
+only said as big as a church. And the stairs was for Baby--you'll
+hear--p'raps there wasn't _reelly_ stairs. Now, Baby; one day a little
+piggy-wiggy came up the stairs--one, two, three," and Peggy's hand came
+creeping up Baby's foot and leg and across his pinafore and up his bare
+arm again, by way of illustrating piggy's progress, "and when he got to
+the top he said 'grumph,' and poked his nose into the little girl's
+neck"--here Peggy's own nose made a dive among Baby's double chins, to
+his exceeding delight, setting him off chuckling to himself for some
+time, which left Peggy free to go on with the serious part of the story
+for Hal's benefit--"and there was a window in the big house, and the
+little girl used to sit there always looking out."
+
+"Always?" asked Hal again. "All night too? Didn't her ever go to bed?"
+
+"She hadn't no bed, I told you. No, she didn't sit there all night, 'cos
+she couldn't have see'd in the dark. Never mind about the night. She sat
+there all day, always looking out, 'cos there was something she liked
+to see. If I tell you you won't tell nobody what it was, will you. Hal?"
+
+Hal looked very mystified, but replied obediently,
+
+"No, won't tell nobody," he said.
+
+"Well, then, I'll tell you what it was. It was a----" But at this moment
+Baby, having had enough of his own meditations, began to put in a claim
+to some special attention. The piggy had to be summoned and made to run
+up and down stairs two or three times before he would be satisfied and
+allow Peggy to proceed.
+
+"Well, Peggy?" said Hal eagerly.
+
+"It was a----" Oh dear, interrupted again! But this time the
+interruption was a blessing in disguise. It was nurse come to fetch Baby
+for his morning sleep.
+
+"And thank you, Miss Peggy, my dear, for keeping him so nice and good. I
+heard you come up, and I knew they'd be all right with you," she said,
+as she walked away with Baby, who was by no means sure that he wanted to
+go.
+
+"Now," said Hal, edging closer to Peggy, "we'll be comfable. Go on,
+Peggy--what she sawed."
+
+"It was a hill--far, far away, neely as far as the sky," said Peggy in a
+mysterious tone. "When the sun comed she could see it plain--the hill
+and what was there, but when the sun goed she couldn't. There was a
+white spot on the hill, Hal, and that white spot was a lovely white
+cottage. She knowed it, though she'd never see'd it."
+
+"How did she know it?"
+
+"Her mam--no, that's wrong, she hadn't no mamma--well, never mind,
+_somebody_'d told her."
+
+"Were it _God_?" asked Hal, in an awestruck whisper.
+
+"I don't know. No, I don't think so. I think it's a little naughty to
+say that, Hal. No, dear, don't cry," for signs of disturbance were
+visible in Hal's round face. "You didn't mean, and it isn't never
+naughty when we don't mean, you know. We'll go on about the little girl.
+She knowed it was a lovely cottage, and she wanted _very_ much, as much
+as could be, to go there, for the big house wasn't pretty, and it was
+dark, nearly black, and the cottage was all white."
+
+"Her house wasn't as nice as _zit_, were it? Zit house isn't b'ack,"
+said Hal.
+
+"No," said Peggy, doubtfully. "_It_ wasn't as nice as this, but the
+white house was much prettier than this."
+
+"How?" asked Hal.
+
+"Oh!" said Peggy, letting her eyes and her fancy rove about together, "I
+think it was beautiful all over. It was all shiny white; the walls was
+white, and the carpets was white, and the tables and the chairs was
+white--all shiny and soft like--like----"
+
+"Baby's best sash," suggested Hal.
+
+"Well, p'raps--that'll do. And there was a cow and chickens and sheep,
+and a kitchen where you could make cakes, and a garden with lots of
+flowers and strawberries----"
+
+"All white?" asked Hal.
+
+"No, of course not. Strawberries couldn't be white, and flowers is all
+colours. 'Twas the _droind-room_ that was all white."
+
+"And the milk and the eggs. Zem _is_ white," said Hal, triumphantly.
+
+"Very well. I didn't say they wasn't. But the story goes on that the
+little girl didn't know how to get there; it was so far and so high up.
+So she sat and cried all alone at the window."
+
+"All alone, _poor_ little girl," said Hal, with deep feeling. "Kick,
+Peggy, kick, I'm 'doing to cry; make it come right _kick_. The crying's
+just coming."
+
+"Make it wait a minute. I can't make it come right all so quick," said
+Peggy. "It's going to come, so make the crying wait. One day she was
+crying d'edful, worst than never, 'cos the sun had goned, and she
+couldn't see the white cottage no more, and just then she heard
+something saying, 'mew, mew,' and it was a kitten outside the window,
+and it was just going to fall down and be killed."
+
+"That's not coming right. I _must_ cry," said Hal.
+
+"But she opened the window--there now, you see--and she pulled the
+kitten in, so it didn't fall down, and it was so pleased it kissed her,
+and when it kissed her it turned into a fairy, and it touched her neck
+and made wings come, and then it opened the window again and flewed away
+with the little girl till they came to the white cottage, and then the
+little girl was quite happy for always."
+
+"Did the fairy stay with her always?" asked Hal.
+
+"No; fairies never does like that. They go back to fairyland. But the
+little girl had nice milk and eggs and cakes, and she made nosegays with
+the flowers, and the sun was _always_ shining, so she was quite, _quite_
+happy."
+
+"Her couldn't be happy all alone," said Hal. "I don't like zat story,
+Peggy. You haven't made it nice at all. It's a nonsense story."
+
+Hal wriggled about and seemed very cross. Poor Peggy was not so much
+indignant as distressed at failing in her efforts to amuse him. What was
+the matter? It couldn't be that he was getting sleepy--it was far too
+early for his morning sleep.
+
+"It isn't a nonsense story," she said, and she glanced towards the
+window as she spoke. Yes, the sun was shining brightly, the morning
+clouds had quite melted away; it was going to be a fine day after all.
+And clear and white gleamed out the spot on the distant hill which Peggy
+loved to gaze at! "Come here, Hal," she said, getting on to her feet and
+helping Hal on to his, "come with me to the window and you'll see if
+it's a nonsense story. Only you've never to tell nobody. It's Peggy's
+own secret."
+
+[Illustration: 'And above the top of all the houses, clear though faint,
+was now to be seen the outline of a range of hills, so softly gray-blue
+in the distance that but for the irregular line never changing in its
+form, one could easily have fancied it was only the edge of a quickly
+passing ridge of clouds. Peggy, however, knew better.
+
+"See, Hal," she said, "over there, far, far away, _neely_ in the sky,
+does you see that bluey hill?"']
+
+Hal forgot his crossness in a minute; he felt so proud and honoured.
+Peggy led him to the window. It was not a very pretty prospect; they
+looked out on to a commonplace street, houses on both sides, though just
+opposite there was a little variety in the shape of an old-fashioned,
+smoke-dried garden. Beyond that again, more houses, more streets,
+stretching away out into suburbs, and somewhere beyond all that again
+the mysterious, beautiful, enchanting region which the children spoke
+of and believed in as "the country," not really so far off after all,
+though to them it seemed so.
+
+And above the tops of all the houses, clear though faint, was now to be
+seen the outline of a range of hills, so softly gray-blue in the
+distance that but for the irregular line never changing in its form, one
+could easily have fancied it was only the edge of a quickly passing
+ridge of clouds. Peggy, however, knew better.
+
+"See, Hal," she said, "over there, far, far away, _neely_ in the sky,
+does you see that bluey hill?"
+
+Of course he saw, agreeing so readily that Peggy was sure he did not
+distinguish rightly, which was soon proved to be the case by his
+announcing that "The 'ill were sailing away."
+
+"No, no, it isn't," Peggy cried. "You've mustooked a cloud, Hal. See
+now," and by bringing her own eyes exactly on a level with a certain
+spot on the glass she was able to place his correctly, "just over that
+little bubble in the window you can see it. Its top goes up above the
+bubble and then down and then up again, and it never moves like the
+clouds--does you see now, Hallie dear?"
+
+"Zes, zes," said Hal, "but it's a _wenny_ little 'ill, Peggy."
+
+"No, dear," his sister explained. "It only looks little 'cos it's so far
+away. _You_ is too little to understand, dear, but it's true that it's a
+big hill, neely a mounting, Hal. Mamma told me."
+
+"Oh," said Hal, profoundly impressed and quite convinced.
+
+"Mountings is _old_ hills, or big hills," Peggy continued, herself
+slightly confused. "I don't know if they is the papas and mammas of the
+little ones, but I think it's something like that, for onst in church I
+heard the clergymunt read that the little hills jumped for joy, so they
+must be the children. I'll ask mamma, and then I'll tell you. I'm not
+quite sure if he meaned the same kind, for these hills never
+jumps--that's how mamma told me to know they wasn't clouds."
+
+"Zes," said Hal, "but go on about the secret, Peggy. Hal doesn't care
+about the 'ills."
+
+"But the secret's _on_ the hills," replied Peggy. "Look more, Hal--does
+you see a teeny, _teeny_ white spot on the bluey hill? Higher up than
+the bubble, but not at the top quite?"
+
+Hal's eyes were good and his faith was great.
+
+"Zes, zes," he cried. "I does see it--kite plain, Peggy."
+
+"Well, Hallie," Peggy continued, "_that's_ my secret."
+
+"Is it the fairy cottage, and is the little girl zere now?" Hal asked,
+breathlessly.
+
+Peggy hesitated.
+
+"It is a white cottage," she said. "Mamma told me. She looked at it
+through a seeing pipe."
+
+"What's a seeing pipe?" Hal interrupted.
+
+"I can't tell you just now. Ask mamma to show you hers some day. It's
+too difficult to understand, but it makes you see things plain. And
+mamma found out it was reelly a cottage, a white cottage, all alone up
+on the hill--isn't it sweet of it to be there all alone, Hallie? And she
+said I might think it was a fairy cottage and keep it for my own secret,
+only I've telled you, Hal, and you mustn't tell nobody."
+
+"And is it all like Baby's best sash, and are there cakes and f'owers
+and cows?" asked Hal.
+
+"I don't know. I made up the story, you know, Hal, to please you. I've
+made lots--mamma said I might. But I've never see'd the cottage, you
+know. I _daresay_ it's beautiful, white and gold like the story, that's
+why I said it. It does so shine when the sun's on it--look, look, Hal!"
+
+For as she spoke the sunshine had broken out again more brilliantly; and
+the bright, thin sparkle which often dazzles one between the showers in
+unsettled weather, lighted up that quarter of the sky where the children
+were gazing, and, to their fancy at least, the white spot caught and
+reflected the rays.
+
+"Oh zes, I see," Hal repeated. "But, Peggy, I'd like to _go_ zere and to
+see it. Can't we go, Peggy? It would be so nice, nicer than making up
+stories. And do you think--oh do you think, Peggy, that p'raps there's
+_pigs_ zere, real pigs?"
+
+He clasped his hands entreatingly as he spoke. Peggy must say there were
+pigs. Poor Peggy--it was rather a comedown after her fairy visions. But
+she was too kind to say anything to vex Hal.
+
+"I thought you said pigs was silly," she objected, gently.
+
+"Playing pigs to make Baby laugh is silly," said Hal, "and pigs going to
+market and stayin' at 'ome and roast beefin', is _d'edful_ silly. But
+not real pigs."
+
+"Oh well, then, _you_ may think pigs if you like," said Peggy. "I don't
+think I will, but that doesn't matter. You may have them in the cottage
+if you like, only you mustn't tell Thor and Terry and Baldwin about it."
+
+"I won't tell, on'y you _might_ have them too," said Hal discontentedly.
+"You're not kind, Peggy."
+
+"Don't let's talk about the cottage any more, then," said Peggy, though
+her own eyes were fixed on the far-off white spot as she spoke. "I think
+p'raps, Hallie, you're _rather_ too little to care about it."
+
+"I'm not," said Hal, "and I do care. But I do like pigs, real pigs. I
+sawed zem in the country."
+
+"You can't remember," said Peggy. "It's two whole years since we was in
+the real country, Hallie, and you're only three and a half. I know it's
+two years. I heard mamma say so to papa, so you wasn't two then."
+
+"But I did see zem and I do 'amember, 'cos of pictures," said Hal.
+
+"Oh yes, dear, there is pictures of pigs in your scrap-book, I know,"
+Peggy agreed. "You get it now and we'll look for them."
+
+Off trotted Hal, returning in a minute with his book, and for a quarter
+of an hour or so his patient little sister managed to keep him happy and
+amused. At the end of that time, however, he began to be cross and
+discontented again. Peggy did not know what to make of him this morning,
+he was not often so difficult to please. She was very glad when nurse
+came in to say it was now _his_ time for his morning sleep, and though
+Hal grumbled and scolded and said he was not sleepy she carried him off,
+and Peggy was left in peace.
+
+She was not at a loss to employ herself. At half-past eleven she usually
+went down to mamma for an hour's lessons, and it must be nearly that
+time now. She got her books together and sat looking over the one verse
+she had to learn, her thoughts roving nevertheless in the direction they
+loved best--away over the chimneys and the smoke; away, away, up, up to
+the fairy cottage on the distant hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"THE CHILDREN AT THE BACK"
+
+          "It seems to me if I'd money enough,
+           My heart would be made of different stuff;
+           I would think about those whose lot is rough."
+                                               MRS. HAWTREY.
+
+
+THESE children's home was not in a very pretty place. In front, as I
+have told you, it looked out on to a rather ugly street, and there were
+streets and streets beyond that again--streets of straight, stiff,
+grim-looking houses, some large and some small, but all commonplace and
+dull. And in and out between these bigger streets were narrower and
+still uglier ones, scarcely indeed to be called streets, so dark and
+poky were they, so dark and poky were the poor houses they contained.
+
+The street immediately behind the children's house, that on to which its
+back windows looked out, was one of these poorer ones, though not by any
+means one of the most miserable. And ugly though it was, Peggy was very
+fond of gazing out of the night nursery window on to this street,
+especially on days when it was "no use," as she called it to herself,
+looking out at the front; that meant, as I daresay you can guess, days
+on which it was too dull and cloudy to see the distant hills, and above
+all the white spot, which had taken such hold on her fancy. For she had
+found out some very interesting things in that dingy street. Straight
+across from the night nursery window was a very queer miserable sort of
+a shop, kept by an old Irishwoman whose name was Mrs. Whelan. It is
+rather absurd to call it a shop, though it was a place where things were
+bought and sold, for the room in which these buyings and sellings went
+on was Mrs. Whelan's kitchen, and bedroom, and sitting-room, and
+wash-house, as well as her shop! It was on the first floor, and you got
+up to it by a rickety staircase--more like a ladder indeed than a
+staircase, and underneath it on the ground-floor lived a cobbler, with
+whom Mrs. Whelan used to quarrel at least once a day, though as he was a
+patient, much enduring man, the quarrels never went farther than the old
+Irishwoman's opening her window and shouting down all manner of
+scoldings to the poor fellow, of which he took no notice.
+
+[Illustration: "She was rather a terrible-looking old woman; she always
+wore a short bed-gown, that is a loose kind of jacket roughly drawn in
+at the waist, of washed out cotton, which never looked clean, and yet
+somehow never seemed to get much dirtier, a black stuff petticoat, and a
+cap with flapping frills which quite hid her face unless you were very
+near her, and she was generally to be seen with a pipe in her mouth. Her
+voice was both loud and shrill, and when she was in a temper you could
+almost hear what she said, though the nursery window was shut." P. 35]
+
+On Sundays the cobbler used to tidy himself up and go off to church
+"like a gentleman," the boys said. But Mrs. Whelan, alas, never tidied
+herself up, and never went to church, and though she made a great show
+of putting a shutter across that part of the window which showed "the
+shop," nurse had more than once shaken her head when the children were
+dressing for church, and told them not to look over the way, she was
+sadly afraid the shutting or shuttering up was all a pretence, and that
+Mrs. Whelan made a good penny by her Sunday sales of tobacco and pipes
+to the men, or maybe of sugar, candles, or matches to careless
+housekeepers who had let their stock run out too late on Saturday night.
+
+She was rather a terrible-looking old woman; she always wore a short
+bed-gown, that is, a loose kind of jacket roughly drawn in at the waist,
+of washed-out cotton, which never looked clean, and yet somehow never
+seemed to get much dirtier, a black stuff petticoat, and a cap with
+flapping frills which quite hid her face unless you were very near her,
+and she was generally to be seen with a pipe in her mouth. Her voice was
+both loud and shrill, and when she was in a temper you could almost hear
+what she said, though the nursery window was shut. All the neighbours
+were afraid of her, and in consequence treated her with great respect.
+But like most people in this world, she had some good about her, as you
+will hear.
+
+Good or bad, the children, Peggy especially, found Mrs. Whelan very
+interesting. Peggy had never seen her nearer than from the window, and
+though she had a queer sort of wish to visit the shop and make closer
+acquaintance with the old crone, she was far too frightened of her to
+think of doing so really. The boys, however, had been several times
+inside Mrs. Whelan's dwelling, and used to tell wonderful stories of the
+muddle of things it contained, and of the old woman herself. They always
+bought their soap-bubble pipes there, "three a penny," and would gladly
+have bought some of the toffee-balls and barley-sugar which were also to
+be had, if this had not been strictly forbidden by mamma, in spite of
+their grumbling.
+
+"It isn't so _very_ dirty, mamma," they said, "and you get a lot more
+for a penny than in a proper shop."
+
+But mamma would not give in. She knew what Mrs. Whelan was like, as she
+used sometimes to go over herself to talk to the poor old woman, but
+that, of course, was a different matter.
+
+"I don't much like your going there at all," she would say, "but it
+pleases her for us to buy some trifles now and then."
+
+But in her heart she wished very much that they were not obliged to live
+in this dreary and ugly town, where their poor neighbours were rarely
+the sort of people she could let her children know anything of. Mamma,
+in _her_ childhood, had lived in that fairyland she called "the
+country," and so had papa, and they still looked forward to being there
+again, though for the present they were obliged to make the best of
+their home in a dingy street.
+
+It seemed much less dull and dingy to the children than to them,
+however. Indeed I don't think the children ever thought about it at all.
+The boys were busy at school, and found plenty of both work and play to
+make the time pass quickly, and Peggy, who might perhaps have been a
+little dull and lonely in her rather shut-up life, had her fancies and
+her wonders--her interesting things to look at both at the front and the
+back of the house, and mamma to tell all about them to! And this reminds
+me that I have not yet told you what it was she was _most_ fond of
+watching from the night nursery window. It was not Mrs. Whelan or the
+cobbler; it was the tenants of the third or top story of the rickety
+old house--the family she always spoke of to herself as "the children at
+the back."
+
+Such a lot of them there were. It was long before Peggy was able to
+distinguish them "all from each other," as she said, and it took her
+longer still to make names by which she could keep a clear list in her
+head. The eldest looked to her quite grown-up, though in reality she was
+about thirteen; she was a big red-cheeked girl, though she lived in a
+town; her arms were red too, poor thing, especially in winter, for they
+were seldom or never covered, and she seemed to be always at work,
+scrubbing or washing, or running out to fetch two or three of the little
+ones in from playing in the gutter. Peggy called her "Reddy," and though
+it was the girl's red cheeks and arms which made her first choose the
+name, in a while she came to think of it as meaning "ready" also, for
+Peggy did not know much about spelling as yet, and the thought in her
+mind of the look of the two words was the same. For a good while Peggy
+fancied that Reddy was the nurse or servant of the family, but one day
+when she said something of the kind to her own nurse she was quickly put
+right.
+
+"Their servant, my dear! Bless you, no. How could they afford to keep a
+servant; they've hard enough work to keep themselves, striving folk
+though they seem. There's such a many of them, you see, and mostly so
+little--save that big girl and the sister three below her, there's none
+really to help the mother. And the cripple must be a great charge."
+
+"What's the cripple, nursey?" Peggy asked.
+
+"Why, Miss Peggy, haven't you noticed the white-faced girl on crutches?
+You must have seen her dragging up and down in front of the house of a
+fine day."
+
+"Oh yes," said Peggy, "but I didn't know that was called cripple. And
+she's quite little; she's as little as me, nurse!"
+
+"She's older than she looks, poor thing," said nurse--"maybe oldest of
+them all."
+
+This, however, Peggy could not believe. She fixed in her own mind that
+"Crippley" came after the two boys who were evidently next to Reddy--she
+did not give the boys names, for they did not interest her as much as
+the girls. Having so many brothers of her own and no sister, it seemed
+to her as if a sister must be the very nicest thing in the world, and of
+all the children at the back, the two that she liked most to watch were
+a pair of little girls about three years older than herself, whom she
+named "The Smileys," "Brown Smiley" and "Light Smiley" when she thought
+of them separately, for though they were very like each other, the
+colour of their hair was different. They were very jolly little girls,
+poorly clad and poorly fed though they were, taking life easily, it
+seemed--too easily in the opinion of their eldest sister Reddy, and the
+sister next above them--between them and Crippley, according to Peggy's
+list. This sister was the only one whose real name Peggy knew, by
+hearing it so frequently shouted after her by the mother and Reddy. For
+this child, "Mary-Hann," was rather deaf, though it was not till long
+afterwards that Peggy found this out.
+
+"Mary-Hann" was a patient stupid sort of girl, a kind of second in
+command to Reddy, and she was like Reddy in appearance, except that she
+was several sizes smaller and thinner, so that even supposing that her
+arms were as red as her sister's they did not strike one in the same
+way.
+
+Below the Smileys came another boy, who was generally to be seen in
+their company, and who, according to Peggy, rejoiced in the name of
+"Tip." And below Tip were a few babies, in reality I believe never more
+than three, during the years through which their little over-the-way
+neighbour watched them. But even she was obliged to give up hopes of
+classifying the babies, for there always seemed to be _a_ baby about the
+same age, and one or two others just struggling into standing or rather
+tumbling alone, and for ever being picked up by Reddy or her attendant
+sprite Mary-Hann.
+
+Such were Peggy's "children at the back." And many a dull day when it
+was too rainy to go a walk, and too cloudy to be "any use" to gaze out
+at the front of the house, did these poor children, little as they
+guessed it, help to make pass more quickly and pleasantly for the
+sisterless maiden. Many a morning when Hal and Baby were asleep and
+nurse was glad to have an hour or so for a bit of ironing, or some work
+of the kind down in the kitchen--for my Peggy's papa and mamma were not
+rich and could not keep many servants, so that nurse, though she was
+plain and homely in her ways, was of far more use than a smarter young
+woman to them--many a morning did the little girl, left in the night
+nursery in charge of her sleeping brothers, take up her stand at the
+window which overlooked Mrs. Whelan's and the cobbler and the Smileys
+with all their brothers and sisters. There was always something new to
+see or to ask nurse to explain afterwards. For ever so long it took up
+Peggy's thoughts, and gave much conversation in the nursery to "plan"
+how the ten or eleven children, not to speak of the papa and mamma,
+_could_ all find place in two rooms. It kept Peggy awake at night,
+especially if the weather happened to be at all hot or close, to think
+how _very_ uncomfortable poor Reddy and Crippley and Mary-Hann and the
+Smileys must be, all sleeping in one bed as nurse said was too probably
+the case. And it was the greatest relief to her mind, and to nurse's
+too, I do believe, to discover by means of some cautious inquiries of
+the cobbler when nurse took him over some of the boys' boots to mend,
+that the family was not so short of space as they had feared.
+
+"They've two other rooms, Miss Peggy, as doesn't show to the front,"
+said nurse, "two attics with sloping windows in the roof to their back
+again. And they're striving folk, he says, as indeed any one may see for
+theirselves."
+
+"Then how shall we plan it now, I wonder," said Peggy, looking across to
+the Smileys' mansion with new respect. But nurse had already left the
+room, and perhaps, now she was satisfied their neighbours were not
+quite so much to be pitied, would scarcely have had patience to listen
+to Peggy's "wonderings" about them. So the little girl went on to
+herself--
+
+"I should think the downstairs room is the papa's and mamma's and the
+teeniest baby's, and perhaps Crippley sleeps there, as she's ill, like
+me when I had the hooping-cough and I couldn't sleep and mamma kept
+jumping up to me. And then the big boys and Tip has one room--'ticks,'
+nurse calls the rooms with windows in the roof. I think I'd like to
+sleep in a 'tick' room; you must see the stars so plain without getting
+up; and--and--let me see, Reddy and Mary-Hann and the Smileys and the
+old babies--no, that's too many--and I don't know how many old babies
+there is. We'll say _one_--if there's another it must be a boy and go in
+the boys' tick--and that makes Reddy and Mary----"
+
+"Miss Peggy, your mamma's ready for your lessons," came the housemaid's
+voice at the door, and Peggy hurried off. But she was rather in a brown
+study at her lessons that morning. Mamma could not make her out at all,
+till at last she shut up the books for a minute and made Peggy tell her
+where her thoughts were wool-gathering.
+
+"Not so very far away, mamma dear," said Peggy, laughing. She never
+could help laughing when mamma said "funny things like that." "Not so
+very far away. I was only wondering about the children at the back."
+
+She called them always "the children at the back" when she spoke of
+them--for even to mamma she would have felt shy of telling her own names
+for them. And then she went on to repeat what nurse had heard from the
+cobbler. Mamma agreed that it was very interesting, and she too was
+pleased to think "the children at the back's house," as Peggy called it,
+was more commodious than might have been expected. But still, even such
+interesting things as that must not be allowed to interfere with
+lessons, Peggy must put it all out of her head till they were done with,
+and then mamma would talk about it with her.
+
+"Only, mamma," said Peggy, "I don't know what com--commo--that long word
+you said, means."
+
+"I should not have used it, perhaps," said mamma. "And yet I don't know.
+If we only used the words you understand already, you would never learn
+new ones--eh, Peggy! Commodious just means large, and not narrow and
+squeezed up."
+
+Peggy nodded her head, which meant that she quite understood, and then
+the lessons went on smoothly again.
+
+When they were over, mamma talked about poor people, especially about
+poor children, to Peggy, and explained to her more than she had ever
+done before about what being poor really means. It made Peggy feel and
+look rather sad, and once or twice mamma was afraid she was going to
+cry, which, of course, she did not wish her to do. But Peggy choked down
+the crying feeling, because she knew it would make her mother sorry and
+would not do the poor people any good.
+
+"Mamma," she said, "it _neely_ makes me cry, but I won't. But when I'm
+big can't I do something for the children at the back?"
+
+"They won't be children then, Peggy dear. You may be able to do
+something for them without waiting for that. I'll think about it. I
+don't fancy they are so _very_ poor. As I have been telling you, there
+are many far poorer. But I daresay they have very few pleasures in their
+lives. We might try to think of a little sunshine for them now and
+then."
+
+"The Smile----" began Peggy, but she stopped suddenly, growing red--"the
+littler ones do play a good deal in the gutter, mamma dear," she said,
+anxious to state things quite fairly; "but I don't think that's _very_
+nice play, and the sun very seldom shines there. And Red--the big ones,
+mamma dear, and the one that goes on--I can't remember the name of those
+sticks."
+
+"Crutches," said mamma.
+
+"Yes, crutches--_her_ never has no plays at all, I don't think. She'd
+have more sunshine at the 'nother side of our house, mamma dear."
+
+Mamma smiled. Peggy did not understand that mamma did not mean
+"sunshine" exactly as she took it; she forgot, too, that of actual
+sunshine more fell on the back street than she thought of. For it was
+only on dull or rainy days that she looked out much on the children at
+the back. On fine days her eyes were busy in another direction.
+
+"I'll think about it," said mamma. So Peggy for the present was
+satisfied.
+
+This talk about the Smileys and the rest of them had been a day or two
+before the morning on which we first saw Peggy--the morning that Thor
+tried so to make fun of her about choosing sugar in her bread and milk,
+because it was cold. Mamma had not said any more about the children at
+the back, and this particular morning Peggy herself was not thinking
+very much about them. Her head was running a good deal on the white
+cottage and all her fancies about it, and she was feeling rather
+disappointed that she had not succeeded better in amusing Hal by her
+stories.
+
+"It must be, I suppose," she said to herself, "that he's rather too
+little for that kind of fancy stories. I wonder if Baldwin would like
+them; it would be nice to have somebody to make fancies with me."
+
+But somehow Baldwin and the fairy cottage did not seem to match. And
+Thor and Terry were both much too big--Thor would laugh at her, and
+Terry would think it a waste of time; he had so many other things to
+amuse himself about. No, Peggy could not think of any one who would
+"understand," she decided, with a sigh!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"REAL" FANCIES
+
+          "Mine be a cot beside the hill."
+                               SAMUEL ROGERS.
+
+
+JUST then came the usual summons to her lessons. Mamma was waiting for
+her little girl in the corner of the drawing-room, where she always sat
+when she was teaching Peggy. It was a very nice corner, near the fire,
+for though it was not winter it was rather chilly, and mamma often felt
+cold. Thor used to tell her that she should take a good run or have a
+game of cricket to warm her; it would be much better than sitting near
+the fire. Peggy thought it was rather unkind of Thor to say so, but
+mamma only laughed at him, so perhaps it was just his boy way of
+speaking.
+
+Peggy said her lessons quite well, but she looked rather grave; no
+smiles lighted up her face, and when lessons were over she sat still
+without speaking, and seemed as if she scarcely knew what she wanted to
+do with herself.
+
+"Is there anything the matter, dear?" mamma asked.
+
+"I'm rather tired, I think, mamma," Peggy replied.
+
+"Tired!" mamma repeated, in some surprise. It wasn't often that Peggy
+talked of being tired. "What is that with? You've not been worrying
+yourself about the children who live over Mrs. Whelan's, I hope? You
+mustn't do that, you know, dear; it would do you harm and them no good."
+
+For mamma knew that Peggy sometimes did "worry" about things--"Once she
+takes a thing in her head she'll work herself up so, for all she seems
+so quiet," nurse would say.
+
+"No, mamma dear," Peggy replied; "I'm not tired because of that. I like
+thinking about the children at the back. I wish----"
+
+"What?" said mamma.
+
+"I wish I'd sisters like them. I'm rather lonely, mamma. I do think God
+might have gaved _one_ sister to Peggy, and not such a great lot to the
+children at the back."
+
+"But you have your brothers, my dear little girl. You might have been an
+only child."
+
+"The big ones is always neely at school, and Hal's too little to
+understand. It's Hal that's tired me, mamma dear. He was so d'edfully
+cross afore nurse put him to bed."
+
+"Cross, was he?" said mamma. "I'm afraid he must be getting those last
+teeth. He may be cross for some time; if so, it would not do to leave
+him." She seemed to be speaking to herself, but when she caught sight of
+Peggy's puzzled face she stopped. "Tell me about Hal, dear," she went
+on. "What was it that tired you so?"
+
+"I was trying to amuse him and tell him stories about my white cottage
+up on the hill, and he was so cross. He couldn't understand, and he said
+they was 'nonsense' stories."
+
+"He is too little, perhaps, to care for fancies," said her mother,
+consolingly. "You must wait till he is a little older, Peggy dear."
+
+"But when he's older he'll be a _boy_, mamma," said Peggy; "he'll be
+like Thor and Terry, who don't care for things like that, or Baldwin,
+who thinks stories stupid. Oh, mamma, I wish I had a sister. _That's_
+what I want," she added, with conviction.
+
+Mamma smiled.
+
+"Poor Peggy," she said. "I'm afraid it can't be helped. You can never
+have a sister near your own age, and I'm afraid a baby sister, even if
+you had one, would be no good."
+
+"Oh no, we've had enough babies," said Peggy, decidedly. "But, mamma,
+mightn't there be some little girl who'd play with me like a sister? If
+there _is_ a fairy living in that cottage, mamma, how I do wish she
+would find a little girl for me!"
+
+Mamma looked a very little bit troubled.
+
+"Peggy dear," she said, "you mustn't let your fancies run away with you
+too far. I told you they would do you no harm if you kept plain in your
+head that they _were_ fancies, but you mustn't forget that. You know
+there couldn't really be a fairy living in that little white cottage."
+
+"No," Peggy agreed, "I know that, mamma, because fairies _really_ live
+in fairyland."
+
+She looked up gravely into her mother's face as she said so. Mamma could
+not help laughing.
+
+"Fairies _really_," she said, "live in Peggy's funny little head, and in
+many other funny little heads, I have no doubt. But nowhere----"
+
+[Illustration: "Mama dear," she began, "will you tell me what the little
+white house is reely like, then? If you will, I'll promise not to think
+there's fairies there--only----"
+
+"Only what, dear?"
+
+"If you don't mind," said Peggy, very anxious not to hurt her mother's
+feelings, "I'd _rather_ not have pigs. I don't think I like pigs very
+much."
+
+P. 52]
+
+"Mamma, mamma," Peggy interrupted, putting her fingers in her ears as
+she spoke, "I _won't_ listen. You mustn't, mustn't say that. I must have
+my fairies, mamma. I've no sisters."
+
+"Well, keep them in fairyland then, or at least only let them out for
+visits now and then. But don't mix them up with real things too much, or
+you will get quite a confusion, and never be sure if you're awake or
+dreaming."
+
+Peggy seemed to consider this over very seriously. After a minute or too
+she lifted her face again, and looked straight into her mother's with
+her earnest gray eyes.
+
+"Mamma dear," she began, "will you tell me what the little white house
+is _reely_ like, then? If you will, I'll promise not to think there's
+fairies there--only----"
+
+"Only what, dear?"
+
+"If you don't mind," said Peggy, very anxious not to hurt her mother's
+feelings, "I'd _rather_ not have pigs. I don't think I like pigs very
+much."
+
+"Well, we needn't have pigs then. But remember I can only 'fancy' it.
+I've never seen that particular cottage, you see, Peggy. But I have seen
+other cottages in Brackenshire, and so I can fancy what it _most likely_
+is. You see there are different kinds of fancying--there's fancying
+that is all fancy, like fairy stories, and there's fancying that might
+be true and real, and that very likely is true and real. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, drawing a deep breath. "Well, mamma, go on
+real-fancying, please. What's that place you've been at--Brat--what is
+it?"
+
+"Brackenshire," mamma replied. "That's the name of that part of the
+country that we see far off, from the windows upstairs."
+
+"And is all the cottages white there, and is they _very_ pretty?" asked
+Peggy, with deep interest. "Oh, mamma, do tell me, quick."
+
+"I don't know if they're all white, but I think they are mostly. And
+there are some pretty and some ugly. Of course it depends a good deal
+upon the people that live in them. If they're nice, clean, busy people,
+who like their house to be neat and pretty, and work hard to keep it so,
+of course it's much more likely to be so than if they were careless and
+lazy."
+
+"Oh," said Peggy, clasping her hands. "I do so hope my cottage has nice
+people living in it. I _think_ it has, don't you, mamma? It looks _so_
+white."
+
+"My dear Peggy," said mamma, smiling, "we can't tell, when it's so far
+away. But we may hope so."
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, "we'll hope so, and we'll think so." But then a
+rather puzzled look came over her face again, though she smiled too.
+"Mamma," she went on, "there's such a funny thing come into my head,
+only I don't know quite how to say it. I think that the far-away helps
+to make it pretty--why is far-away so pretty, mamma?"
+
+Mamma smiled again.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't tell you why. Wouldn't it spoil some things if we
+knew the why of them, little Peggy?"
+
+Peggy did not answer. This was another new thought for her, and rather a
+difficult one. She put it away in her mind, in one of the rather far
+back cupboards there, and locked it up, to think about it afterwards.
+
+"Mamma," she said, coaxingly, "I want you to tell me a real fancy about
+the cottage. It will be so nice when I look at it to think it's most
+likely _reely_ like that."
+
+"Well, then, let us see," mamma began.
+
+"Wait just one minute, mamma dear, till I've shut my eyes. First I must
+get the bluey hills and the white spot into them, and then I'll shut
+them and see what you tell. Yes--that's all right now."
+
+So mamma went on.
+
+"I fancy a cottage on the side of a hill. The cottage is white, of
+course, and the hill is green. Not very green--a kind of brown-green,
+for the grass is short and close, nibbled by the sheep and cows that
+find their living on the hill most of the year. The cottage is very
+white, for last summer it had a nice wash all over, and that lasts clean
+a good while in the country. There is a little low wall round it
+shutting it in from the hillside, and this wall is not very white,
+though it once was so, for it is covered with creeping plants, so that
+you can scarcely see what its own colour is. At the front of the house
+there is a little garden, quite a tiny one--there are potatoes and
+gooseberry bushes and cabbages at one side, but in front of them are
+some nice old-fashioned flowers, and at the other side there are
+strawberry plants, and behind them some rose-bushes. In summer I am sure
+there will be some pretty roses."
+
+"Oh how nice," said Peggy; "go on, go on, please."
+
+"There is a funny little wooden shed behind the house, leaning against
+the wall, which has a door big enough for a child to go in by, or a big
+person if they stooped down very much, and besides this it has a _very_
+little door in the wall, leading on to the hillside. Can you guess what
+the shed is for, Peggy, and what the tiny door is for?"
+
+Peggy thought and thought, but her country knowledge was but scanty.
+
+"I can't think," she said. "It couldn't be for pigs, 'cos there isn't
+any in the cottage. Nor it couldn't be for cows, 'cos cows is so big."
+
+"What should you say to cocks and hens, Peggy? There are to be fresh
+eggs there, aren't there? And chickens sometimes. I rather think they
+take eggs and chickens to market, don't they?"
+
+"Oh yes, I'm sure they do. How stupid I am! Of course the little wooden
+house is for cocks and hens. You're making it lovelily, mamma. What is
+it like inside, and who lives in it? I do so want to know."
+
+"Inside?" said mamma. "I'm almost afraid you might be disappointed,
+Peggy, if you've never been in a real cottage. There are so many that
+look very pretty outside and are not at all pretty inside. But at least
+we may think it is neat and clean. There are only two rooms, Peggy--a
+kitchen which you go straight into, and another room which opens out of
+it. The kitchen is very bright and pleasant; there is a table before the
+window with some flower-pots on it, in which both winter and summer
+there are plants growing. There is a large cupboard of dark old wood
+standing against the wall, and a sort of sofa that is called a settle
+with cushions covered with red cotton, standing near the fireplace.
+There are shelves, too, on which stand some dishes and two or three
+shining pots and pans, the ugly black ones are kept in a little back
+kitchen where most of the cooking is done, so that the front kitchen
+should be kept as nice as possible."
+
+"That makes another room, mamma dear. You said there was only two."
+
+"Oh, but it's so very tiny you couldn't call it a room. The second room
+is a bedroom, but the best pieces of furniture are kept there. There is
+a nice chest of drawers and a rocking-chair, and there is a very funny
+wooden cradle, standing right down on the floor, not at all like Baby's
+cot. And in this cradle is a nice, fat, bright-eyed little baby."
+
+"A baby," said Peggy, doubtfully.
+
+"Yes, to be sure. There's always a baby in a cottage, unless you'd
+rather have a very old couple whose babies are grown-up men and women,
+out in the world."
+
+"No," said Peggy, "I don't want that. A very old woman in a cottage
+would be _razer_ like a witch, or else it could make me think of Red
+Riding-Hood's grandmother, and that is _so_ sad. No, I don't mind the
+baby if it has a nice mamma--but only one baby, pelease, mamma dear. I
+don't want _lots_, like the children at the back, they're always
+tumbling about and sc'eaming so."
+
+"Oh no, we won't have it like that. We'll only have one baby--a very
+contented nice baby, and its mamma is very nice too. She's got quite a
+pretty rosy face, and she stands at the door every morning to see her
+husband go off to his work, and every evening to watch for him coming
+back again, and she holds the baby up in her arms and it laughs and
+crows."
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, "that'll do. And the eggs and the chickens, mamma?"
+
+"Oh yes, she takes great care of the cocks and hens, and never forgets
+to go outside the garden to feed them on the hill, and in the evening
+they all come home of themselves through the little door in the wall.
+There's a very nice cat in the cottage too; it sits purring on the
+front steps on fine days, as if it thought the cottage and garden and
+everything else belonged to it. And----"
+
+But suddenly the clock struck. Up started mamma.
+
+"Peggy, darling, I had no idea it was so late. And I have to go out the
+moment after luncheon, and I have still two letters to write. I am a
+greater baby than any of you! Run off, dear, and tell nurse I want to
+speak to her before I go out."
+
+"And to-morrow," said Peggy, "to-morrow, will you tell me some more
+about the white cottage, mamma? It _is_ so nice--I don't think you're a
+baby at all, mamma. A baby couldn't make it up so lovelily."
+
+And Peggy set off upstairs in great content. The white spot would give
+her more pleasure than ever, now that she knew what sort of _real_
+fancies to have about it.
+
+"And to-morrow," she said to herself, "to-morrow mamma will tell me
+more, lots more. If I say my lessons very goodly, p'raps mamma will tell
+me some more every day. And p'raps Hallie would like those kinds better
+than about fairies, and wouldn't call _them_ nonsense stories."
+
+Poor little Peggy--"to-morrow" brought news which put her pretty fancies
+about the white cottage out of her head for a while.
+
+She gave her mother's message to nurse, and after dinner nurse went
+downstairs. When she came up again she looked rather grave, and Peggy
+thought perhaps she was unhappy about Hal, who was still cross and had
+bright red spots on his cheeks.
+
+"Does you think poor Hallie is ill, nurse?" asked Peggy in a low voice,
+for Hal not to hear.
+
+"No, my dear, it's only his teeth. But they'll make him fractious for a
+while, I'm afraid, and he's not a very strong child, not near so strong
+as Baby and the big boys."
+
+"Poor Hallie," said Peggy, with great sympathy. "I'll be very good to
+him even if he is very cross, nurse."
+
+Nurse did not answer for a minute, and she still looked very grave.
+
+"Why do you look so sad, nurse, if it isn't about Hal?" asked Peggy,
+impatiently.
+
+"Did I look sad, Miss Peggy? I didn't know it. I was thinking about some
+things your mamma was speaking of to me."
+
+"Oh!" said Peggy, "was it about our new frocks? Mamma and you is always
+very busy when we need new frocks, I know."
+
+"Yes, dear," said nurse, but that was all.
+
+Then Peggy and Hal and nurse and Baby went out for a walk. They did not
+go very far, for it was what nurse called a queer-tempered day. Between
+the gleams of blue sky and sunshine there came sharp little storms and
+showers. It was April weather, though April had not yet begun.
+
+"Which way are we going?" Peggy asked, as they set off, she and Hal
+hand-in-hand, just in front of nurse and the perambulator. She _hoped_
+nurse would say "up Fernley Road," because Fernley Road led straight on
+towards the hills--so at least it seemed to Peggy. Their street ran into
+Fernley Road at one end, so that Fernley Road was what is called at
+right angles with it, and Peggy felt sure that if you walked far enough
+along the road you _could_ not but come to "the beginning of the hills."
+
+But to-day Peggy was to be disappointed.
+
+"We can't go far, Miss Peggy, and we must go to Field's about Master
+Hal's new boots. It looks as if it might rain, so perhaps we'd better go
+straight there. You know the way, Miss Peggy?--right on to the end of
+this street and then turn to the left."
+
+Peggy gave a little sigh, but trotted on quietly. Hal began grumbling.
+
+"What is I to have new boots for?" he said. "I doesn't want new boots."
+
+"Oh, Hal," said Peggy, "I think it's very nice indeed to have new boots.
+They shine so, and sometimes they do make such a lovely squeaking."
+
+But Hal wasn't in a humour to be pleased with anything, so Peggy tried
+to change the subject.
+
+"Nurse says we are to turn to the left at the end of this street," she
+said. "Does you know which is the left, Hal? _I_ do, 'cos of my pocket
+in my frock. First I feel for my pocket, and when it's there I say 'all
+right,' and then I know that's the right, and when it isn't there I
+_can't_ say 'all right,' and so I know the side it isn't at is the
+left."
+
+Hal listened with some interest, but a slight tinge of contempt for
+feminine garments.
+
+"Boys has pockets at each sides, so all boys' sides is right," he said.
+
+But Peggy was by this time in the midst of her researches for her
+pocket, so she did not argue the point.
+
+"Here it is!" she exclaimed, "all right, so the nother side is left.
+_This_ way, Hallie," and very proud to show nurse that she had
+understood her directions, she led her little brother down the street
+into which they had now turned.
+
+There were shops in this street, which made it more amusing than the one
+in which the children lived, even though they had seen them so often
+that they knew pretty well all that was worth looking at in the
+windows--that is to say, in the picture-shops and the toy-shops, and
+perhaps in the confectioner's. All others were passed by as a matter of
+course. Field's, the shoemaker's, was not quite so stupid as some,
+because under a glass shade, in the midst of all the real boots and
+shoes, were half a dozen pairs of dolls' ones, which Peggy thought quite
+lovely, though apparently no one else was of her opinion, as the tiny
+things stayed there day after day without a single pair being sold.
+Peggy herself could remember them for what seemed to her a very long
+time, and Baldwin, who owned to having admired them when he was
+"little," assured her they had been there since she was quite a baby; he
+could remember having "run on" to look at them in the days when he and
+Terry had trotted in front and nurse had perambulated Peggy behind.
+
+The little boots and shoes came into Peggy's mind just now, partly
+perhaps because Hal was hanging back so, and she was afraid he would be
+cross if she asked him to walk quicker.
+
+"Let's run on and look at the tiny shoes in Field's window," she said.
+"We can wait there till nurse comes up to us. She'll see us."
+
+This roused Hal to bestir himself, and they were soon at the
+shoemaker's.
+
+"_Isn't_ they sweet?" said Peggy. "If I had a gold pound of my very own,
+Hal, I'd buy some of them."
+
+"Would you?" said Hal, doubtfully. "No, if _I_ had a gold pound I'd----"
+
+But just then nurse came up to them and they were all marched into the
+shop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LITTLE RED SHOES
+
+          "Pif-paf Pottrie, what trade are you? Are you a tailor?"
+          "Better still!" "A shoemaker?"
+                                                 BROTHERS GRIMM.
+
+
+THERE was another reason why the children liked Field's shop. At the
+back of it was a sort of little room railed off by a low wooden
+partition with curtains at the top, into which customers were shown to
+try on and be fitted with new boots or shoes. This little room within a
+room had always greatly taken Peggy's fancy; she had often talked it
+over with her brothers, and wished they could copy it in their nursery.
+Inside it had comfortable cushioned seats all round, making it look like
+one of the large, square, cushioned pews still to be found in some old
+churches, pews which all children who have ever sat in them dearly love.
+
+There was always some excitement in peeping into this little room to
+see if any one was already there; if that were the case the children
+knew they should have to be "tried on" in the outer shop. To-day,
+however, there was no doubt about the matter--Miss Field, who acted as
+her father's shop-woman, marshalled them all straight into the curtained
+recess without delay; there was no one there--and when Peggy and Hal had
+with some difficulty twisted themselves on to the seats with as much
+formality as if they were settling themselves in church, and nurse had
+explained what they had come for, the girl began operations by taking
+off one of Hal's boots to serve as a pattern for his size.
+
+"The same make as these, I suppose?" she asked.
+
+"No, miss, a little thicker, I think. They're to be good strong ones for
+country wear," said nurse.
+
+Peggy looked up with surprise.
+
+"For the country, nursie," she said. "He'll have weared them out before
+it's time for us to go to the country. It won't be summer for a long
+while, and last year we didn't go even when summer comed."
+
+Nurse looked a little vexed. Miss Field, though smiling and
+good-natured, was not a special favourite of nurse's; she was too fond
+of talking, and she stood there now looking very much amused at Peggy's
+remonstrance.
+
+"If you didn't go to the country last year, Miss Margaret," said nurse,
+"more reason that you'll go this. But little girls can't know
+everything."
+
+Peggy opened her eyes and her mouth. She was just going to ask nurse
+what was the matter, which would not have made things better, I am
+afraid, when Baby changed the subject by bursting out crying. Poor
+Baby--he did not like the little curtained-off room at all; it was
+rather dark, and he felt frightened, and as was of course the most
+sensible thing to do under the circumstances, as he could not speak, he
+cried.
+
+"Dear, dear," said nurse, after vainly trying to soothe him, "he doesn't
+like being in here, the poor lamb. He's frightened. I'll never get him
+quiet here. Miss Peggy, love," forgetting in her hurry the presence of
+Miss Field, for before strangers Peggy was always "Miss Margaret," with
+nurse, "I'll have to put him back in his perambulator at the door, and
+if you'll stand beside him he'll be quite content."
+
+[Illustration: "Baby did not interrupt her; he was quite content now he
+was out in the light and the open air, and amused himself after his own
+fashion by crowing and chuckling to the passers-by. So Peggy stood
+still, her eyes fixed on the baby shoes. They were of all colours, black
+and red and bronze and blue--it was difficult to say which was the
+prettiest." p.p. 68-69]
+
+And nurse got up as she spoke. Peggy slid herself down slowly and
+reluctantly from her seat; she would have liked to stay and watch Hal
+being fitted with boots, and she would have liked still more to ask
+nurse what she meant by speaking of the country so long before the time,
+but it was Peggy's habit to do what she was told without delay, and she
+knew she could ask nurse what she wanted afterwards. So with one
+regretful look back at the snug corner where Hal was sitting comfortably
+staring at his stockinged toes, she trotted across the shop to the door
+where Baby, quite restored to good humour, was being settled in his
+carriage.
+
+"There now, he'll be quite happy. Nurse will come soon, dear. Just let
+him stay here in the doorway; he can see all the boots and shoes in the
+window--that will amuse him."
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, adding in her own mind that she would have a good
+look at the dear, tiny dolls' ones and fix which she would like to buy
+if she had the money.
+
+Baby did not interrupt her; he was quite content now he was out in the
+light and the open air, and amused himself after his own fashion by
+crowing and chuckling to the passers-by. So Peggy stood still, her eyes
+fixed on the baby shoes. They were of all colours, black and red and
+bronze and blue--it was difficult to say which were the prettiest.
+Peggy had almost decided upon a red pair, and was wondering how much
+money it would take to buy them, when some one touched her on the
+shoulder. She looked up; a lady was standing behind her, smiling in
+amusement.
+
+"What are you gazing at so, my dear? Is this your baby in the
+perambulator? You had better wheel him a little bit farther back, or may
+I do so for you?--he has worked himself too far into the doorway."
+
+Peggy looked up questioningly in the lady's face. Like many children she
+did not like being spoken to by strangers in any unceremonious way; she
+felt as if it were rather a freedom.
+
+But the face that met hers was too kind and bright and pleasant to
+resist, and though Peggy still looked grave, it was only that she felt
+rather shy.
+
+"Yes," she said, "he's our baby. I was looking at those sweet little
+shoes. I didn't see Baby had pushed hisself away. Thank you," as the
+lady gently moved the perambulator a little farther to one side.
+
+"You and Baby are not alone? Are you waiting for some one?" she asked.
+
+"Nurse is having Hal tried on for new boots," Peggy replied, "and Baby
+didn't like the shop 'cos it were rather dark."
+
+"And so his kind little sister is taking care of him. I see," said the
+lady. "And what are the sweet little shoes you like so much to look at?
+Are they some that would fit Baby?"
+
+"Oh no," said Peggy, "they'd be too little for him. Baby _is_ rather
+fat. Oh no, it's _those_ under the glass basin turned upside down," and
+she pointed to the dolls' shoes. "Aren't they lovely? I've seen them
+ever since I was quite little--I suppose they'd cost a great lot," and
+Peggy sighed.
+
+"Which do you think the prettiest?" asked the lady.
+
+"The red ones," Peggy replied.
+
+"Well, I almost think I agree with you," said the lady. "Good-bye, my
+dear, don't let Baby run himself out into the street." And with a kind
+smile she went on into the shop.
+
+She passed back again in a few minutes.
+
+"Still there?" she said, nodding to Peggy, and then she made her way
+down the street and was soon out of sight. Peggy's attention, since the
+lady had warned her, had been entirely given to Baby, otherwise she
+might perhaps have noticed a very wonderful thing that had happened in
+the shop-window. The pair of red dolls' shoes was no longer there! They
+had been quietly withdrawn from the case in which they, with their
+companions, had spent a peaceful, but it must be allowed a rather dull
+life for some years.
+
+In another minute nurse and Hal made their appearance, and Hal had a
+parcel, which he was clutching tightly in both hands.
+
+"My new boots is _so_ shiny," he said, "I do so hope they'll squeak.
+Does you think they will, nursie? But isn't poor Peggy to have new
+boots, too? _Poor_ Peggy!"
+
+Peggy looked down at her feet.
+
+"Mine isn't wored out yet," she said; "it would take all poor mamma's
+money to buy new boots for us _all_."
+
+"Never fear," said nurse, who heard rather a martyr tone in Peggy's
+voice, "you'll not be forgotten, Miss Peggy. But Master Hal, hadn't you
+better put your boots in the perambulator? You'll be tired of carrying
+them, for we're not going straight home."
+
+Hal looked as if he were going to grumble at this, but before he had
+time to say anything, Miss Field came hurrying out of the shop.
+
+"Oh, you're still here," she said; "that's all right. The lady who's
+just left told father to give this little parcel to missie here," and
+she held out something to Peggy, who was so astonished that for a moment
+or two she only stared at the girl without offering to take the tiny
+packet.
+
+"For me," she said at last.
+
+"Yes, missie, to be sure--for you, as I say."
+
+Peggy took the parcel, and began slowly to undo it. Something red peeped
+out--Peggy's eyes glistened--then her cheeks grew nearly as scarlet as
+the contents of the packet, and she seemed to gasp for breath, as she
+held out for Hal and nurse to see the little red shoes which five
+minutes before she had been admiring under the glass shade.
+
+"Nursie, Hal," she exclaimed, "see, oh see! The sweet little shoes--for
+me--for my very own."
+
+Nurse was only too ready to be pleased, but with the prudence of a
+"grown-up" person she hesitated a moment.
+
+"Are you sure there's no mistake, miss?" she said, anxiously. "Do you
+know the lady's name? Is she a friend of Missis's, I wonder?"
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"Can't say, I'm sure," she replied. "She's a stranger to us. She only
+just bought a pair of cork soles and these here. There's no mistake,
+that, I'm sure of. She must have seen the young lady was admiring of
+them."
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, "she asked me which was the prettiest, and I said the
+red ones."
+
+"You see?" said Miss Field to nurse. "Well, missie, I hope as they'll
+fit Miss Dolly, and then you'll give us your custom when they're worn
+out, won't you?"
+
+And with a good-natured laugh she turned back into the shop.
+
+"It's all right, nursie, isn't it? Do say it is. I may keep them; they
+_is_ mine, isn't they?" said Peggy, in very unusual excitement.
+
+Nurse still looked undecided.
+
+"I don't quite know what to say, my dear," she replied. "We must ask
+your mamma. I shouldn't think she'd object, seeing as it was so kindly
+meant. And we can't give back the shoes now they're bought and paid for.
+It wouldn't be fair to the lady to give them back to Field just to be
+sold again. It wasn't _him_ she wanted to give a present to."
+
+"No," said Peggy, trotting along beside the perambulator and clasping
+her little parcel as Hal was clasping his bigger one, "it was _me_ she
+wanted to please. She's a _very_ kind lady, isn't she, nursie? I'm sure
+they cost a great lot of money--p'raps a pound. Oh! I do so hope mamma
+will say I may keep them for my very own. Can't we go home now this
+minute to ask her?"
+
+"We shouldn't find her in if we did," said nurse, "and we've had nothing
+of a walk so far. But don't you worry, Miss Peggy. I'm sure your mamma
+will not mind."
+
+Peggy's anxious eager little face calmed down at this; a corner of the
+paper in which her treasures were wrapped up was torn. She saw the
+scarlet leather peeping out, and a gleam of delight danced out of her
+eyes; she bent her head down and kissed the speck of bright colour
+ecstatically, murmuring to herself as she did so, "Oh, how happy I am!"
+
+Nurse overheard the words.
+
+"Missis will never have the heart to take them from her, poor dear," she
+thought. "She'll be only too pleased for Miss Peggy to have something to
+cheer her up when she has to be told about our going."
+
+And Peggy, in blissful ignorance of any threatening cloud to spoil her
+pleasure, marched on, scarcely feeling the ground beneath her feet; as
+happy as if the tiny red shoes had been a pair of fairy ones to fit her
+own little feet.
+
+Mamma was not at home when they got in, even though they made a pretty
+long round, coming back by Fernley Road, which, however, Peggy did not
+care about as much as when they set off by it. For coming back, of
+course she could not see the hills without turning round, nor could she
+have the feeling that every step was taking her nearer to them. The
+weather was clearing when they came in; from the nursery window the sky
+towards the west had a faint flush upon it, which looked as if the
+sunset were going to be a rosy one.
+
+"Red at night," Peggy said to herself as she glanced out; "nursie, that
+means a fine day, doesn't it?"
+
+"So they say," nurse replied.
+
+"Then it'll be a fine day to-morrow, and I'll see the cottage, and I'll
+put the little shoes on the window-sill, so that they shall see it
+too--the _dear_ little sweets," chattered the child to herself.
+
+Hal meanwhile was seated on the floor, engaged in a more practical way,
+namely, _trying_ to try on his new boots. But "new boots," as he said
+himself, "is stiff." Hal pulled and tugged till he grew very red in the
+face, but all in vain.
+
+"Oh, Peggy!" he said, "do help me. I does so want to hear them squeak,
+and to 'upprise the boys when they come in."
+
+Down went kind Peggy on the floor, and thanks to her the boots were got
+on, though the buttoning of them was beyond her skill. Hal was quite
+happy, though.
+
+"They do squeak, don't they, Peggy?" he said; "and nurse'll let me wear
+them a little for them to get used to my feet 'afore we go to the
+country."
+
+"You mean for your feet to get used to them, Hallie," said Peggy. "But
+there's lots of time for that. Why, they'll be half wored out before we
+go to the country if you begin them now."
+
+"'Tisn't nonsense," said Hal, sturdily. "Nurse said so to that girl in
+the shop."
+
+Peggy felt very puzzled.
+
+"But, Hal," she was beginning, when a voice interrupted her. It was
+nurse. She had been downstairs, having heard the front door bell ring.
+
+"Miss Peggy, your mamma wants you. She's come in. You'll find her in her
+own room."
+
+"Nursie," she said, "Hal's been saying----"
+
+"You mustn't keep your mamma waiting," said nurse. "I've told her about
+the little shoes."
+
+"I'll take them to show her--won't she be pleased?" said Peggy, seizing
+the little parcel which she had put down while helping Hal.
+
+And off she set.
+
+She stopped at her mother's door; it was only half shut, so she did not
+need to knock.
+
+"Mamma dear, it's me--Peggy," she said.
+
+"Come in, darling," mamma's voice replied.
+
+"I've brought you the _sweet_ little red shoes to see," said Peggy,
+carefully unfolding the paper which held her treasures, and holding them
+out for mamma's admiration.
+
+"They are very pretty indeed--really lovely little shoes," she said,
+handling them with care, but so as to see them thoroughly. "It was
+_very_ kind of that lady. I wonder who she was? Of course in a general
+way I wouldn't like you to take presents from strangers, but she must
+have done it in such a very nice way. Was she an old lady, Peggy?"
+
+"Oh yes!" said Peggy, "quite old. She was neely as big as you, mamma
+dear. I daresay she's _neely_ as old as you are."
+
+Mamma began to laugh.
+
+"You little goose," she said. But Peggy didn't see anything to laugh at
+in what she had said, and her face remained quite sober.
+
+"I don't understand you, mamma dear," she said.
+
+"Well, listen then; didn't Hal buy a pair of new boots for himself
+to-day?" mamma began.
+
+"No, mamma dear. Nurse buyed them _for_ he," Peggy replied.
+
+"Or rather _I_ bought them, for it was my money nurse paid for them
+with, if you are so very precise, Miss Peggy. But never mind about that.
+All I want you to understand is the difference between 'big' and 'old.'
+Hal's boots are much bigger than these tiny things, but they are not on
+that account _older_."
+
+Peggy began to laugh.
+
+"No, mamma dear. P'raps Hallie's boots is younger than my sweet little
+red shoes, for they has been a great long while in the shop window, and
+Baldwin and Terry sawed them when they was little."
+
+"Not 'younger,' Peggy dear; 'newer,' you mean. Boots aren't alive. You
+only speak of live things as 'young.'"
+
+Peggy sighed.
+
+"It is rather difficult to understand, mamma dear."
+
+"It will all come by degrees," said mamma. "When I was a little girl I
+know I thought for a long time that the moon was the mamma of the stars,
+because she looked so much bigger."
+
+"I think that's very nice, mamma, though, of course, I understand it's
+only a _fancy_ fancy. I haven't seen the moon for a long time, mamma.
+May I ask nurse to wake me up the next time the moon comes?"
+
+"You needn't wait till dark to see the moon," said mamma. "She can often
+be seen by daylight, though, of course, she doesn't look so pretty then,
+as in the dark sky which shows her off better. But, of course, the sky
+here is so often dull with the smoke of the town that we can't see her
+as clearly in the daytime as where the air is purer."
+
+"Like in the country, mamma," said Peggy. "It's _always_ clear in the
+country, isn't it?"
+
+"Not quite always," said mamma, smiling. "But, Peggy dear, speaking of
+the country----"
+
+"Oh yes!" Peggy interrupted, "I want to tell you, mamma, what a silly
+thing Hallie _would_ say about going to the country;" and she told her
+mother all that Hal had said about his boots, and indeed what nurse had
+said too; "and nursie was just a weeay, teeny bit cross to me, mamma
+dear," said Peggy, plaintively. "She wouldn't say she'd mistooked about
+it."
+
+Mamma looked rather grave, and instead of saying at once that of course
+nurse had only meant that Hal's boots should last till the summer, she
+took Peggy on her knee and kissed her--kissed her in rather a "funny"
+way, thought Peggy, so that she looked up and said--
+
+"Mamma dear, why do you kiss me like that?"
+
+Instead of answering, mamma kissed her again, which almost made Peggy
+laugh.
+
+But mamma was not laughing.
+
+"My own little Peggy," she said, "I have something to tell you which I
+am afraid will make you unhappy. It is making _me_ very unhappy, I
+know."
+
+"Poor dear little mamma," said Peggy, and as she spoke she put up her
+little hand and stroked her mother's face. "Don't be unhappy if it isn't
+anything _very_ bad. Tell Peggy about it, mamma dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FELLOW-FEELINGS AND SLIPPERS
+
+          "If I'd as much money as I could tell
+           I never would cry 'old clothes to sell'!"
+                                        _London Cries._
+
+
+MAMMA hesitated a moment. Then she began.
+
+"You know, Peggy, my pet," she said, "for a good while now I haven't
+been as strong and well as I used to be----"
+
+"Stop, mamma, stop," said Peggy, with a sort of cry, and as she spoke
+she threw up her hands and pressed them hard against her ears; "I know
+what you're going to say, but I can't bear it, no, I can't. Oh mamma,
+you're not to say you're going to die."
+
+For all answer mamma caught Peggy into her arms and kissed her again and
+again. For a minute or two it seemed as if she could not speak, but at
+last she got her voice. And then, rather to Peggy's surprise, she saw
+that although there were tears in mamma's eyes, and even one or two
+trickling down her face, she was smiling too.
+
+"My darling Peggy," she said, "did I frighten you? I am so, so sorry. Oh
+no, darling, it is nothing like that. Please God I shall live to see my
+Peggy as old as I am now, and older, I hope. No, no, dear, it is nothing
+so very sad I was going to tell you. It is only that the doctor says the
+best way for me to get quite well and strong again is to go away for a
+while to have change of air as it is called, in some nice country
+place."
+
+"In the country," said Peggy, her eyes brightening with pleasure. "Oh,
+how nice! will it perhaps be that country where my cottage is? Oh, dear
+mamma, how lovely! And when are we to go? May we begin packing to-day?
+And how could you think it would make me unhappy----" she went on,
+suddenly remembering what her mother had said at first.
+
+Mamma's face did not brighten up at all.
+
+"Peggy dear, it is very hard for me to tell you," she said. "Of course,
+if we had all been going together it would have been only happy. But
+that's just the thing. I can't take you with me, my sweet. Baby must go,
+because nurse must, and Hallie too. But the friend I am going to stay
+with can't have more of us than the two little ones, and nurse, and
+me--it is very, very good of her to take so many."
+
+"Couldn't I sleep with you, mamma dear?" said Peggy in a queer little
+voice, the tone of which went to mamma's heart.
+
+"My pet, Hallie must sleep with me, as it is. My friend's house isn't
+very big. And there's another reason why I can't take you--I'm not sure
+if you could understand----"
+
+"Tell it me, please, mamma."
+
+"The lady I am going to had a little girl just like you--I mean just the
+same age, and rather like you altogether, I think. And the poor little
+girl died two years ago, Peggy. Since then it is a pain to her mother to
+see other little girls. When you are bigger and not so like what her
+little girl was, I daresay she won't mind."
+
+Peggy had been listening, her whole soul in her eyes.
+
+"I understand," she said. "I wouldn't like to go if it would make that
+lady cry--if it hadn't been for that--oh mamma, I could have squeezed
+myself up so very tight in the bed! You and Hallie wouldn't have knowed
+I were there. But I wouldn't like to make her cry. I am so sorry about
+that little girl. Mamma, how is it that dying is so nice, about going to
+heaven, you know, and _still_ it is so sorry?"
+
+"There is the parting," said mamma.
+
+"Yes--that must be it. And, mamma, I hope it isn't naughty, but if you
+were to die I'd be _very_ sorry not to see you again just the same--even
+if you were to be a very pretty angel, with shiny clothes and all that,
+I'd want you to be my own old mamma."
+
+"I would be your own old mamma, dear. I am sure you would feel I was the
+same."
+
+"I'm so glad," said Peggy. "Still it is sad to die," and she sighed.
+"Mamma dear, you won't be very long away, will you? It'll only be a
+little short parting, won't it?"
+
+"Only a few weeks, dear. And I hope you won't be unhappy even though you
+must be a little lonely."
+
+"If only I had a sister," said Peggy.
+
+But mamma went on to tell her all she had planned. Miss Earnshaw, a
+dressmaker who used sometimes to come and sew, was to be with Peggy as
+much as she could. She was a gentle nice girl, and Peggy liked her.
+
+"She has several things to make for me just now," said mamma, "and as
+she lives near, she will try to come every day, so that she will be with
+you at dinner and tea. And Fanny will help you to dress and undress, and
+either she or Miss Earnshaw will take you a walk every day that it is
+fine enough. And then in the evenings, of course, the boys will be at
+home, and papa will see you every morning before he goes."
+
+"And I daresay he'll come up to see me in bed at night too," said Peggy.
+Then she was silent for a minute or two; the truth was, I think, that
+she was trying hard to swallow down a lump in her throat that _would_
+come, and to blink away two or three tiresome tears that kept creeping
+up to her eyes.
+
+Two days later and they were gone. Mamma, nurse, Hal, and Baby, with
+papa to see them off, and two boxes outside the cab, and of course a
+whole lot of smaller packages inside.
+
+Peggy stood at the front-door, nodding and kissing her hand and making a
+smile, as broad a one as she possibly could, to show that she was not
+crying.
+
+When they were gone, really gone, and Fanny had shut the door, she
+turned kindly to Peggy.
+
+"Now, Miss Peggy, love, what will you do? Miss Earnshaw won't be here
+till to-morrow. I'll try to be ready so as to take you out this
+afternoon if it's fine, for it's not a half-holiday. It'd be very dull
+for you all day alone--to-morrow the young gentlemen will be at home as
+it's Saturday."
+
+A bright idea struck Peggy.
+
+"Fanny," she said, "did mamma or nurse say anything about soap-bubbles?"
+
+Fanny shook her head.
+
+"No, miss. But I'm sure there'd be no objection to your playing at them
+if you liked. I can easy get a little basin and some soap and water for
+you. But have you a pipe?"
+
+Peggy shook her head.
+
+"It isn't for me, Fanny, thank you," she said. "It's for my brothers
+most. I'd like to make a surprise for them while mamma's away."
+
+"Yes, that would be very nice," said Fanny, who had been charged at all
+costs to make Peggy happy. "We'll talk about it. But I'd better get on
+with my work, so as to get out a bit this afternoon."
+
+"Very well. I'll go up to the nursery," said the little girl.
+
+The nursery seemed very strange. Peggy had never seen it look quite so
+empty. Not only were nurse and the little ones gone, but it seemed as
+if everything belonging to them had gone too, for nurse had sat up late
+the night before and got up very early this same morning to put
+everything into perfect order before leaving. The tidiness was quite
+unnatural. Peggy sat down in a corner and gave a deep sigh. Just then
+she did not even care to turn to the window, where the sunshine was
+pouring in brightly, sparkling on the two little scarlet shoes, standing
+side by side on the sill, where Peggy placed them every fine morning,
+that they might enjoy the sight of the white cottage on the hill!
+
+"I almost wish it was raining," she half whispered to herself, till she
+remembered how very disagreeable a wet day would have been for mamma and
+the others to travel on. "I hope it will be a sunny day when they come
+back," she added, as a sort of make-up for her forgetfulness.
+
+And then she got up and wandered into the other room. Here one of Hal's
+old shoes, which had fallen out of a bundle of things to be given away
+which nurse had taken downstairs just before going, was lying on the
+floor. Peggy stooped and picked it up. How well she knew the look of
+Hal's shoes; there was the round bump of his big toe, and the hole at
+the corner where a bit of his red sock used to peep out! It gave her a
+strange dreamy feeling as she looked at it. It seemed as if it could not
+be true that Hallie was far away--"far, far away" by this time, thought
+Peggy, for she always felt as if the moment people were in the railway
+they were whizzed off hundreds of miles in an instant. She stroked the
+poor old shoe lovingly and kissed it. I don't think just then she would
+have parted with it for anything; it would have cost her less to give
+away the lovely little scarlet ones.
+
+The thought of the old clothes turned her mind to the children at the
+back.
+
+"I wonder if nurse gave them any of Hal's and Baby's old things," she
+said to herself.
+
+And she went to the window with a vague idea of looking to see. She had
+not watched the Smileys or their relations much for some days; she had
+been busy helping mamma and nurse in various little ways, and her mind
+had been very full of the going away. She almost felt as if she had
+neglected her opposite neighbours, though, of course, they knew nothing
+about it, and she was quite pleased to see them all there as usual, or
+even more than usual. For it was so fine a day that Reddy and her
+mother were evidently having a grand turn-out--a sort of spring
+cleaning, I suppose.
+
+Small pieces of carpet, and one or two mats, much the worse for wear,
+were hanging out at the open windows. Reddy's head, tied up in a cloth
+to keep the dust out of her hair, was to be seen every minute or two, as
+she thumped about with a long broom, and Mary-Hann presently appeared
+with a pail of soapy water which she emptied at a grid in the gutter.
+Mary-Hann looked rather depressed, but Reddy's spirits were fully equal
+to the occasion. Had the window been open, Peggy felt sure she would
+have been able to hear her shouting to her sister to "look sharp," or to
+"mind what she was about," even more vigorously than usual.
+
+The rest of the family, excepting, of course, the boys, were assembled
+on the pavement in front of Mr. Crick the cobbler's shop. He too had
+opened his window to enjoy the fine day, and in the background he could
+be dimly seen working, as dingy and leathery as ever. Mrs. Whelan's
+frilled cap and pipe looked out for a moment and then disappeared again.
+Apparently just then there was nobody or nothing she _could_ scold.
+
+For the poor children on the pavement were behaving very quietly. The
+Smileys had stayed at home from school to mind the babies, with a view
+to smoothing the way for the spring cleaning, no doubt, and were
+sitting, each with a child on her lap, in two little old chairs they had
+carried down. Crippley was rocking herself gently in her chair beside
+them, and the last baby but two, as Peggy then thought, was on his knees
+on the ground, amusing himself with two or three oyster shells and a few
+marbles. All these particulars Peggy, from her high-up nursery window,
+could not, of course, see clearly, but she saw enough to make her sigh
+deeply as she thought that after all, the Smileys were much to be
+envied.
+
+"I daresay they're telling theirselves stories," she said to herself.
+"They look so comfable."
+
+Just then the big baby happened to come more in sight, and she saw that
+one of the things he was playing with was a little shoe--an odd one
+apparently. He had filled it with marbles, and was pulling it across the
+stones. Up jumped Peggy from her seat on the window-sill.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, though there was no one to hear, "it must be the
+nother shoe of this. What a pity! They'd do for Tip, and p'raps they've
+thought there wasn't a nother. How I would like to take it them! I'll
+call Fanny and see if she'll run across with it."
+
+Downstairs she went, calling Fanny from time to time as she journeyed.
+But no Fanny replied; she was down in the kitchen, and to the kitchen
+Peggy knew mamma would not like her to go. She stood at last in the
+passage wondering what to do, when, glancing round, she noticed that the
+back-door opening into the yard was temptingly open. Peggy peeped
+out--there was no one there, but, still more tempting, the door leading
+into the small back street--the door just opposite the Smiley
+mansion--stood open, wide open too, and even from where she was the
+little girl could catch sight of the group on the other side of the
+narrow street.
+
+She trotted across the yard, and stood for a minute, the shoe in her
+hand, gazing at the six children. The sound of their voices reached her.
+
+"Halfred is quite took up with his shoe," said Brown Smiley. "I told
+mother she moight as well give it he--a hodd shoe's no good to nobody."
+
+"'Tis a pity there wasn't the two of 'em," said Crippley, in a thin,
+rather squeaky voice. "They'd a done bee-yutiful for----"
+
+[Illustration: '"For Tip--yes, that's what _I_ were thinking," cried an
+eager little voice. "Here's the other shoe; I've just founded it."
+
+And little Peggy, with her neat hair and clean pinafore, stood in the
+middle of the children holding out Hal's slipper, and smiling at them
+like an old friend.'
+
+P. 92]
+
+"For Tip--yes, that's what _I_ were thinking," cried an eager little
+voice. "Here's the other shoe; I've just founded it."
+
+And little Peggy, with her neat hair and clean pinafore, stood in the
+middle of the children holding out Hal's slipper, and smiling at them,
+like an old friend.
+
+For a moment or two they were all too astonished to speak; they could
+scarcely have stared more had they caught sight of a pair of wings on
+her shoulders, by means of which she had flown down from the sky.
+
+Then Light Smiley nudged Crippley, and murmured something which Peggy
+could not clearly hear, about "th' young lady hopposite."
+
+"Thank you, miss," then said Crippley, not quite knowing what to say.
+"Here, Halfred, you'll have to find summat else to make a carridge of;
+give us the shoe--there's a good boy."
+
+Halfred stopped playing, and still on his knees on the pavement stared
+up suspiciously at his sister. Brown Smiley, by way of taking part in
+what was going on, swooped down over him and caught up the shoe before
+he saw what she was doing, cleverly managing to hold her baby on her
+knee all the same.
+
+"'Ere it be," she said. "Sarah, put Florence on Lizzie's lap for a
+minute, and run you upstairs with them two shoes to mother. They'll do
+splendid for Tommy, they will. And thank the young lady."
+
+Sarah, otherwise Light Smiley, got up obediently, deposited _her_ baby
+on Crippley's lap and held out her hand to Peggy for the other shoe,
+bobbing as she did so, with a "Thank you, miss."
+
+Peggy left off smiling and looked rather puzzled.
+
+"For Tommy," she repeated. "Who is Tommy? I thought they'd do for Tip.
+I----"
+
+It was now the sisters' turn to stare, but they had not much time to do
+so, for Halfred, who had taken all this time to arrive at the knowledge
+that his new plaything had been taken from him, suddenly burst into a
+loud howl--so loud, so deliberate and determined, that Peggy stopped
+short, and all the group seemed for a moment struck dumb.
+
+Brown Smiley was the first to speak.
+
+"Come, now, Halfred," she said, "where's your manners? You'd never stop
+Tommy having a nice pair o' shoes."
+
+But Halfred continued to weep--he gazed up at Peggy, the tears streaming
+down his smutty face, his mouth wide open, howling hopelessly.
+
+"Poor little boy," said Peggy, looking ready to cry herself. "I wish I'd
+a nother old shoe for him."
+
+"Bless you, miss, he's always a-crying--there's no need to worry," said
+Crippley, whose real name was Lizzie. "Take him in with you, Sarah, and
+tell mother he's a naughty boy, that's what he is," and Light Smiley
+picked him up and ran off with him in such a hurry that Peggy stood
+still repeating "poor little boy" before she knew what had become of
+him.
+
+Quiet was restored, however. Peggy, having done what she came for,
+should have gone home, but the attractions of society were too much for
+her. She lingered--Crippley pushed Sarah's empty chair towards her.
+
+"Take a seat, miss," she said. "You'll excuse me not gettin' up. Onst
+I'm a-sittin' down, it's not so heasy."
+
+Peggy looked at her with great interest.
+
+"Does it hurt much?" she asked.
+
+Lizzie smiled in a superior way.
+
+"Bless you," she said again, "_hurt's_ no word for it. It's hall
+over--but it's time I were used to it--never mind about me, missy. I'm
+sure it was most obligin' of you to bring the shoe, but won't your mamma
+and your nurse scold you?"
+
+"My mamma's gone away, and so has my nurse," said Peggy. "I'm all
+alone."
+
+All the eyes looked up with sympathy.
+
+"Deary me, who'd a thought it?" said Brown Smiley. "But there must be
+somebody to do for you, miss."
+
+"To what?" asked Peggy. "Of course there's cook, and Fanny, and my
+brothers, and my papa when he comes home."
+
+Brown Smiley looked relieved. She was only a very little girl, not more
+than three years older than Peggy herself, though she seemed so much
+more, and she had really thought that the little visitor meant to say
+she was quite, quite by herself.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "that's not being real alone."
+
+"But it is," persisted Peggy. "It is very alone, I can tell you. I've
+nobody to play with, and nothing to do 'cept to look out of the window
+at you playing, and at the nother window at----"
+
+"The winder to the front," said Lizzie, eagerly. "It must be splendid at
+your front, miss. Father told me onst you could see the 'ills--ever so
+far right away in Brackenshire. Some day if I could but get along a bit
+better I'd like fine to go round to your front, miss. I've never seed a
+'ill."
+
+Lizzie was quite out of breath with excitement. Peggy answered eagerly,
+
+"Oh I do wish you could come to our day nursery window. When it's fine
+you can see the mountings--that's old, no, big hills, you know. And--on
+one of them you can see a white cottage; it does so shine in the sun."
+
+"Bless me," said Lizzie, and both the Smileys, for Sarah had come back
+by now, stood listening with open mouths.
+
+"Father's from Brackenshire," said Light Smiley, whose real name was
+Sarah. She spoke rather timidly, for she was well kept in her place by
+her four elder sisters. For a wonder they did not snub her.
+
+"Yes, he be," added Matilda, "and he's told us it's bee-yutiful over
+there. He lived in a cottage, he did, when he were a little lad."
+
+"Mebbe 'tis father's cottage miss sees shining," ventured Sarah. But
+this time she was not so lucky.
+
+"Rubbish, Sarah," said Lizzie. "There's more'n one cottage in
+Brackenshire."
+
+"And there's a mamma and a baby--and a papa who goes to work, in my
+cottage," said Peggy. "So I don't think it could be----" but here she
+grew confused, remembering that all about the white cottage was only
+fancy, and that besides the Smileys' father _might_ have lived there
+long ago. She got rather red, feeling somehow as if it was not very kind
+of her not to like the idea of its being his cottage. She had seen him
+once or twice; he looked big and rough, and his clothes were old--she
+could not fancy him ever having lived in her dainty white house.
+
+Just then came a loud voice from the upper story, demanding Sarah.
+
+"'Tis Mother Whelan," said Brown Smiley, starting up. "Rebecca said as
+how I was to run of an errant for her. It's time I were off."
+
+Peggy turned to go.
+
+"I must go home," she said. "P'raps I'll come again some day. If mamma
+was at home I'd ask her if you mightn't come to look out of the nursery
+window," she added, turning to Lizzie.
+
+"Bless you," said the poor girl, "I'd never get up the stairs; thank you
+all the same."
+
+And with a deep sigh of regret at having to leave such pleasant company,
+Peggy ran across the street home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A BUN TO THE GOOD
+
+          "The little gift from out our store."
+
+
+THE yard door was still open; so was the house door. Peggy met no one as
+she ran in.
+
+"Fanny's upstairs, p'raps," she said to herself. But no, she saw nothing
+of Fanny either on the way up or in the nursery. She did not feel dull
+or lonely now, however. She went to the back window and stood there for
+a minute looking at Crippley and Light Smiley, who were still there with
+the two babies. How funny it seemed that just a moment or two ago she
+had been down there actually talking to them! She could scarcely believe
+they were the very same children whom for so long she had known by
+sight.
+
+"I am so glad I found the shoe," thought Peggy. "I wish, oh I do wish I
+could have a tea-party, and 'avite them all to tea. I daresay the
+father could carry Crippley upstairs--he's a very big man."
+
+The thought of the father carried her thoughts to Brackenshire and the
+cottage on the hill, and she went into the day-nursery to look if the
+white spot was still to be seen. Yes, it was very bright and clear in
+the sunshine. Peggy gazed at it while a smile broke over her grave
+little face.
+
+"How I do wish I could go there," she thought. "I wonder if the Smileys'
+father 'amembers about when he was a little boy, quite well. If he
+wasn't such a 'nugly man we might ask him to tell us stories about it."
+
+Then she caught sight of the little scarlet shoes patiently standing on
+the window-sill.
+
+"Dear little shoes," she said. "Peggy was neely forgetting you," and she
+took them up and kissed them. "Next time I go to see the Smileys," she
+thought, "I'll take the red shoes with me to show them. They _will_ be
+pleased."
+
+Then she got out her work and sat down to do it, placing her chair where
+she could see the hills from, the little shoes in her lap, feeling quite
+happy and contented. It seemed but a little while till Fanny came up to
+lay the cloth for Peggy's dinner. She had been working extra hard that
+morning, so as to be ready for the afternoon, and perhaps her head was a
+little confused. And so when Peggy began telling her her adventures she
+did not listen attentively, and answered "yes" and "no" without really
+knowing what she was saying.
+
+"And so when I couldn't find you, Fanny, I just runned over with the
+'nother shoe myself. And the poor little boy what was playing with
+the--the _not_ the 'nother one, you know, did so cry, but I think he
+soon left off. And some day I'm going to ask mamma to let me 'avite them
+all to tea, for them to see the hills, and----" but here Peggy stopped,
+"the hills, you know, out of the window."
+
+"Yes, dear; very nice," said Fanny. "You've been a good little girl to
+amuse yourself so quietly all the morning and give no trouble. I do
+wonder if the washerwoman knows to come for the nursery things, or if I
+must send," she went on, speaking, though aloud, to herself.
+
+So Peggy felt perfectly happy about all she had done, not indeed that
+she had had the slightest misgiving.
+
+The afternoon passed very pleasantly. It was quite a treat to Peggy to
+go a walk in a grown-up sort of way with Fanny, trotting by her side
+and talking comfortably, instead of having to take Hal's hand and
+lugging him along to keep well in front of the perambulator. They went
+up the Ferndale Road--a good way, farther than Peggy had ever been--so
+far indeed that she could scarcely understand how it was the hills did
+not seem much nearer than from the nursery window, but when she asked
+Fanny, Fanny said it was often so with hills--"nothing is more
+undependable." Peggy did not quite understand her, but put it away in
+her head to think about afterwards.
+
+And when they came home it was nearly tea-time. Peggy felt quite
+comfortably tired when she had taken off her things and began to help
+Fanny to get tea ready for the boys, and when they arrived, all three
+very hungry and rather low-spirited at the thought of mamma and nurse
+being away, it was very nice for them to find the nursery quite as tidy
+as usual--indeed, perhaps, rather tidier--and Peggy, with a bright face,
+waiting with great pride to pour out tea for them.
+
+"I think you're a very good housekeeper, Peg," said Terence, who was
+always the first to say something pleasant.
+
+"Not so bad," agreed Thorold, patronisingly.
+
+Baldwin sat still, looking before him solemnly, and considering his
+words, as was his way before _he_ said anything.
+
+"I think," he began at last, "I think that when I'm a big man I'll live
+in a cottage all alone with Peggy, and not no one else."
+
+Peggy turned to him with sparkling eyes.
+
+"A _white_ cottage, Baldwin dear; do say a white cottage," she
+entreated.
+
+"I don't mind--a white cottage, but quite a tiny one," he replied.
+
+"Hum!" said Thor, "that's very good-natured, I must say. There'll be no
+room for visitors, do you hear, Terry?"
+
+"Oh yes; p'raps there will sometimes," said Peggy.
+
+"You'll let your poor old Terry come, won't you, Peg-top?" said Terence,
+coaxingly.
+
+"Dear Terry," said Peggy.
+
+"Haven't you been very dull all day alone, by the bye?" Terence went on.
+
+"Not very," Peggy replied. "Fanny took me a nice walk, and this
+morning----" But she stopped short before telling more. She was afraid
+that Thorold would laugh at her if she said how much she liked the
+children at the back, and then she had another reason. She wanted to
+"surprise" her brothers with a present of pipes for soap-bubbles, and
+very likely if she began talking about the back street at all it would
+make them think of Mrs. Whelan's, and then they might think of the pipes
+for themselves, which Peggy did not wish at all. She felt quite big and
+managing since she had paid a visit to the Smileys, and had a plan for
+going to buy the pipes "all by my own self."
+
+"To-morrow," said Thorold, "there's to be a party at our school. We're
+all three to go."
+
+Peggy's face fell.
+
+"It's Saturday," she said. "I thought you'd have stayed with me."
+
+Terence and Baldwin looked sorry.
+
+"_I'll_ stay at home," said Terry.
+
+"No," said Thor, "I really don't think you can. They're counting on you
+for some of the games. Peg won't mind much for once, will you? I'm sorry
+too."
+
+But before Peggy had time to reply, Baldwin broke in.
+
+"I'll stay at home with Peg-top," he said, in his slow, distinct way.
+"It won't matter for me not going. I'm one of the little ones."
+
+"And we'll go a nice walk, won't we, Baldwin?" said Peggy, quite happy
+again. "And I daresay we may have something nice for tea. I'll ask
+papa," she added to herself. "I'm sure he'll give me some pennies when
+he hears how good Baldwin is."
+
+Miss Earnshaw came the next morning, and in the interest of being
+measured for her new spring frock, and watching it being cut out, and
+considering what she herself could make with the scraps which the young
+dressmaker gave her, the time passed very pleasantly for Peggy.
+
+Miss Earnshaw admired the red shoes very much, and was interested to
+hear the story of the unknown lady who had given them to Peggy, and told
+a story of a similar adventure of her own when she was a little girl.
+And after dinner she, for Fanny was very busy, took Peggy and Baldwin
+out for a walk, and on their way home they went to the confectioner's
+and bought six halfpenny buns with the three pennies papa had given
+Peggy that morning. At least the children thought there were only six,
+but greatly to their surprise, when they undid the parcel on the nursery
+table, out rolled seven!
+
+"Oh dear!" said Peggy, "she's gave us one too many. Must we go back to
+the shop with it, do you think, Miss Earnshaw? It's such a long way."
+
+"I'll go," said Baldwin, beginning to fasten his boots again.
+
+But Miss Earnshaw assured them it was all right.
+
+"You always get thirteen of any penny buns or cakes for a shilling," she
+said; "and some shops will give you seven halfpenny ones for threepence.
+That's how it is. Did you never hear speak of a baker's dozen?"
+
+Still Peggy did not feel satisfied.
+
+"It isn't comfable," she said, giving herself a little wriggle--a trick
+of hers when she was put out. "Six would have been much nicer--just two
+for each," for Miss Earnshaw was to have tea with her and Baldwin.
+
+The young dressmaker smiled.
+
+"You _are_ funny, Miss Peggy," she said. "Well, run off now and get
+ready for tea. We'll have Fanny bringing it up in a minute."
+
+Peggy, the seventh bun still much on her mind, went slowly into the
+night nursery. Before beginning to take off her hat she strolled to the
+window and looked out. She had seen none of the children to-day. Now,
+Brown Smiley was standing just in front of the house, a basket on her
+arm, staring up and down the street. She had been "of an errant" for
+Mrs. Whelan, but Mrs. Whelan's door was locked; she was either asleep or
+counting her money, and the little girl knew that if she went on
+knocking the old woman would get into a rage, so she was "waitin' a
+bit." She liked better to do her waiting in the street, for she had been
+busy indoors all the morning, and it was a change to stand there looking
+about her.
+
+Peggy gazed at her for a moment or two. Then an idea struck her. She ran
+back into the nursery and seized a bun--the odd bun.
+
+"They're all mine, you know," she called out to Baldwin; "but we'll have
+two each still."
+
+Baldwin looked up in surprise. "What are you going to do with it?" he
+began to say, but Peggy was out of sight.
+
+She was soon downstairs, and easily opened the back door. But the yard
+door was fastened; she found some difficulty in turning the big key. She
+managed it at last, however, and saw to her delight that Brown Smiley
+was still there.
+
+"Brown," began Peggy, but suddenly recollecting that the Smileys had
+real names, she stopped short, and ran across the street. "I can't
+'amember your name," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "but I've brought you
+this," and she held out the bun.
+
+Brown Smiley's face smiled all over.
+
+"Lor', miss," she exclaimed. "You are kind, to be sure. Mayn't I give it
+to Lizzie? She's been very bad to-day, and she's eat next to nought.
+This 'ere'll be tasty-like."
+
+"Lizzie," repeated Peggy, "which is Lizzie? Oh yes, I know, it's
+Crippley."
+
+Brown Smiley looked rather hurt.
+
+"It's not her fault, miss," she said. "I'd not like her to hear herself
+called like that."
+
+Peggy's face showed extreme surprise.
+
+"How do you mean?" she said. "I've made names for you all. I didn't know
+your real ones."
+
+Brown Smiley looked at her and saw in a moment that there was nothing to
+be vexed about.
+
+"To be sure, miss. Beg your pardon. Well, she that's lame's Lizzie, and
+me, I'm Matilda-Jane."
+
+"Oh yes," interrupted Peggy. "Well, you may give her the bun if you
+like. It's very kind of you, for I meant it for you. I'd like----" she
+went on, "I'd like to give you more, but you see papa gaved me the
+pennies for us, and p'raps he'd be vexed."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure, that'd never do," replied Matilda, quickly.
+"But oh, miss, we've been asking father about Brackenshire, and the
+cottages. 'Tis Brackenshire 'ills, sure enough, that's seen from your
+front."
+
+"I knew that," said Peggy, in a superior way.
+
+But Brown Smiley was too eager to feel herself snubbed.
+
+"And oh, but he says it is bee-yutiful there--over on the 'ills. The
+air's that fresh, and there's flowers and big-leaved things as they
+calls ferns and brackens."
+
+"And white cottages?" asked Peggy, anxiously.
+
+"There's cottages--I didn't think for to ask if they was all white. My!
+If we could but go there some fine day. Father says it's not so far;
+many's the time he's walked over there and back again the next morning
+when he first comed to work here, you see, miss, and his 'ome was still
+over there like."
+
+"Yes, in the white cottage," said Peggy. She had made up her mind that
+it was unkind not to "let it be" that the Smileys' father had lived in
+that very cottage, for he did seem to be a nice man in spite of his
+bigness and his dingy workman's clothes. If he wasn't nice and kind she
+didn't think the children would talk of him as they did.
+
+[Illustration: "I can't 'amember your name," she exclaimed breathlessly,
+"but I've brought you this," and she held out the bun.
+
+Brown Smiley's face smiled all over.
+
+"Lor', miss," she exclaimed. "You are kind to be sure. Mayn't I give it
+to Lizzie? She's been very bad to-day, and she's eat next to nought.
+This 'ere'll be tasty-like."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But suddenly a window above opened, and Mother Whelan's befrilled face
+was thrust out.
+
+"What are ye about there then, and me fire burning itself away, and me
+tea ready, waiting for the bread? What's the young lady chatterin' to
+the like o' you for? Go home, missy, darlin', go home."
+
+P.P. 107-9]
+
+But she spoke absently; Matilda-Jane's words had put thoughts in her
+head which seemed to make her almost giddy. Brown Smiley stared at her
+for a minute.
+
+"How she do cling to them cottages being white," she thought to herself,
+"but there--if it pleases her! She's but a little one." "White if you
+please, miss," she replied, "though I can't say as I had it from
+father."
+
+But suddenly a window above opened, and Mother Whelan's befrilled face
+was thrust out.
+
+"What are ye about there then, and me fire burning itself away, and me
+tea ready, waiting for the bread? What's the young lady chatterin' to
+the likes o' you for? Go home, missy, darlin', go home."
+
+The two children jumped as if they had been shot.
+
+"Will she beat you?" whispered Peggy, looking very frightened. But Brown
+Smiley shook her little round head and laughed.
+
+"She won't have a chance, and she dursn't not to say beat us--father'd
+be down on her--but she doesn't think nought of a good shakin'. But I'll
+push the basket in and run off if she's in a real wax."
+
+"Good-bye, then. You must tell me lots more about the hills. Ask your
+father all you can," and so saying, Peggy flew home again.
+
+"Where've you been, what did you do with the bun?" asked Baldwin, as
+soon as she came in to the nursery.
+
+"I runned down with it, and gaved it to a little girl I saw in the
+street," said Peggy.
+
+"Very kind and nice, I'm sure," said Miss Earnshaw. "Was it a beggar,
+Miss Peggy? You're sure your mamma and nurse wouldn't mind?" she added,
+rather anxiously.
+
+"Oh no," said Peggy. "It's not a _beggar_. It's a proper little poor
+girl what nurse gives our nold clothes to."
+
+"Oh," said Baldwin, "one of the children over the cobbler's, I suppose.
+But, Peggy," he was going on to say he didn't think his sister had ever
+been allowed to run down to the back street to speak to them, only he
+was so slow and so long of making up his mind that, as Fanny just then
+came in with the tea, which made a little bustle, nobody attended to
+him, and Miss Earnshaw remained quite satisfied that all was right.
+
+The buns tasted very good--all the better to Peggy from the feeling
+that poor lame Lizzie was perhaps eating hers at that same moment, and
+finding it "tasty."
+
+"Does lame people ever get quite better?" she asked the young
+dressmaker.
+
+"That depends," Miss Earnshaw replied. "If it's through a fall or
+something that way, outside of them so to say, there's many as gets
+better. But if it's _in_ them, in the constitution, there's many as
+stays lame all their lives through."
+
+Peggy wriggled a little. She didn't like to think about it much. It
+sounded so mysterious.
+
+"What part's that?" she asked; "that big word."
+
+"Constitootion," said Baldwin, as if he was trying to spell
+"Constantinople."
+
+Miss Earnshaw laughed. She lived alone with her mother, and was not much
+used to children. But she was so pleasant-tempered and gentle that she
+easily got into their ways.
+
+"I shouldn't use such long words," she said. "Our constitution just
+means ourselves--the way we're made. A strong, healthy person is said to
+have a good constitution, and a weakly person has a poor one."
+
+Baldwin and Peggy both sat silent for a minute, thinking over what she
+said.
+
+"I don't see how that's to do with crippling," said Peggy at last. "Does
+you mean," she went on, "that p'raps lame people's legs is made
+wrong--by mistake, you know. _In course_ God wouldn't do it of purpose,
+would he?"
+
+Baldwin looked rather startled.
+
+"Peggy," he said, "I don't think you should speak that way."
+
+Peggy turned her gray eyes full upon him.
+
+"I don't mean to say anything naughty," she said. "_Is_ it naughty, Miss
+Earnshaw?"
+
+The young dressmaker had herself been rather taken aback by Peggy's
+queer speech, and for a moment or two scarcely knew what to say. But
+then her face cleared again.
+
+"God can't make mistakes, Miss Peggy," she said, "and He is always kind.
+All the same there's many things that seem like one or the other, I
+know. It must be that there's reasons for them that we can't see--like
+when a doctor hurts anybody, it seems unkind, but it's _really_ to do
+them good."
+
+"Like when our doctor cutted poor Baby's tooths to make them come
+through," said Peggy, eagerly. "They was all _bleeding_, bleeding ever
+so, Miss Earnshaw. Baby didn't understand, and he was _very_ angry. He
+always sc'eams at the doctor now. I almost think he'd like to kill him."
+
+Baldwin opened his mouth wide at these bloodthirsty sentiments of
+Baby's. He was too shocked to speak.
+
+"But it is only 'cos he doesn't understand," Peggy went on, placidly.
+"_I_ don't sc'eam at the doctor. I speak to him quite goodly, 'cos, you
+see, _I_ understand."
+
+Baldwin closed his mouth again. He looked at Peggy with admiring
+respect.
+
+"Yes," agreed Miss Earnshaw, greatly relieved at the turn their talk had
+taken, "that's just it, Miss Peggy. You couldn't have put it better."
+
+"Peggy," said Baldwin, "when you're big you should be a clergymunt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+UNDER THE BIG UMBRELLA
+
+          "As I was going up Pippin Hill,
+           Pippin Hill was dirty,
+           There I met a pretty miss,
+           And she dropped me a curtsey."
+                             _Old Nursery Rhyme._
+
+
+NOTHING particular happened during the next few days. Peggy's little
+life went on regularly and peacefully. Miss Earnshaw came every morning,
+and either she or Fanny took Peggy a walk every afternoon, except twice
+when it rained, to the little girl's great disappointment.
+
+The second of these wet days happened to be Friday. Peggy stood at the
+front nursery window that morning looking out rather sadly. There were
+no hills--no white spot to be seen, of course.
+
+"I wonder what the Smileys do when it rains all day," she said to
+herself. "I think I'll go to the back window and look if I can see any
+of them."
+
+She had scarcely caught sight of her neighbours for some days. Only now
+and then she had seen the little ones tumbling about on the pavement,
+and once or twice the elder girls had brought their chairs down and sat
+there sewing. Lizzie had never come out. Peggy feared she must be still
+ill, and perhaps that made the others extra busy. It was not likely any
+of them would come out to-day, as it was raining so; but _sometimes_ she
+was able to see their faces at the window. And on a rainy day some of
+the little ones at least would perhaps be looking out.
+
+She turned to go to the other nursery when Miss Earnshaw spoke to her.
+
+"I wouldn't be so vexed at its being wet to-day, Miss Peggy, if I was
+you," she said. "It'll be much worse if it's wet to-morrow, for it's
+your brothers' half-holiday."
+
+"Is to-morrow Saturday?" asked Peggy.
+
+"To be sure it is. And I'm afraid I can't possibly stay here in the
+afternoon. I've got to go to see a lady some way off about some work. I
+wish she hadn't fixed for Saturday. If it's fine it won't matter so
+much. Fanny and I were saying you could all go a nice walk--the young
+gentlemen and you, with her. But if it's wet I don't know however she'll
+manage you all in the house."
+
+Suddenly Peggy's eyes began to sparkle.
+
+"Miss Earnshaw," she said, "I've thought of something. If you'll ask
+Fanny, I'm sure she'll say we can; we've not had them for such a long
+time, and I've got my four pennies and a halfpenny--that'll get six, you
+know, in case any's brokened."
+
+Miss Earnshaw looked at her and then began to laugh.
+
+"Miss Peggy dear, you must tell me first what you mean," she said. "Your
+thoughts come so fast that they run ahead of your words. What is it you
+mean to get six of--not buns?"
+
+"Buns!" repeated Peggy. "You can't blow bubbles with buns. No, of course
+I meant pipes. Nice white pipes to blow soap-bubbles."
+
+"Oh, to be sure," said Miss Earnshaw. "That's a very good idea, Miss
+Peggy, in case to-morrow afternoon's wet, and I shouldn't wonder if it
+was."
+
+"And you'll ask Fanny?"
+
+"Of course; you can ask her yourself for that matter. I'm sure she's the
+last to grudge you anything that'd please you and the young gentlemen.
+And even if soap-bubbles are rather messy sometimes, it's easy to wipe
+up. It's not like anything dirty."
+
+"Soap must be clean, mustn't it?" said Peggy, laughing. "But don't tell
+the boys, pelease, dear Miss Earnshaw. I do so want to 'apprise them. I
+can get the pipes to-morrow morning. I know where to get them," and
+quite happy, Peggy trotted off to take out her money-box and look to be
+quite sure that the three pennies and three halfpennies were there in
+safety, where for some weeks they had been waiting.
+
+"Bless her heart," said the young dressmaker. "She is the sweetest
+little innocent darling that ever lived."
+
+After looking over her pennies Peggy turned to the window. No, none of
+the Smileys were to be seen.
+
+"Never mind," said Peggy to herself. "I'll p'raps see them to-morrow
+when I go for the pipes. I almost hope it'll be a wet day. It will be so
+nice to blow soap-bubbles. Only," and she sighed a little, "it does seem
+such a very long time since I sawed the white cottage."
+
+To-morrow _was_ rainy, very rainy, with no look of "going to clear up"
+about it. The boys grumbled a good deal at breakfast at the doleful
+prospect of a dull half-holiday in the house.
+
+"And papa's going away to-day till Monday," said Thorold; "so there'll
+be no going down to the dining-room to sit beside him while he's at
+dinner for a change."
+
+"Poor papa," said Peggy, "he'll get very wet going such a long way."
+
+"Nonsense, you little goose," said Thor, crossly. "People don't get wet
+in cabs and railway carriages."
+
+"I forgot," said Peggy, meekly.
+
+"You shouldn't call her a goose, Thor," said Terence. "It's very
+disagreeable to travel on a very rainy day. I've often heard people say
+so."
+
+"I wish I was going to travel, rainy or not, I know that," grumbled
+Thorold. "Here we shall be mewed up in this stupid nursery all the
+afternoon with nothing to do."
+
+"There's lots of things to do," said Baldwin. "I think I'll write a
+letter to mamma for one thing. And I want to tidy my treasure-box
+and----"
+
+"You're a stupid," said Thorold. "You're too fat and slow to have any
+spirit in you."
+
+"Now, Thorold, I say that's not fair," said Terry.
+
+"Would it show spirit to grumble? You'd be down upon him if he did.
+There's no pleasing you."
+
+"_I_ know something that would please him," said Peggy, who was
+trembling between eagerness to tell and determination _not_ to tell her
+"surprise."
+
+"What?" said Thor, rather grumpily still.
+
+"I'm not going to tell you till you come home. And it'll only be if it's
+a rainy afternoon," said Peggy.
+
+Terence and Baldwin pricked up their ears.
+
+"Oh, do tell us, Peg-top," they said.
+
+But the little girl shook her head.
+
+"No, no," she replied. "I've promised myself--_quite_ promised not."
+
+"There's a reason for you," said Thor. But his tone was more
+good-natured now. He felt ashamed of being so cross when the little ones
+were so kind and bright.
+
+"I'll really, _truly_ tell you when you come back from school," said
+Peggy, and with this assurance the boys had to content themselves.
+
+Miss Earnshaw arrived as usual, or rather not as usual, for she was
+dripping, poor thing, and had to leave her waterproof downstairs in the
+kitchen.
+
+"What weather, Miss Peggy," she said, as she came in. "I thought it
+would be a wet day, but not such a pour. It is unfortunate that I have
+to go so far to-day, isn't it? And I'm sorry to leave you children alone
+too."
+
+"Never mind," said Peggy, cheerily; "we'll be quite happy with the soap
+bubbles. I've got my money quite ready. Mayn't I go and get the pipes
+now?"
+
+"Out, my dear? In such weather!" exclaimed Miss Earnshaw.
+
+"Oh, but it's _quite_ near," said Peggy. "Just hop out of the door and
+you're there. The boys always buy their pipes there, and mamma goes
+there herself sometimes to see the old woman."
+
+"Well, wait a bit, any way. It can't go on raining as fast as this all
+the morning surely. It's real cats and dogs."
+
+Peggy looked up in surprise.
+
+"Cats and dogs, Miss Earnshaw?" she repeated.
+
+"Oh, bless you, my dear, it's only a way of speaking," said the
+dressmaker, a little impatiently, for she was not very much accustomed
+to children. "It just means raining _very_ hard."
+
+Peggy went to the window to look out for herself. Yes indeed it was
+raining very hard. The little girl could not help sighing a little as
+she gazed at the thick even gray of the clouds, hiding like a curtain
+every trace of the distant hills she was so fond of.
+
+"I won't put out the little red shoes to-day," she said to herself,
+"there's nothing for them to see."
+
+Then other thoughts crept into her mind.
+
+"I wonder if it's raining at the white cottage too," she said to
+herself. And aloud she asked a question.
+
+"Miss Earnshaw, pelease, does it ever rain in the country?" she said.
+
+"Rain in the country! I should rather think it did. Worse than in town,
+you might say--that's to say, where there's less shelter, you'll get
+wetter and dirtier in the country, only of course it's not the same kind
+of really black sooty rain. But as for mud in country lanes! I shall see
+something of it this afternoon, I expect."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Peggy. "I thought it never rained in the
+country. I thought it was always quite pretty and lovely," and she
+sighed deeply. "I wonder what people who live in little cottages in the
+country do all day when it rains," she said.
+
+"Why, my dear, much the same as other folk, I should say. They have
+their rooms to clean, and their dinner to cook, and their children to
+look after. Still I daresay it'd be a bit drearier in the country of a
+right-down wet day like this, even than in town. I've never lived there
+myself, except for a week at a time at most, but mother was all her
+young days in the country."
+
+"Everybody's fathers and mothers lived there," said Peggy, rather
+petulantly. "Why don't peoples let their children live there now?"
+
+Miss Earnshaw laughed a little. Peggy did not like her to laugh in that
+way, and she gave herself a little wriggle, though poor Miss Earnshaw
+certainly did not mean to vex her.
+
+"There are plenty of children in the country too, Miss Peggy," she said.
+"Mother's youngest sister has twelve."
+
+"Twelve," repeated Peggy, "_how_ nice! at least if there's lots of
+sisters among them, and no very little babies. Do they live over in that
+country?" she went on, pointing in the direction of the invisible hills,
+"that country called Brack---- You know the name."
+
+"Brackenshire," said Miss Earnshaw, "no, my mother comes from much
+farther off. A very pretty place it must be by what she says. Not but
+what Brackenshire's a pretty country too. I've been there several times
+with the Sunday school for a treat."
+
+"And did you see the hills and the white cottages?" asked Peggy
+breathlessly.
+
+"Oh yes, the hills are beautiful, and there's lots of cottages of all
+kinds. They look pretty among the trees, even though they're only poor
+little places, most of them."
+
+"The white ones is the prettiest," said Peggy, as if she knew all about
+it.
+
+"Yes, I daresay," said Miss Earnshaw, without paying much attention; she
+had got to rather a difficult part of the sleeve she was making.
+
+"Did you ever walk all the way there when you was a little girl?" Peggy
+went on.
+
+"Oh yes, of course," Miss Earnshaw replied, without the least idea of
+what she was answering.
+
+"Really!" said Peggy, "how nice!" Then seeing that the dressmaker was
+absorbed in her work: "Miss Earnshaw," she said, "I'm going for the
+pipes now. It isn't raining _quite_ so fast, and I'll not be long."
+
+"Very well, my dear," Miss Earnshaw replied, and Peggy went off to fetch
+her pennies from the drawer in the other nursery where she kept them.
+She had a new idea in her head, an idea which Miss Earnshaw's careless
+words had helped to put there, little as she knew it.
+
+"If I see the Smileys," thought Peggy, "I'll tell them what she said."
+
+She glanced out of the window, dear me, how lucky! There stood Brown
+Smiley looking out at the door, as if she were hesitating before making
+a plunge into the dripping wet street. It did seem at the back as if it
+were raining faster than in front. Peggy opened the cupboard and took
+out her little cloak which was hanging there.
+
+"I won't put on my hat," she thought, "'cos nurse says the rain spoils
+the feavers. I'll get a numbrella downstairs, and then I _can't_ get
+wet, and here's my pennies all right in my pocket. I do hope Brown
+Smiley will wait till I get down."
+
+She made all the haste she could, and found, as she expected, an
+umbrella in the stand downstairs. It was not very easy to open, but she
+succeeded at last, then came, however, another difficulty, she could not
+get herself and the umbrella through the back door together.
+
+"Dear me," thought Peggy, "I wonder how people does with their
+numbrellas. They _must_ open them in the house, else they'd get wet
+standing outside while they're doing it. I never looked to see how nurse
+does, but then we almost never go out when it's rainy. I 'appose it's
+one of the hard things big peoples has to learn. Oh, dear! _won't_ it
+come through?"
+
+No, she couldn't manage it, at least not with herself under it. At last
+a brilliant idea struck Peggy; anything was better than closing the
+tiresome thing now she _had_ got it opened--she would send it first and
+follow after herself. So the umbrella was passed through, and went
+slipping down the two or three steps that led into the yard, where it
+lay gaping up reproachfully at Peggy, who felt inclined to call out
+"Never mind, poor thing, I'm coming d'reckly."
+
+And as "d'reckly" as possible she did come, carefully closing the door
+behind her, for fear the rain should get into the house, which, together
+with the picking up of the umbrella, far too big and heavy a one for a
+tiny girl, took so long that I am afraid a good many drops had time to
+fall on the fair uncovered head before it got under shelter again.
+
+But little cared Peggy. She felt as proud as a peacock, the umbrella
+representing the tail, you understand, when she found herself outside
+the yard door, which behaved very amiably, fairly under weigh for her
+voyage across the street. She could see nothing before her; fortunately,
+however, no carriages or carts ever came down the narrow back way.
+
+Half-way over Peggy stopped short--she had forgotten to look if Brown
+Smiley was still standing there. It was not easy to get a peep from
+under the umbrella, without tilting it and herself backwards on to the
+muddy road, but with great care Peggy managed it. Ah dear, what a
+disappointment! There was no little girl in front of the cobbler's
+window, but glancing to one side, Peggy caught sight of the small figure
+with a shawl of "mother's" quaintly drawn over the head, trotting away
+down the street. With a cry Peggy dashed after her.
+
+"Oh, Brown Smiley," she called out, "do come back. I'm too frightened to
+go to buy the pipes alone," for what with her struggles and her
+excitement, the little damsel's nerves were rather upset. "Oh, Brown
+Smiley--no--no, that's not her name, oh what _is_ your name, Brown
+Smiley?" and on along the rough pavement behind the little messenger she
+rushed, if indeed poor Peggy's toddling, flopping from one side to
+another progress, could possibly be called "rushing."
+
+[Illustration: "But an umbrella rolling itself about on the pavement, an
+umbrella from which proceeds most piteous wails, an umbrella from
+underneath which, when you get close to it, you see two little feet
+sticking out, and by degrees two neat black legs, and then a muddle of
+short skirts, which by rights should be draping the legs, but have
+somehow got all turned upside down like a bird's feathers ruffled up the
+wrong way--_such_ an umbrella, or perhaps I should say an umbrella in
+such circumstances, may certainly be called a strange sight, may it
+not?"
+
+P. 127]
+
+It came to an end quickly--the paving-stones were rough and uneven, the
+small feet had only "my noldest house-shoes" to protect them, and the
+"numbrella" was sadly in the way; there came suddenly a sharp cry, so
+piercing and distressful that even Matilda-Jane, accustomed as she was
+to childish sounds of woe of every kind and pitch, was startled enough
+to turn round and look behind her.
+
+"Can it be Halfred come a-runnin' after me?" she said to herself. But
+the sight that met her eyes puzzled her so, that at the risk of Mother
+Whelan's scoldings for being so long, she could not resist running back
+to examine for herself the strange object. This was nothing more nor
+less than an umbrella, and an umbrella in itself is not an uncommon
+sight. But an umbrella rolling itself about on the pavement, an umbrella
+from which proceeds most piteous wails, an umbrella from underneath
+which, when you get close to it, you see two little feet sticking out
+and by degrees two neat black legs, and then a muddle of short skirts,
+which by rights should be draping the legs, but have somehow got all
+turned upside down like a bird's feathers ruffled up the wrong
+way--_such_ an umbrella, or perhaps I should say an umbrella in such
+circumstances, certainly may be called a strange sight, may it not?
+
+Matilda-Jane Simpkins, for that was Brown Smiley's whole long name,
+thought so any way, for she stood stock still, staring, and the only
+thing she could collect herself enough to say was, "Lor'!"
+
+But her state of stupefaction only lasted half a moment. She was a
+practical and business-like little person; before there was time for
+another cry for help, she had disentangled the umbrella and its owner,
+and set the latter on her feet again, sobbing piteously, and dreadfully
+dirty and muddy, but otherwise not much the worse.
+
+Then Matilda-Jane gave vent to another exclamation.
+
+"Bless me, missy, it's _you_!" she cried. "Whatever are you a-doing of
+to be out in the rain all alone, with no 'at and a humbrella four sizes
+too big for the likes of you, and them paper-soled things on yer feet?
+and, oh my! ain't yer frock muddy? What'll your folk say to you? Or is
+they all away and left you and the cat to keep 'ouse?"
+
+"I was running after you, Brown Smiley," sobbed Peggy. She could not
+quite make out if Matilda-Jane was making fun of her or not, and,
+indeed, to do Matilda justice, she had no such intention. "I was running
+after _you_," Peggy repeated, "and you _wouldn't_ stop, and I couldn't
+run fast 'cos of the numbrella, and so I felled down."
+
+"Never mind, missy dear, you'll be none the worse, you'll see. Only,
+will they give it you when you go home for dirtying of your frock?"
+
+"Give it me?" repeated Peggy.
+
+"Yes, give it you; will you get it--will you catch it?" said Matilda,
+impatiently.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," Peggy replied.
+
+Matilda wasted no more words on her. She took her by the arm, umbrella
+and all, and trotted her down the street again till they had reached the
+Smiley mansion. Then she drew Peggy inside the doorway of the passage,
+whence a stair led up to Mrs. Whelan's, and to the Simpkins's own rooms
+above that again, and having shut up the umbrella with such perfect ease
+that Peggy gazed at her in admiration, she tried to explain her meaning.
+
+"Look 'ere now, miss;" she said, "which'll you do--go straight
+over-the-way 'ome, just as you are, or come in along of _huz_ and get
+yerself cleaned up a bit?"
+
+"Oh, I'll go in with you, pelease," sobbed Peggy.
+
+"P'raps Miss Earnshaw wouldn't scold me. She let me come, and I didn't
+fell down on purpose. But I _know_ she wouldn't let me come out
+again--I'm sure she wouldn't, and I do so want to get the pipes my own
+self. You'll take me to Mrs. Whelan's, won't you, dear Brown Smiley?"
+
+"I'll catch it when she sees I haven't done her errant," said Matilda.
+"But never mind; she'll not be so bad with you there, maybe. Come up
+with me, missy, and I'll get Rebecca to wipe you a bit," and she began
+the ascent of the narrow staircase, followed by Peggy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE OPPOSITE HOUSE
+
+          "There was an old woman that lived in a shoe,
+           She had so many children she didn't know what to do."
+                                             _Nursery Rhymes._
+
+
+IN spite of her misfortunes, Peggy could not help feeling very pleased
+at finding herself at last inside the house she had watched so often
+from the outside. It was certainly not a pretty house--a big person
+would probably have thought it a very poor and uninteresting one; but it
+was not dirty. The old wooden steps were scrubbed down once a week
+regularly, so there was nothing to strike the little girl as
+disagreeable, and it seemed delightfully queer and mysterious as she
+climbed the steep, uneven staircase, which grew darker and darker as
+they went on, so that but for Brown Smiley's voice in front, Peggy would
+not have had the least idea where she was going.
+
+"There's Mother Whelan's door," Matilda said in a half whisper, as if
+afraid of the old woman's pouncing out upon them, and Peggy wondered how
+she knew it, for to her everything was perfectly dark; "but we'll go
+upstairs first to Rebecca," and on they climbed.
+
+Suddenly, what seemed for a moment a blaze of brilliant light from the
+contrast with the darkness where they were, broke upon them. Peggy quite
+started. But it was only the opening of a door.
+
+"Is that you, Matilda-Jane? My, but you have been sharp. I should think
+old Whelan 'ud be pleased for onst."
+
+The speaker was Reddy; she stood in the doorway, her bare red arms
+shining, as they always did, from being so often up to the elbows in
+soap and water.
+
+"Oh, Rebecca, don't say nothin', but I've not been of my errant yet.
+Now, don't ye begin at me--'tweren't of my fault. I was a-'urryin' along
+when I saw miss 'ere a-rollin' in the wet with her humberellar, and I
+'ad to pick her up. She's that muddy we were afeard they'd give it her
+over the way--her mar's away. So I told her as you'd tidy her up a bit.
+Come along, missy. Rebecca's got a good 'eart, has Rebecca; she'll
+clean you nicely, you'll see."
+
+For at the sound of Rebecca's sharp voice poor Peggy had slunk back into
+the friendly gloom of the staircase. But she came creeping forward now,
+so that Reddy saw her.
+
+"Lor'!" said the big girl, "little miss from the hopposite winder to be
+sure."
+
+This quite restored Peggy's courage.
+
+"Have you seen me at the window?" she said. "How funny! I've looked at
+you lotses and lotses of times, but I never thought of you looking at
+me."
+
+To which both sisters replied with their favourite exclamation, "Lor'!"
+
+Just then came a voice from inside.
+
+"Shut the door there, Rebecca, can't you? If there's one thing I can't
+abide, and you might know it, it's a hopen door, and the draught right
+on baby's head."
+
+Rebecca took Peggy by the hand and drew her into the room, and while she
+was relating the story of little missy's misfortunes to her mother,
+little missy looked round her with the greatest interest.
+
+It was a small room, but oh, how full of children! Dinner was being got
+ready "against father and the boys coming home," Matilda said, but where
+father and the boys could possibly find space to stand, much less to
+sit, Peggy lay awake wondering for a long time that night. She counted
+over all those already present, and found they were all there except
+Lizzie, the lame girl. And besides the two babies and Alfred, whom she
+knew by sight, she was amazed to see a fourth, a very tiny doll of a
+thing--the tiniest thing she had ever seen, but which they all were as
+proud of as if there had never been a baby among them before. At this
+moment it was reposing in the arms of Mary-Hann; Light Smiley, whose
+real name was Sarah, you remember, was taking charge of the two big
+babies in one corner, while Reddy and her mother were busy at the fire,
+and "Halfred" was amusing himself quietly with some marbles, apparently
+his natural occupation.
+
+What a lot of them! Peggy began to feel less sure that she would like to
+have as many sisters as the Smileys. Still they all looked happy, and
+their mother, whom Peggy had never seen before, had really a very kind
+face.
+
+"I'll see to the pot, Rebecca," she said; "just you wipe missy's frock a
+bit. 'Twill be none the worse, you'll see. And so your dear mar's away
+missy. I 'ope the change'll do her good."
+
+"Yes, thank you," said Peggy. "She's gone to the country. Did you ever
+live in the country? And was it in a white cottage?"
+
+Mrs. Simpkins smiled.
+
+"No, missy, I'm town-bred. 'Tis father as knows all about the country;
+he's a Brackenshire man."
+
+"Oh yes," said Peggy, "I forgot. It's Miss Earnshaw's mother I was
+thinking of."
+
+"But father," said Matilda, "_he_ can tell lots of tales about the
+country."
+
+"I wish he was at home," said Peggy. "But I must go, now my frock's
+cleaned. Some day p'raps I'll come again. Thank you, Reddy," at which
+Rebecca, who had been vigorously rubbing Peggy's skirts, stared and
+looked as if she were going to say "Lor'!" "I'm going to buy soap-bubble
+pipes at Mrs. Whelan's," Peggy went on, for she was losing her shyness
+now; "that's what I comed out in the rain for. We're going to play at
+soap-bubbles this afternoon, 'cos it's too wet to go out a walk."
+
+All the Smileys listened with great interest.
+
+"Mayn't Brown--I mean Matilda-Jane--come with me, pelease?" said Peggy.
+"I'm _razer_ frightened to go to buy them alone; sometimes that old
+woman does look so cross."
+
+"She looks what she is then," said Reddy, "'cept for one thing; she's
+awful good to Lizzie. She's a-sittin' down there this very minute as is,
+is Lizzie, to be out o' the way like when mother and me's cleaning, you
+see, miss."
+
+Brown Smiley's face had grown grave.
+
+"I dursn't let Mother Whelan see as I've not gone," she said, "but if
+missy doesn't like to go alone--not as she'd be sharp to the likes of
+you, but still----"
+
+"_I'll_ go," said little Sarah, Light Smiley, that is to say. "Jest you
+see to the childer will ye, Mary-Hann?" she shouted to the deaf sister.
+"I won't be harf a minute."
+
+"And you, Matilda-Jane, off with you," said Rebecca, which advice Brown
+Smiley instantly followed.
+
+Sarah took Peggy's hand to escort her down the dark staircase again.
+Light Smiley was, of all the family perhaps, Peggy's favourite. She was
+two years or so older than her little opposite neighbour, but she
+scarcely looked it, for both she and Brown Smiley were small and slight,
+and when you came to speak to them both, Sarah seemed a good deal
+younger than Matilda; she was so much less managing and decided in
+manner, but on the present occasion Peggy would have preferred the elder
+Smiley, for to tell the truth her heart was beginning to beat much
+faster than usual at the thought of facing Mrs. Whelan in her den.
+
+"Isn't you frightened, Light Smiley?" asked the little girl when the two
+stopped, and Peggy knew by this that they must be at the old woman's
+door.
+
+"Oh no," Sarah replied. "Tisn't as if we'd been up to any mischief, you
+see. And Lizzie's there. She's mostly quiet when Lizzie's there."
+
+So saying she pushed the door open. It had a bell inside, which
+forthwith began to tinkle loudly, and made Peggy start. This bell was
+the pride of Mrs. Whelan's heart; it made such a distinction, she
+thought, between her and the rest of the tenants of the house, and the
+more noisily it rang the better pleased she was. Sarah knew this, and
+gave the door a good shove, at the same time pulling Peggy into the
+room.
+
+"What's it yer afther now, and what's become of Matilda-Jane?" called
+out the old woman, not, at the first moment, catching sight of Peggy.
+
+"It's little missy from over-the-way," Sarah hastened to explain;
+"she's come to buy some pipes of you, Mother Whelan."
+
+[Illustration: "To be sure," she said in her most gracious tone. "'Tis
+the beautiful pipes I have. And 'tis proud I am to say the purty young
+lady," and on she went with a long flattering speech about Peggy's
+likeness to her "swate mother," and inquiries after the lady's health,
+all the time she was reaching down from a high shelf an old broken
+cardboard box, containing her stock of clay pipes.
+
+P. 138.]
+
+Mrs. Whelan looked at Peggy where she stood behind Sarah, gravely
+staring about her.
+
+"To be sure," she said in her most gracious tone. "'Tis the beautiful
+pipes I have. And 'tis proud I am to say the purty young lady," and on
+she went with a long flattering speech about Peggy's likeness to her
+"swate mother," and inquiries after the lady's health, all the time she
+was reaching down from a high shelf an old broken cardboard box,
+containing her stock of clay pipes.
+
+Peggy did not answer. In the first place, thanks to the old woman's
+Irish accent and queer way of speaking she did not understand a quarter
+of what she said. Then her eyes were busy gazing all about, and her nose
+was even less pleasantly occupied, for there was a very strong smell in
+the room. It was a sort of mixed smell of everything--not like the
+curious "everything" smell that one knows so well in a village shop in
+the country, which for my part I think rather nice--a smell of tea, and
+coffee, and bacon, and nuts, and soap, and matting, and brown holland,
+and spices, and dried herbs, all mixed together, but with a clean
+feeling about it--no, the smell in Mrs. Whelan's was much stuffier
+and snuffier. For joined to the odour of all the things I have named was
+that of herrings and tobacco smoke, and, I rather fear, of whisky. And
+besides all this, I am very much afraid that not only a spring cleaning
+but a summer or autumn or winter cleaning, were unknown events in the
+old woman's room. No wonder that Peggy, fresh from the soft-soap-and-water
+smell of the Simpkins's upstairs, sniffed uneasily and wished Mrs.
+Whelan would be quick with the pipes; her head felt so queer and
+confused.
+
+But looking round she caught sight of a very interesting object; this
+was Lizzie, rocking herself gently on her chair in a corner, and seeming
+quite at home. Peggy ran--no she couldn't run--the room was so crowded,
+for a counter stood across one end, and in the other a big square old
+bedstead, and between the two were a table and one or two chairs, and an
+old tumble-down chest of drawers--made her way over to Lizzie.
+
+"How do you do, Crip--Lizzie, I mean? I hope your pains aren't very bad
+to-day?"
+
+"Not so very, thank you, miss," said the poor girl. "It's nice and quiet
+in here, and the quiet does me a deal o' good."
+
+Peggy sighed.
+
+"I don't like being very quiet," she said. "I wish you could come over
+to the nursery; now that Hal and baby and nurse are away it's dreffully
+quiet."
+
+"But you wouldn't care to change places with me, would you, missy?" said
+Lizzie. "I'm thinking you'd have noise enough if you were upstairs
+sometimes. My--it do go through one's head, to be sure."
+
+Peggy looked very sympathising.
+
+"Aren't you frightened of _her_?" she whispered, nodding gently towards
+Mrs. Whelan.
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Lizzie, also lowering her voice; "she's right
+down good to me, is the old body. She do scold now and then and no
+mistake, but bless you, she'd never lay a finger on me, and it's no
+wonder she's in a taking with the children when they kicks up a hextra
+row, so to say."
+
+Peggy's mouth had opened gradually during this speech, and now it
+remained so. She could not understand half Lizzie's words, but she had
+no time to ask for an explanation, for just then Light Smiley called to
+her to come and look at the pipes which were by this time waiting for
+her on the counter.
+
+They were the cleanest things in the room--the only clean things it
+seemed to Peggy as she lifted them up one by one to choose six very nice
+ones. And then she paid her pennies and ran back to shake hands with
+Lizzie and say good-bye to her--she wondered if she should shake hands
+with Mrs. Whelan too, but fortunately the old woman did not seem to
+expect it, and Peggy felt very thankful, for her brown wrinkled hands
+looked sadly dirty to the little girl, dirtier perhaps than they really
+were.
+
+"I like your house much better than hers," said Peggy, when she and
+Light Smiley were down at the bottom of the stairs again; "it smells
+much nicer."
+
+"Mother and Rebecca's all for scrubbing, that's certing," replied Sarah,
+with a smile of pleasure--of course all little girls like to hear their
+homes praised--"but she's not bad to Lizzie, is old Whelan," as if that
+settled the whole question, and Peggy felt she must not say any more
+about the dirty room.
+
+Light Smiley felt it her duty to see "missy" safe across the street.
+Peggy's hands were laden with the precious pipes, and Sarah carried the
+big umbrella over the two of them. They chattered as they picked their
+way through the mud and stood for a minute or two at the yard-door of
+Peggy's house. Light Smiley peeped in.
+
+"Lor'," she said, expressing her feelings in the same way as her
+sisters, "yours must be a fine house, missy. All that there back-yard
+for yerselves."
+
+"You should see the droind-room, and mamma's room; there's a marble top
+to the washing-stand," said Peggy, with pride.
+
+"Lor'," said Sarah again.
+
+"Some day," Peggy went on, excited by Sarah's admiration, "_some_ day
+when my mamma comes home, I'm going to ask her to let me have a
+tea-party of you _all_--in the nursery, you know. The nursery's nice
+too, at least I daresay you'd like it."
+
+"Is that the winder where you sees us from?" asked Sarah. "Matilda-Jane
+says as how we could see you too quite plain at it if you put your face
+quite close to the glass."
+
+"I can't," said Peggy. "There's the toilet-table close to the window--at
+least, it's really a chest of drawers, you know, but there's a
+looking-glass on the top and a white cover, so it's like a toilet-table
+for nurse, though it's too high up for me. I have to stand on a chair if
+I want to see myself popperly."
+
+"Dear!" said Sarah sympathisingly.
+
+"And I can only see you by scrooging into the corner, and the curting's
+there. No, you couldn't ever see me well up at the window. But that's
+not the nursery where we'd have tea. That's only the night nursery. The
+other one's to the front; that's the window where you can see the hills
+far away."
+
+"In the country, where father used to live. Oh yes, I know. I heerd
+Matilda-Jane a-asking 'im about it," said Sarah.
+
+"Oh, and did he tell you any more? Do ask him if it's really not far to
+get there," said Peggy, eagerly.
+
+Sarah nodded.
+
+"I won't forget," she said; "and then, missy, when you axes us to the
+tea-party, I'll be able to tell you all about it."
+
+She did not mean to be cunning, poor little girl, but she was rather
+afraid Peggy might forget about the tea-party, and she thought it was
+not a bad plan to say something which might help to make her remember
+it.
+
+"Yes," Peggy replied, "that would be lovely. Do make him tell all you
+can, Light Smiley. Oh, I do wish mamma would come home now, and I'd ask
+her about the tea-party immediately. I'm sure she'd let me, for she
+likes us to be kind to poor people."
+
+Sarah drew herself up a little at this.
+
+"We're not--not to say _poor_ folk," she said, with some dignity.
+"There's a many of us, and it's hard enough work, but still----"
+
+"Oh, don't be vexed," said Peggy. "I know you're not like--like beggars,
+you know. And I think _we're_ rather poor too. Mamma often says papa has
+to work hard."
+
+Sarah grew quite friendly again.
+
+"I take it folks isn't often rich when they've a lot of children," she
+began, but the sound of a window opening across the street made her
+start. "Bless me," she said, "I must run. There's Rebecca a-going to
+scold me for standing talking. Good-bye, miss, I'll not forget to ask
+father."
+
+And Sarah darted away, carrying with her the umbrella, quite forgetting
+that it was Peggy's. Peggy forgot it too, and it was not raining so fast
+now, so there was less to remind her. She shut the door and ran across
+the yard. The house door still stood open, and she made her way up to
+the nursery without meeting any one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"SOAP-BUBBLING"
+
+          "And every colour see I there."
+                       _The Rainbow_, CHARLES LAMB.
+
+
+THERE was no one upstairs. Miss Earnshaw had gone down to the kitchen to
+iron the seams of her work, without giving special thought to Peggy. If
+any one had asked her where the child was she would have probably
+answered that she was counting over her money in the night nursery. So
+she was rather surprised when coming upstairs again in a few minutes she
+was met by Peggy flying to meet her with the pipes in her hand.
+
+"I've got them, Miss Earnshaw; aren't they beauties?" she cried. "And I
+don't think my frock's reely spoilt? It only just looks a _little_ funny
+where the mud was."
+
+"Bless me!" exclaimed the young dressmaker, "wherever have you been,
+Miss Peggy? No, your frock'll brush all right; but you don't mean to say
+you've been out in the rain? You should have asked me, my dear."
+
+She spoke rather reproachfully; she was a little vexed with herself for
+not having looked after the child better, but Peggy was one of those
+quiet "old-fashioned" children, who never seem to need looking after.
+
+"I did ask you," said Peggy, opening wide her eyes, "and you said, 'Very
+well, my dear.'"
+
+Miss Earnshaw couldn't help smiling.
+
+"I must have been thinking more of your new frock than of yourself," she
+said. "However, I hope it's done you no harm. Your stockings aren't
+wet?"
+
+"Oh no," said Peggy; "my slippers were a weeny bit wet, so I've changed
+them. My frock wouldn't have been dirtied, only I felled in the wet,
+Miss Earnshaw, but Brown--one of the little girls, you know, that lives
+in the house where the shop is--picked me up, and there's no harm done,
+is there? And I've got the pipes, and won't my brothers be peleased,"
+she chirruped on in her soft, cheery way.
+
+Miss Earnshaw could not blame her, though she determined to be more on
+the look-out for the future. And soon after came twelve o'clock, and
+then the young dressmaker was obliged to go, bidding Peggy "Good-bye
+till Monday morning."
+
+The boys came home wet and hungry, and grumbling a good deal at the
+rainy half-holiday. Peggy had hidden the six pipes in her little bed,
+but after dinner she made the three boys shut their eyes while she
+fetched them out and laid them in a row on the table. Then, "You may
+look now," she said; "it's my apprise," and she stood at one side to
+enjoy the sight of their pleasure.
+
+"Hurrah," cried Terry, "pipes for soap-bubbles! Isn't it jolly? Isn't
+Peggy a brick?"
+
+"Dear Peggy," said Baldwin, holding up his plump face for a kiss.
+
+"Poor old Peg-top," said Thor, patronisingly. "They seem very good
+pipes; and as there's six of them, you and I can break one a-piece if we
+like, Terry, without its mattering."
+
+Peggy looked rather anxious at this.
+
+"Don't try to break them, Thor, pelease," she said; "for if you beginned
+breaking it might go on, and then it would be all spoilt like the last
+time, for there's no fun in soap-bubbling by turns."
+
+"No, that's quite true," said Terry. "You remember the last time how
+stupid it was. But of course we won't break any, 'specially as they're
+yours, Peggy. We'll try and keep them good for another time."
+
+"Did you spend all your pennies for them?" asked Baldwin,
+sympathisingly.
+
+"Not quite all," said Peggy. "I choosed them myself," she went on,
+importantly. "There was a lot in a box."
+
+"Why, where did you get them? You didn't go yourself to old Whelan's,
+surely?" asked Thor, sharply.
+
+"Yes, I runned across the road," said Peggy. "You always get them there,
+Thor."
+
+"But it's quite different. I can tell you mamma won't be very pleased
+when she comes home to hear you've been so disobedient."
+
+Poor Peggy's face, so bright and happy, clouded over, and she seemed on
+the point of bursting into tears.
+
+"I weren't disobedient," she began. "Miss Earnshaw said, 'Very well,
+dear,' and so I thought----"
+
+[Illustration: "They were soon all four very happy at the pretty play.
+The prettiness of it was what Peggy most enjoyed the most; the boys,
+boy-like, thought little but of who could blow the biggest bubbles,
+which, as everybody knows, are seldom as rich in colour as smaller
+ones."
+
+P. 149]
+
+"Of course," interrupted Terry; "Peggy's never disobedient, Thor. We'll
+ask mamma when she comes home; but she won't be vexed with you,
+darling. You won't need to go again before then."
+
+"No," said Peggy, comforted, "I don't want to go again, Terry dear. It
+doesn't smell very nice in the shop. But the _children's_ house is very
+clean, Terry. I'm sure mamma would let us go _there_."
+
+"Those Simpkinses over old Whelan's," said Terry. "Oh yes, I know mother
+goes there herself sometimes, though as for that she goes to old
+Whelan's too. But we're wasting time; let's ask Fanny for a tin basin
+and lots of soap."
+
+They were soon all four very happy at the pretty play. The prettiness of
+it was what Peggy enjoyed the most; the boys, boy-like, thought little
+but of who could blow the biggest bubbles, which, as everybody knows,
+are seldom as rich in colour as smaller ones.
+
+"I like the rainbowiest ones best," said Peggy. "I don't care for those
+'normous ones Thor makes. Do you, Baldwin?"
+
+Baldwin stopped to consider.
+
+"I suppose very big things aren't never so pretty as littler things," he
+said at last, when a sort of grunt from Terry interrupted him. Terry
+could not speak, his cheeks were all puffed out round the pipe, and he
+dared not stop blowing. He could only grunt and nod his head sharply to
+catch their attention to the wonderful triumph in soap-bubbles floating
+before his nose. There was a big one, as big as any of Thorold's, and up
+on the top of it a lovely every-coloured wee one, the most brilliant the
+children had ever seen--a real rainbow ball.
+
+They all clapped their hands, at least Peggy and Baldwin did so. Thorold
+shouted, "Hurrah for Terry's new invention. It's like a monkey riding on
+an elephant." But Peggy did not think that was a pretty idea.
+
+"It's more like one of the very little stars sitting on the sun's knee,"
+was her comparison, which Baldwin corrected to the moon--the sun was too
+yellow, he said, to be like a no-colour bubble.
+
+Then they all set to work to try to make double-bubbles, and Thor
+actually managed to make three, one on the top of the other. And Terry
+made a very big one run ever so far along the carpet without breaking,
+bobbing and dancing along as he blew it ever so gently.
+
+And as a finish-up they all four put their pipes into the basin and blew
+together, making what they called "bubble-pudding," till the pudding
+seemed to get angry and gurgled and wobbled itself up so high that it
+ended by toppling over, and coming to an untimely end as a little spot
+of soapy water on the table.
+
+"Pride must have a fall, you see," said Thor.
+
+"It's like the story of the frog that tried to be as big as an ox," said
+Terence, at which they all laughed as a very good joke.
+
+Altogether Peggy's pipes turned out a great success, and the rainy
+afternoon passed very happily.
+
+The Sunday that came after that Saturday was showery, sunny, and rainy
+by turns, like a child who having had a great fit of crying and sobbing
+can't get over it all at once, and keeps breaking into little bursts of
+tears again, long after the sorrow is all over. But by Monday morning
+the world--Peggy's world, that is to say--seemed to have quite recovered
+its spirits. The sun came out smiling with pleasure, and even the town
+birds, who know so little about trees, and grass, and flowers, and all
+those delightful things, hopped about and chirruped as nicely as could
+be. The boys set off to school in good spirits, and while Fanny was
+taking down the breakfast-things Peggy got out the little red shoes, and
+set them on the window-sill, where they had not been for several days.
+
+"There, dear little red shoes," she said, softly, "you may look out
+again at the pretty sun and the sky, and the fairy cottage up on the
+mounting. You can see it quite plain to-day, dear little shoes. The
+clouds is all gone away, and it's shinin' out all white and beautiful,
+and I daresay the mamma's standin' at the door with the baby--or
+p'raps," Peggy was never very partial to the baby, "it's asleep in its
+cradle. Yes, I think that's it. And the hens and cocks and chickens is
+all pecking about, and the cows moo'in. Oh, _how_ I do wish we could go
+and see them all, don't you, dear little shoes?"
+
+She stood gazing up at the tiny white speck, to other eyes almost
+invisible, as if by much gazing it would grow nearer and clearer to her;
+there was a smile on her little face, sweet visions floated before
+Peggy's mind of a day, "some day," when mamma should take her out "to
+the country," to see for herself the lovely and delightful sights that
+same dear mamma had described.
+
+Suddenly Fanny's voice brought her back to present things. Fanny was
+looking rather troubled.
+
+"Miss Peggy, love," she said, "cook and I can't think what's making Miss
+Earnshaw so late this morning. She's always so sharp to her time. I
+don't like leaving you alone, but I don't know what else to do. Monday's
+the orkardest day, for we're always so busy downstairs, and your papa
+was just saying this morning that I was to tell Miss Earnshaw to take
+you a nice long walk towards the country, seeing as it's so fine a day.
+It will be right down tiresome, it will, if she don't come."
+
+"Never mind, Fanny," said Peggy. "I don't mind much being alone, and I
+daresay Miss Earnshaw will come. I _should_ like to go a nice walk
+to-day," she could not help adding, with a longing glance out at the
+sunny sky.
+
+"To be sure you would," said Fanny, "and it stands to reason as you
+won't be well if you don't get no fresh air. I hope to goodness the girl
+will come, but I doubt it--her mother's ill maybe, and she's no one to
+send. Well, dear, you'll try and amuse yourself, and I'll get on
+downstairs as fast as I can."
+
+Peggy went back to the window and stood there for a minute or two,
+feeling rather sad. It did seem hard that things should go so very
+"contrarily" sometimes.
+
+"Just when it's such a fine day," she thought, "Miss Earnshaw doesn't
+come. And on Saturday when we _couldn't_ have goned a walk she did
+come. Only on Saturday it did rain very badly in the afternoon and she
+didn't stay, so that wasn't a pity."
+
+Then her thoughts went wandering off to what the dressmaker had told her
+of having to go a long way out into the country on Saturday afternoon,
+and of how wet and muddy the lanes would be. Peggy sighed; she
+_couldn't_ believe country lanes could ever be anything but delightful.
+
+"Oh how _very_ pretty they must be to-day," she said to herself, "with
+all the little flowers coming peeping out, and the birds singing, and
+the cocks and hens, and the cows, and--and----" she was becoming a
+little confused. Indeed she wasn't _quite_ sure what a "lane" really
+meant--she knew it was some kind of a way to walk along, but she had
+heard the word "path" too,--were "lane" and "path" quite the same? she
+wondered. And while she was wondering and gazing out of the window, she
+was startled all of a sudden by a soft, faint tap at the door. So soft
+and faint that if it had been at the window instead of at the door it
+might have been taken for the flap of a sparrow's wing as it flew past.
+Peggy stood quite still and listened; she heard nothing more, and was
+beginning to think it must have been her fancy, when again it came, and
+this time rather more loudly. "Tap, tap." Yes, "certingly," thought
+Peggy, "there's somebody there."
+
+She felt a little, a _very_ little frightened.
+
+Should she go to the door and peep out, or should she call "Come in"?
+she asked herself. And one or two of the "ogre" stories that Thorold and
+Terry were so fond of in their "Grimm's Tales," _would_ keep coming into
+her head--stories of little princesses shut up alone, or of giants
+prowling about to find a nice tender child for supper. Peggy shivered.
+But after all what was the use of standing there fancying things? It was
+broad, sunny daylight--not at all the time for ogres or such-like to be
+abroad. Peggy began to laugh at her own silliness.
+
+"Very likely," she thought, "it's Miss Earnshaw playing me a trick to
+'apprise me, 'cos she's so late this morning."
+
+This idea quite took away her fear.
+
+"It's you, Miss Earnshaw, I'm quite sure it's you," she called out;
+"come in quick, you funny Miss Earnshaw. Come in."
+
+But though the door slowly opened, no Miss Earnshaw appeared. Peggy
+began to think this was carrying fun too far.
+
+"Why don't you come in quick?" she said, her voice beginning to tremble
+a little.
+
+The door opened a little farther.
+
+"Missy," said a low voice, a childish hesitating voice, quite different
+from Miss Earnshaw's quick bright way of speaking, "Missy, please, it's
+me, Sarah, please, miss."
+
+And the door opened more widely, and in came, slowly and timidly still,
+a small figure well known to Peggy. It was none other than Light Smiley.
+
+Peggy could hardly speak. She was so very much astonished.
+
+"Light Smiley--Sarah, I mean," she exclaimed, "how did you come? Did you
+see Fanny? Did she tell you to come upstairs?"
+
+Sarah shook her head.
+
+"I don't know who Fanny is, missy. I just comed in of myself. The doors
+was both open, and I didn't meet nobody. I didn't like for to ring or
+knock. I thought mebbe your folk'd scold if I did--a gel like me. Mother
+knows I've comed; she said as how I'd better bring it myself."
+
+And she held up what Peggy had not noticed that she was carrying--the
+big umbrella that had caused so much trouble two days before.
+
+"The numbrella," cried Peggy. "Oh thank you, Sarah, for bringing it
+back. I never thought of it! How stupid it was of me."
+
+"Mother told me for to bring it to the door and give it in," Sarah went
+on. "I didn't mean to come upstairs, but, the door was open, you see,
+miss, and I knowed your nussery was at the top, and--I 'ope it's not a
+liberty."
+
+"No, no," said Peggy, her hospitable feelings awaking to see that her
+little visitor was still standing timidly in the doorway, "I'm _very_
+glad you've comed. You don't know how glad I am. It's so lonely all by
+myself--Miss Earnshaw hasn't come this morning. Come in, Light Smiley,
+do come in. Oh how nice! I can show you the mountings and the little
+white cottage shining in the sun."
+
+She drew Sarah forwards. But before the child looked out of the window,
+her eyes were caught by the tiny red slippers on the sill.
+
+"Lor'," she said breathlessly, "what splendid shoes! Are they for--for
+your dolly, missy? They're too small for a baby, bain't they?"
+
+"Oh yes," said Peggy, "they're too small for our baby, a great deal. But
+then he's very fat."
+
+"They'd be too small for ours too, though she's not a hextra fine child
+for her age. She were a very poor specimint for a good bit, mother says,
+but she's pickin' up now she's got some teeth through. My--but them
+shoes is neat, to be sure! They must be for a dolly."
+
+"_I've_ no doll they'd do for," said Peggy, "but I like them just for
+theirselves. _I_ always put them to stand there on a fine day; they like
+to look out of the window."
+
+Sarah stared at Peggy as if she thought she was rather out of her
+mind!--indeed the children at the back had hinted to each other that
+missy, for all she was a real little lady, was very funny-like
+sometimes. But Peggy was quite unconscious of it.
+
+"Lor'," said Sarah at last, "how can shoes see, they've no eyes, missy?"
+
+"But you can _fancy_ they have. Don't you ever play in your mind at
+fancying?" asked Peggy. "I think it's the nicest part of being alive,
+and mamma says it's no harm if we keep remembering it's not real. But
+never mind about that--do look at the hills, Sarah, and oh, _can_ you
+see the white speck shining in the sun? _That's_ the cottage--I call it
+my cottage, but _p'raps_," rather unwillingly, "it's the one your papa
+lived in when he was little."
+
+"D'ye really think so?" said Sarah, eagerly. "It's Brackenshire over
+there to be sure, and father's 'ome was up an 'ill--deary me, to think
+as it might be the very place. See it--to be sure I do, as plain as
+plain. It do seem a good bit off, but father he says it's no more'n a
+tidy walk. He's almost promised he'll take some on us there some fine
+day when he's an 'oliday. I axed 'im all I could think of--missy--all
+about the cocks and 'ens and cows and pigses."
+
+"Not pigs," interrupted Peggy. "I don't like pigs, and I won't have them
+in my cottage."
+
+"I wasn't a-talking of your cottage," said Sarah, humbly. "'Twas what
+father told us of all the things he seed in the country when he were a
+boy there. There's lots of pigses in Brackenshire."
+
+"Never mind. We won't have any," persisted Peggy. "But oh, Light Smiley,
+do look how splendid the sky is--all blue and all so shiny. I never
+sawed such a lovely day. I would so like to go a walk."
+
+"And why shouldn't you?" asked Sarah.
+
+"There's no one to take me," sighed Peggy. "It's Monday, and Fanny's
+very busy on Mondays, and I told you that tiresome Miss Earnshaw's not
+comed."
+
+Sarah considered a little.
+
+"Tell you what, missy," she said, "why shouldn't we--you and me--go a
+walk? I'm sure mother'd let me. I've got my 'at, all 'andy, and I did
+say to mother if so as missy seed me I might stop a bit, and she were
+quite agreeable. I'm a deal older nor you, and I can take care of you
+nicely. Mother's training me for the nussery."
+
+Peggy started up in delight. She had been half sitting on the
+window-sill, beside the shoes.
+
+"Oh, Light Smiley," she said, "how lovely! Of course you could take care
+of me. We'd go up Fernley Road, straight up--that's the way to
+Brackenshire, you know, and p'raps we might go far enough to see the
+white cottage plainer. If it's not a very long way to get there, we'd be
+sure to see it much plainer if we walked a mile or two. A mile isn't
+very far. Oh, do let's go--quick! quick!"
+
+But Sarah stopped her.
+
+"You'd best tell your folks first, missy," she said. "They'll let you go
+and be glad of it, I should say, if they're so busy, and seein' as they
+let you come over to our 'ouse, and your mar knowin' us and all."
+
+"It was Miss Earnshaw that let me go," said Peggy, "and then she said
+she didn't know I'd goned. And Thor said--oh no, he only said I
+shouldn't have goned to the shop. But I'll ask Fanny--I'll tell you what
+I'll do. I'll put on my boots and my hat and jacket--you shall help me,
+Sarah, and then we'll go down and I'll call to Fanny from the top of the
+kitchen stairs and ask her if I may go out with you, Sarah, dear. I'm
+sure she'll say I may."
+
+So the two little maidens went into the night nursery, where Light
+Smiley was greatly interested in looking at her own dwelling-place from
+other people's windows, and quite in her element too, seeing that she
+was being trained for the nursery, in getting out Peggy's walking
+things, buttoning her boots, and all the rest of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+UP FERNLEY ROAD
+
+          "But the way is long and toilsome,
+             And the road is drear and hard;
+           Little heads and hearts are aching,
+             Little feet with thorns are scarred."
+                              _The Children's Journey._
+
+
+LIGHT SMILEY kept looking round the room with great satisfaction.
+
+"It is nice in 'ere and no mistake," she said at last. "Your 'ats and
+coats and frocks all in a row, as neat as neat, and these little white
+beds a sight to be seen. I should love for Rebecca and Matilda-Jane to
+see it."
+
+"They will," said Peggy, "when I avite you all to a tea-party, you
+know."
+
+Sarah drew a deep breath. A tea-party in these beautiful nurseries
+seemed almost too good ever to come true.
+
+"Is there a many nusseries as nice as this 'un, do you think, missy? I
+do 'ope as I'll get into a nice one when I'm big enough. One 'ud take a
+pride in keeping it clean and tidy."
+
+"I don't think this is at all a _grand_ one," Peggy replied. "Mamma's
+was much grander when she was little, I know. But, of course, she's very
+pertickler, and so's nurse, about it being very tidy."
+
+And then, Peggy being ready, the quaint pair of friends took each
+other's hands and set off to the top of the kitchen stairs.
+
+"Should we take the humberellar?" said Sarah, suddenly stopping at the
+foot of the first little flight of stairs. "I don't think it looks any
+ways like rain, still one never knows, and I can carry it easy."
+
+In her heart she hoped Peggy would say yes. For to Sarah's eyes the
+clumsy umbrella was a very "genteel" one indeed, and she felt as if it
+would add distinction to their appearance.
+
+Peggy, not looking at it from this point of view, hesitated.
+
+"P'raps it would do to keep the sun off us," she said. "My parasol's
+wored out, so I can't take it. Mamma's going to get me a new one."
+
+Sarah ran back and fetched the umbrella.
+
+When they got to the door at the top of the kitchen stairs, Peggy opened
+it and called down softly, "Fanny, are you there? Can you hear me?" for
+she was not allowed to go down to the kitchen by herself.
+
+But no one answered. Fanny was busy washing in the back kitchen with
+both doors shut to keep in the steam, and the cook had gone out to the
+butcher's.
+
+"Fanny," called Peggy again.
+
+Then a voice came at last in return.
+
+"Is it anything I can tell the cook when she comes in, please, miss?"
+and a boy came forward out of the kitchen and stood at the foot of the
+steep stone stairs. "I'm the baker's boy, and I met cook and she told me
+to wait; she'd be back with change to pay the book in a minute. There's
+no one here."
+
+Peggy turned to Sarah in distress.
+
+"Fanny must be out too," she said.
+
+"Well, it'll be all right if the boy 'ull tell her, won't it, missy?
+'Tisn't the cook," she went on, speaking to the boy herself, "'tis
+t'other one. Jest you tell her when she comes in that miss has gone out
+a little walk with me--Sarah Simpkins--she'll know. I'll take good care
+of missy."
+
+"All right," said the boy, with no doubt that so it was, and thinking,
+if he thought at all, that Sarah Simpkins must be a little nurse-girl,
+or something of the kind about the house, though certainly a small
+specimen to be in service! He whistled as he turned away, and something
+in the cheerful sound of his whistle helped to satisfy Peggy that all
+_was_ right!
+
+"He's a nice boy," she said to Sarah. "He won't forget, will he?"
+
+"Not he," Sarah replied. "He'll tell 'em fast enough. And as like as not
+we'll meet 'em along the street as we go. Is Webb's your butcher,
+missy--'tis just at the corner of Fernley Road?"
+
+Peggy shook her head.
+
+"I don't know," she said, feeling rather ashamed of her ignorance; "but
+I'd like to meet Fanny, so, pelease, let us go that way."
+
+And off the two set, by the front door this time, quite easy in their
+minds though, as far as they knew, the baker's boy was the only guardian
+of the house.
+
+They trotted down the street in the sunshine; it was very bright and
+fine--the air, even there in the smoky town, felt this morning
+deliciously fresh and spring-like.
+
+"How nice it is," said Peggy, drawing a deep breath; "it's just like
+summer. I'd like to go a quite long walk, wouldn't you, Sarah?"
+
+Light Smiley looked about her approvingly.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I does enjoy a real fine day. And in the country it
+must be right-down fust-rate."
+
+"Oh, the country!" said Peggy; "oh dear, how I do wish we could go as
+far as the country!"
+
+"Well," said Sarah, "if we walk fast we might come within sight of it.
+There's nice trees and gardings up Fernley Road, and that's a sort of
+country, isn't it, missy?"
+
+They were at the corner of the road by this time, but there was no sign
+of Fanny or cook. "Webb's" shop stood a little way down the other side,
+but as far as they could see it was empty.
+
+"P'raps your folk don't deal there," said Sarah, to which Peggy had
+nothing to say, and they stood looking about them in an uncertain kind
+of way.
+
+"We may as well go on a bit," said Sarah at last, "that there boy's sure
+to tell."
+
+Peggy had no objection, and they set off along Fernley Road at a pretty
+brisk pace.
+
+They had not very far to go before, as Sarah said, the road grew less
+town-like; the houses had little gardens round them, some of which were
+prettily kept, and after a while they came to a field or two, not yet
+built upon, though great placards stuck up on posts told that they were
+waiting to be sold for that purpose. They were very towny sort of fields
+certainly, still the bright spring sunshine made the best of them as of
+everything else this morning, and the two children looked at them with
+pleasure.
+
+"There's nicer fields still, a bit farther on," said Sarah. "I've been
+along this 'ere road several times. It goes on and on right into the
+country."
+
+"I know," said Peggy, "it goes on into the country of the mountings.
+But, Sarah," she said, stopping short, and looking rather distressed, "I
+don't think we see them any plainer than from the nursery window, and
+the white cottage doesn't look even as plain. Are you sure we're going
+the right way?"
+
+"We couldn't go wrong," answered Sarah, "there's no other way. But we've
+come no distance yet, missy, and you see there's ups and downs in the
+road that comes between us and the 'ills somehow. I suppose at the
+window we could see straight-forward-like, and then we was 'igher up."
+
+"Yes, that must be it," said Peggy; "but I would like to go far enough
+to see a _little_ plainer, Sarah, wouldn't you? I've got the red shoes
+in my pocket, you know, and when we come to a place where we can see
+very nice and clear I'll take them out and let them see too."
+
+"Lor'," said Sarah, "you _are_ funny, missy."
+
+But she smiled so good-naturedly that Peggy did not mind.
+
+After a bit they came to a place where another road crossed the one they
+were on. This other road was planted with trees along one side, and the
+shade they cast looked cool and tempting.
+
+"I wish we could go along that way," said Peggy, "but it would be the
+wrong way. It doesn't go on to the mountings."
+
+Sarah did not answer for a minute. She was trying to spell out some
+letters that were painted up on the corner of a wall, which enclosed the
+garden of a house standing in the road they were looking down.
+
+"'B, R, A,'" she began, "'B, R, A, C, K:' it's it, just look, missy.
+Bain't that Brackenshire as large as life? 'Brackenshire Road.' It must
+be this way," and she looked quite delighted.
+
+"But how can it be?" objected Peggy. "This road _doesn't_ go to the
+hills, Sarah. They're straight in front."
+
+"But maybe it slopes round again after a bit," said Sarah. "Lots of
+roads does that way, and runs the same way really, though you wouldn't
+think so at the start. It stands to reason, when it's got the name
+painted up, it must lead Brackenshire way;" and then suddenly, as a man
+with a basket on his arm appeared coming out of one of the houses, she
+darted up to him.
+
+"Please, mister, does this road lead to Brackenshire?" she asked.
+
+The man did not look very good-natured.
+
+"Lead to where?" he said, gruffly.
+
+"To Brackenshire--it's painted up on the wall, but we want to be sure."
+
+"If it's painted up on the wall, what's the sense of askin' me?" he
+said. "If you go far enough no doubt you'll get there. There's more'n
+one road to Brackenshire."
+
+Sarah was quite satisfied.
+
+"You see," she said to Peggy, running back to her, "it's all right. If
+we go along this 'ere road a bit, I 'specs it'll turn again and then
+we'll see the 'ills straight in front."
+
+Peggy had no objection. Fernley Road was bare and glaring just about
+there, and the trees were very tempting.
+
+"It's really getting like the country," said Peggy, as they passed
+several pretty gardens, larger and much prettier than the small ones in
+Fernley Road.
+
+"Yes," Light Smiley agreed, "but though gardings is nice, I don't hold
+with gardings anything like as much as fields. Fields _is_ splendid
+where you can race about and jump and do just as you like, and no fears
+of breakin' flowers or nothink."
+
+"Do you think we shall come to fields like that soon?" said Peggy. "If
+there was a very nice one we might go into it p'raps and rest a little,
+and look at the mountings. I wish we could begin to see the mountings
+again, Sarah, it seems quite strange without them, and I'm getting
+rather tired of looking at gardens when we can't go inside them, aren't
+you?"
+
+Sarah was feeling very contented and happy. She was, though a little
+body for her age, much stronger than Peggy, as well as two years older,
+and she looked at her companion with surprise when she began already to
+talk of "resting."
+
+"Lor', missy, you bain't tired already," she was beginning, when she
+suddenly caught sight of something which made her interrupt herself.
+This was another road crossing the one they were on at right angles, and
+running therefore in the same direction as Fernley Road again. "'Ere's
+our way," she cried, "now didn't I tell you so? And this way goes
+slopin' up a bit, you see. When we get to the top we'll see the 'ills
+straight 'afore us, and 'ave a beeyutiful view."
+
+Peggy's rather flagging steps grew brisker at this, and the two ran
+gaily along the new road for a little way. But running uphill is tiring,
+and it seemed to take them a long time to get to the top of the slope,
+and when they did so, it was only to be disappointed. Neither mountains
+nor hills nor white cottage were to be seen, only before them a rather
+narrow sort of lane, sloping downwards now and seeming to lead into some
+rather rough waste ground, where it ended. Peggy's face grew rather
+doleful, but Sarah was quite equal to the occasion. A little down the
+hill she spied a stile, over which she persuaded Peggy to climb. They
+found themselves in a potato field, but a potato field with a path down
+the middle; it was a large field and at the other end of the path was a
+gate, opening on to a cart track scarcely worthy the name of a lane.
+The children followed it, however, till another stile tempted them
+again, this time into a little wood, where they got rather torn and
+scratched by brambles and nettles as they could not easily find a path,
+and Sarah fancied by forcing their way through the bushes they would be
+sure to come out on to the road again.
+
+It was not, however, till they had wandered backwards among the trees
+and brambles for some time that they got on to a real path, and they had
+to walk a good way along this till they at last came on another gate,
+this time sure enough opening into the high road.
+
+Sarah's spirits recovered at once.
+
+"'Ere we are," she said cheerfully, "all right. 'Ere's Fernley Road
+again. Nothink to do but to turn round and go 'ome if you're tired,
+missy. _I'm_ not tired, but if you'd rayther go no farther----"
+
+Peggy did not answer for a moment; she was staring about her on all
+sides. The prospect was not a very inviting one; the road was bare and
+ugly, dreadfully dusty, and there was no shade anywhere, and at a little
+distance some great tall chimneys were to be seen, the chimneys of some
+iron-works, from which smoke poured forth. There were a good many
+little houses near the tall chimneys, they were the houses of the people
+who worked there, but they were not sweet little cottages such as Peggy
+dreamed of. Indeed they looked more like a very small ugly town, than
+like rows of cottages on a country road.
+
+"This isn't a pretty road at all," said Peggy at last, rather crossly I
+am afraid, "it is very nugly, and you shouldn't have brought me here,
+Sarah. I can't see the mountings; they is quite goned away, more goned
+away than when it rains, for then they're only behind the clouds. This
+isn't Fernley Road, Light Smiley. I do believe you've losted us, and
+Peggy's so tired, and very, very un'appy."
+
+It was Peggy's way when she grew low-spirited to speak more babyishly
+than usual; at such times it was too much trouble to think about being a
+big girl. Poor Sarah looked dreadfully distressed.
+
+"Oh, missy dear, don't cry," she said. "If it bain't Fernley Road, it's
+_a_ road any way, and there's no call to be frightened. We can ax our
+way, but I'd rayther not ax it at the cottages, for they might think I
+was a tramp that'd stoled you away."
+
+"And what would they do then?" asked Peggy, leaving off crying for a
+minute.
+
+"They'd 'av me up mebbe, and put us in the lock-ups."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The place where the pl'ice leaves folk as they isn't sure about."
+
+"Prison, do you mean?" said Peggy, growing very pale.
+
+"Well, not ezackly, but somethin' like."
+
+Peggy caught hold of Sarah in sudden terror.
+
+"Oh come along, Light Smiley, quick, quick. Let's get back into the
+fields and hide or anything. Oh come quick, for fear they should catch
+us." And she tugged at Sarah, trying to drag her along the road.
+
+"Stop, missy, don't take on so; there's no need. We'll just go along
+quietly and no one'll notice us, only you stop crying, and then no
+one'll think any 'arm. We'll not go back the way we came, it's so
+drefful thorny, but we'll look out for another road or a path. I 'spects
+you're right enough--this 'ere bain't Fernley Road."
+
+Peggy swallowed down her sobs.
+
+"I don't think you look quite big enough to have stolened me, Sarah,"
+she said at last. "But I would like to get back into the fields quick.
+If only we could see the mountings again, I wouldn't be quite so
+frightened."
+
+They had not gone far before they came upon a gateway and a path leading
+through a field where there seemed no difficulties. Crossing it they
+found themselves at the edge of the thorny wood, which they skirted for
+some way. Peggy's energy, born of fear, began to fail.
+
+"Sarah," she said at last, bursting into fresh tears, "Peggy can't go no
+farther, and I'm so hungry too. I'm sure it's long past dinner-time. You
+must sit down and rest; p'raps if I rested a little, I wouldn't feel so
+very un'appy."
+
+Sarah looked at her almost in despair. She herself was worried and
+vexed, very afraid too of the scolding which certainly awaited her at
+home, but she was not tired nor dispirited, though very sorry for Peggy,
+and quite aware that it was she and not "missy" who was to blame for
+this unlucky expedition.
+
+"I'd like to get on," she said, "we're sure to get back into a road
+as'll take us 'ome before long. Couldn't I carry you, missy?"
+
+"No," said Peggy, "you're far too little. And I can't walk any more
+without resting. You're very unkind, Light Smiley, and I wish I'd never
+seen you."
+
+Poor Sarah bore this bitter reproach in silence.
+
+She looked about for a comfortable seat in the hedge, and settled
+herself so that Peggy could rest against her. The sunshine, though it
+had seemed hot and glaring on the bare dusty road was not really very
+powerful, for it was only late April, though a very summerlike day.
+Peggy left off crying and said no more, but leant contentedly enough
+against Sarah.
+
+"I'm comf'able now," she said, closing her eyes. "Thank you, Light
+Smiley. I'll soon be rested, and then we'll go on."
+
+But in a moment or two, by the way she breathed, Sarah saw that she had
+fallen asleep.
+
+[Illustration: "And at last, though she was really so anxious and
+distressed, the quiet and the milder air, and the idleness perhaps, to
+which none of the Simpkins family were much accustomed, all joined
+together and by degrees hushed poor Light Smiley to sleep, her arms
+clasped round Peggy as if to protect her from any possible danger."
+
+P. 177]
+
+"Bless us," thought the little guardian to herself, "she may sleep for
+hours. Whatever 'ull I do? She's that tired--and when she wakes she'll
+be that 'ungry, there'll be no getting her along. She'll be quite
+faint-like. If I dared leave her, I'd run on till I found the road and
+got somebody to 'elp carry her. But I dursn't. If she woked up and me
+gone, she'd be runnin' who knows where, and mebbe never be found again.
+Poor missy--it'll be lock-ups and no mistake, wusser I dessay for me,
+and quite right too. Mother'll never say I'm fit for a nussery after
+makin' sich a fool of myself."
+
+And in spite of her courage, the tears began to trickle down Sarah's
+face. Peggy looked so white and tiny, lying there almost in her arms,
+that it made her heart ache to see her. So she shut her own eyes and
+tried to think what to do. And the thinking grew gradually confused and
+mixed up with all sorts of other thinkings. Sarah fancied she heard her
+mother calling her, and she tried to answer, but somehow the words would
+not come.
+
+And at last, though she was really so anxious and distressed, the quiet
+and the mild air, and the idleness perhaps, to which none of the
+Simpkins family were much accustomed, all joined together and by degrees
+hushed poor Light Smiley to sleep, her arms clasped round Peggy as if to
+protect her from any possible danger.
+
+It would have been a touching picture, had there been any one there to
+see. Unluckily, not merely for the sake of the picture, but for that of
+the children themselves, there was no one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SHOES-LADY AGAIN
+
+          "I'll love you through the happy years,
+              Till I'm a nice old lady."
+                            _Poems written for a Child._
+
+
+WHEN they woke, both of them at the same moment it seemed, though
+probably one had roused the other without knowing it, the sun had gone,
+the sky looked dull, it felt chilly and strange. Peggy had thought it
+must be past dinner-time before they had sat down to rest; it seemed now
+as if it must be past tea-time too!
+
+Sarah started up, Peggy feebly clinging to her.
+
+"Oh dear, dear," said Sarah, "I shouldn't have gone to sleep, and it's
+got that cold!" She was shivering herself, but Peggy seemed much the
+worse of the two. She was white and pinched looking, and as if she were
+half stupefied.
+
+"I'm so cold," she said, "and so hungry. I thought I was in bed at home.
+I do so want to go home. I'm sure it's very late, Light Smiley; do take
+me home."
+
+"I'm sure, missy, it's what I want to do," said poor Sarah. "I'm afeared
+it's a-going to rain, and whatever 'ull we do then? You wouldn't wait
+'ere a minute, would you, while I run to see if there's a road near?"
+
+"No, no," said Peggy, "I won't stay alone. I'm very, very frightened,
+Light Smiley, and I think I'm going to die."
+
+"Oh Lor', missy, don't you say that," said Sarah, in terror. "If you
+can't walk I'll carry you."
+
+"I'll try to walk," said Peggy, picking up some spirit when she saw
+Sarah's white face.
+
+And then the two set off again, dazed and miserable, very different from
+the bright little pair that had started up Fernley Road that morning.
+
+Things, however, having got to the worst, began to mend, or at least
+were beginning to mend for them, though Peggy and Sarah did not just yet
+know it. Not far from the edge of the field where they were, a little
+bridle-path led into a lane, and a few yards down this lane brought
+them out upon Fernley Road again at last.
+
+"I see the mountings," cried Peggy, "oh, Light Smiley, Peggy sees the
+mountings. P'raps we won't die, oh p'raps we'll get home safe again."
+
+But though she had been trying to be brave, now that she began to hope
+again, it was too much for her poor little nerves--Peggy burst into loud
+sobbing.
+
+"Oh, dear missy, try not to cry," said Sarah. "There--there--where's
+your hankercher?" and she dived into Peggy's pocket in search of it. And
+as she pulled it out, out tumbled at the same time the two little
+scarlet shoes, falling on the ground.
+
+"Oh Light Smiley, my red shoes. They'll be all spoilt and dirtied," said
+Peggy, as well as she could, for Sarah was dabbing the handkerchief all
+over her face.
+
+Sarah stooped to pick them up; both children were too much engaged to
+notice the sound of wheels coming quickly along the quiet road. But the
+sight of a speck of dirt on one of the shoes set Peggy off crying again,
+and she cried for once pretty loudly. The wheels came nearer, and then
+stopped, and this made Sarah look round. A pony-carriage driven by a
+lady had drawn up just beside them. The groom, sitting behind, jumped
+down, though looking as if he did not know what he was to do.
+
+"What is the matter, little girls?" said the lady.
+
+"It's, please'm--we've lost our road--it's all along o' me, mum--but I
+didn't mean no 'arm, only missy's that wore out'm, and----" but before
+Sarah could get farther, she was stopped by a sort of cry from both the
+lady and Peggy at once.
+
+"Oh, oh," called out Peggy, "it's the shoes-lady--oh, pelease, pelease,
+take me home," and she seemed ready to dart into the lady's arms.
+
+"I do believe," _she_ said, "I do believe it's the little girl I saw at
+the bootmaker's, and--yes, of course it is--there are the shoes
+themselves! My dear child, whatever are you doing to be so far from
+home--at least I suppose you live in the town?--and what have you got
+the dolly's shoes with you for?"
+
+"I brought them for them to see the mountings and the white cottage,"
+sobbed Peggy; "but I'm so cold and hungry, pelease take me home, oh,
+pelease, do."
+
+The lady seemed rather troubled. Even if she had not remembered Peggy,
+she would have seen in a moment that she was a little lady, though
+Peggy looked miserable enough with her torn clothes, and scratched and
+tear-stained face.
+
+"Poor child," she said, "tell me your name, and where you live."
+
+"I'm Peggy, but I don't 'amember my nother name, 'cos I'm tired and it's
+very long," she said.
+
+The lady looked at Sarah. Sarah shook her head.
+
+"No, mum, I don't know it neither, but I knows the name of the street.
+'Tis Bernard Street'm--off Fernley Road, and their back winders looks
+over to us. We're Simpkinses'm, and missy's mar knows as we're
+'speckable, and mother she never thought when she told me to take back
+the humberellar, as I'd lead missy sich a dance. I'll never do for the
+nussery, no never. I'm not steady enough," and here Light Smiley gave
+signs of crying herself.
+
+It was not easy for the lady to make out the story, but by degrees, with
+patience she did so. But while talking she had lifted Peggy into the
+carriage beside her, and wrapped her up in a shawl that lay on the seat,
+Peggy nestling in, quite contentedly.
+
+"Now," said the lady, "you get in too, Sarah Simpkins, and I'll drive
+you both home. I was on my way home out into the country, but I can't
+leave you here on the road. This is Fernley Road, but it's quite four
+miles from the town."
+
+In scrambled Sarah, divided between fear of her own and Peggy's
+relations' scoldings when they got home, and the delight and honour of
+driving in a carriage! The groom would have liked to look grumpy, I am
+quite sure, but he dared not. Peggy, for her part, crept closer and
+closer to the lady, and ended by falling asleep again, so that it was a
+good thing Light Smiley was sitting on the other side, to keep her from
+falling out.
+
+The four miles seemed very short to Sarah, and as they got into the
+outskirts of the town her face grew longer and longer.
+
+"I'm more'n half a mind to run away, I 'ave," she said to herself, quite
+unaware she was speaking aloud. "It'll be more'n I can stand, mother and
+Rebecca and all on 'em down on me, for I didn't mean no 'arm. I'd best
+run away."
+
+The lady turned to her, hitherto she had not taken much notice of Sarah,
+but now she felt sorry for the little girl.
+
+"What are you saying, my dear?" she said gently, though all the same her
+voice made Sarah jump. "Are you afraid of going home? You have not done
+anything naughty, exactly, as far as I understand. It was only
+thoughtless. I will go with you to your home if you like, and explain to
+your mother how it was."
+
+"Oh thank you, mum," said Sarah, eagerly, her spirits rising again at
+once; "you see, mum, I do so want to be in the nussery onst I'm big
+enough, and I was so afeared mother'd never think of it again. I only
+wanted to please little missy, for she seemed so lonely like, her mar
+and all bein' away and no one for to take her a walk. She's a sweet
+little missy, she is, but she's only a baby, so to say; she do have such
+funny fancies. 'Twas all to see the cottage on the 'ills she wanted to
+come up Fernley Road so badly."
+
+"The cottage--what cottage?" asked the lady.
+
+Sarah tried to explain, and gradually the lady got to understand what
+little Peggy had meant about bringing the red shoes "to see the
+mountings and the cottage."
+
+"She's always a-talking of the country, and father lived there when he
+was a boy, and missy had got it in her 'ead that he lived in a white
+cottage, like the one she fancies about," Sarah went on.
+
+"I would like to take her out into the real country, poor little pet,"
+said the lady, looking tenderly at the sweet tiny face of the sleeping
+child. She loved all children, but little girls of Peggy's age were
+especially dear to her, for many years before she had had a younger
+sister who had died, and the thought of her had come into her mind the
+first time she had seen Peggy at the door of the shoe shop. "If I can
+see any of her friends I will ask them to let her spend a day with me,"
+she went on, speaking more to herself than to Sarah.
+
+As they turned into Bernard Street a cab dashed past them coming very
+fast from the opposite direction. It drew up in front of the house which
+Sarah was just that moment pointing out to the lady as Peggy's home, and
+a gentleman, followed by a young woman, sprang out. The door was opened
+almost as soon as they rang, and then the three, the other servant who
+had answered the bell, the young woman and the gentleman, all stood
+together on the steps talking so anxiously and eagerly that for a moment
+or two they did not notice the pony-carriage, and though the groom knew
+the whole story by this time and had jumped down at once, he was far
+too proper to do anything till he had his lady's orders.
+
+"Ask the gentleman to speak to me," said the lady, "and you jump out,
+little Sarah. I think he must be Peggy's father."
+
+He had turned round by this time and came hurrying forward. The moment
+the lady saw him she knew she had guessed right. He was so like
+Peggy--fair and gray-eyed, and with the same gentle expression, and very
+young looking to be the father not only of Peggy, but of _big_ little
+boys like Thor and Terry. His face looked pale and anxious, but the
+moment he caught sight of the little sleeping figure leaning against the
+lady it all lighted up and a red flush came into his cheeks.
+
+"Oh--thank God," he exclaimed, "my little Peggy! You have found her! How
+good of you! But--she is not hurt?--she is all right?"
+
+"Yes--yes--only cold and hungry and tired," said the lady eagerly, for
+Peggy did look rather miserable still. "Will you lift her out?" and as
+he did so, she got out herself, and turned to Sarah. "May I bring this
+other child in for a moment," she said, "and then I can explain it all?"
+
+Sarah followed gladly, but a sudden thought struck her, "Please'm," she
+said, bravely, though the tears came to her eyes as she spoke, "p'raps
+I'd best run 'ome; mother'll be frightened about me."
+
+"But I promised you should not be scolded," said the lady; "stay," and
+she turned to Fanny, "she lives close to, she says."
+
+"At the back--over the cobbler's," said Sarah, readily.
+
+"Can you let her mother know she's all right, then? And say I am coming
+to speak to her in a moment," said the lady, and Fanny went off. She had
+been so terrified about Peggy, and so afraid that she would be blamed
+for carelessness, that she dared not wait, though she was dying with
+curiosity to know the whole story and what one of the Simpkins children
+could have had to do with it.
+
+Peggy awoke by the time her father had got her into the dining-room,
+where cook had made a good fire and laid out Peggy's dinner and tea in
+one to be all ready, for the poor woman had been hoping every instant
+for the last few hours that the little girl would be brought home again.
+It had been difficult to find Peggy's father, as he was not at his
+office, and Fanny had been there two or three times to fetch him.
+
+"Oh dear papa," were Peggy's first words, "I'm so glad to be home. I'll
+never go up Fernley Road again; but I did so want to see the cottage and
+the mountings plainer. And it wasn't Light Smiley's fault. She was very
+good to me, and I was very cross."
+
+This did not much clear up matters. Indeed Peggy's papa was afraid for a
+minute or two that his little girl was going to have a fever, and that
+her mind was wandering. But all such fears were soon set at rest, and
+when the lady went off with Sarah, she left Peggy setting to work very
+happily at her dinner or tea, she was not sure which to call it.
+
+"And you will let her come to spend the day with me to-morrow?" said the
+lady, as she shook hands with Peggy's father. "I shall be driving this
+way, and I can call for her. I should not be happy not to know that she
+was none the worse for her adventures to-day."
+
+Then the lady took Sarah by the hand and went round with her to her home
+in the back street, telling the groom to wait for her at the corner.
+
+It was well she went herself, for otherwise I am afraid poor Light
+Smiley would not have escaped the scolding she dreaded. Her mother and
+sisters had been very unhappy and frightened about her, and when
+people--especially poor mothers like Mrs. Simpkins, with "so many
+children that they don't know what to do"--are anxious and frightened, I
+have often noticed that it makes them very cross.
+
+As it was, however, the lady managed to smoothe it all down, and before
+she left she got not only Sarah's mother, but Rebecca and Mary-Hann and
+all of them to promise to say no more about it.
+
+"'Tisn't only for myself I was feelin' so put about, you see, ma'am,"
+said Mrs. Simpkins, "but when I sent over the way and found the little
+missy was not to be found it flashed upon me like a lightenin'
+streak--it did that, ma'am--that the two was off together. And if any
+'arm had come to the little lady through one of mine, so to say, it
+would 'ave gone nigh to break my 'art. For their mar is a sweet lady--a
+real feelin' lady is their mar."
+
+"And a kind friend to you, I daresay," said the stranger.
+
+"Couldn't be a kinder as far as friendly words and old clotheses goes,"
+said Mrs. Simpkins. "But she's a large little fam'ly of her own, and not
+so very strong in 'ealth, and plenty to do with their money. And so to
+speak strangers in the place, though she 'ave said she'd do her best to
+get a place in a nice fam'ly for one of my girls."
+
+The lady glanced at the group of sisters.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I should think you could spare one or two. How would
+you like to be in a kitchen?" she added, turning to Rebecca.
+
+The girl blushed so that her face matched her arms, and she looked more
+"reddy" than ever. But she shook her head.
+
+"I'm afraid----" she began.
+
+"No, ma'am, thank you kindly, but I couldn't spare Rebecca," the mother
+interrupted. "If it were for Mary-Hann now--Matilda-Jane's coming on and
+could take her place. Only, for I couldn't deceive you, ma'am, she's
+rather deaf."
+
+"I shouldn't mind that," said the lady, who was pleased by Mary-Ann's
+bright eyes and pleasant face. "I think deaf people sometimes work
+better than quick-hearing ones, besides, it may perhaps be cured. I will
+speak about her to my housekeeper and let you know. And you, Sarah, you
+are to be in the nursery some day."
+
+Sarah grinned with delight.
+
+"Not just yet," said Mrs. Simpkins; "she 'ave a deal to learn, 'ave
+Sarah. Schooling and stiddiness to begin with. She don't mean no 'arm,
+I'll allow."
+
+"No; I'm sure she wants to be a very good girl," said the lady. "She was
+very kind and gentle to little Miss Peggy. So I won't forget you either,
+Sarah, when the time comes."
+
+And then the lady said good-bye to them all, and Mrs. Simpkins's heart
+felt lighter than for long, for she was sure that through this new
+friend she might get the start in life she had been hoping for, for her
+many daughters.
+
+Peggy slept off her fatigue, and by the next morning she was quite
+bright again and able to listen to and understand papa's explanation of
+how, though without meaning to be disobedient, she had done wrong the
+day before in setting off with Sarah Simpkins as she had done. Two or
+three tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she heard what he said.
+
+"I meant to be so good while mamma was away," she whispered. "But I'll
+never do it again, papa. I'll stay quiet in the nursery all alone, even
+if Miss Earnshaw doesn't come back at all."
+
+For a message had come from the dressmaker that her mother was very ill,
+as Fanny had feared, and that she was afraid she would not be able to
+leave her for several days.
+
+"It won't be so bad as that, dear," said her father. "Mamma will be back
+in five days now, and I don't think you are likely to be left alone in
+the nursery--certainly not to-day;" and then he told her about the lady
+having asked her to spend the day out in the country with her, and that
+Peggy must be ready by twelve o'clock, not to keep her new friend
+waiting.
+
+Peggy's eyes gleamed with delight.
+
+"Out into the country?" she said. "Oh, how lovely! And oh, papa, do you
+think _p'raps_ she lives in a white cottage?"
+
+Papa shook his head.
+
+"I'm afraid it's not a cottage at all where she lives," he said. "But
+I'm sure it is a very pretty house, and let us hope it is a white one."
+
+"No," said Peggy, "you don't understand, papa--not as well as mamma
+does. I don't care what colour it is if it's only an 'ouse."
+
+And she couldn't understand why papa laughed so that he really couldn't
+correct her. "I'm afraid, Peggy," he said, "you've been taking lessons
+from little Miss Simpkins. It's time mamma came home again to look after
+you."
+
+"Yes, I wish mamma was come home again," said Peggy. "We can't do
+without her, can we, papa?"
+
+But when the dear little pony carriage came up to the door, and Peggy
+got in and drove off with her kind friend, she was so happy that she had
+not even time to wish for mamma.
+
+And what a delightful day she had! The lady's house was very pretty, and
+the gardens and woods in which it stood even prettier in Peggy's
+opinion. And though it was not a cottage, there were all the country
+things to see which Peggy was so fond of--cocks and hens, and cows, and
+in one field lots of sheep and sweet little lambkins. There were pigs
+too, which Peggy would not look at, but ran away to the other end of the
+yard as soon as she heard them "grumphing," which amused the lady very
+much. And in the afternoon she went a walk with her friend through the
+village, where there were several pretty cottages, but none that quite
+fitted Peggy's fancy. When they came in again Peggy stood at the
+drawing-room window, which looked out towards Brackenshire, without
+speaking.
+
+"You like that view, don't you, dear?" said the lady. "You can see the
+hills?"
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, "I can see the mountings, but not the white cottage.
+It's got turned wrong somehow, from here. I can only see _it_ from the
+nursery window at home," and she gave a very little sigh.
+
+"Some day," said the lady, "some day in the summer when the afternoons
+are very long, I will drive you right out a long way among the hills,
+and perhaps we'll find the cottage then. For I hope your mamma will
+often let you come to see me, my little Peggy."
+
+"Yes," said Peggy, "that would be lovely. I _wonder_ if we'd find the
+white cottage."
+
+No, they never did! The sweet long summer days came, and many a bright
+and happy one Peggy spent with her kind friend, but they never found the
+white cottage on the hill. Peggy knew it so well in her mind, she felt
+she could not mistake it, but though she saw many white cottages which
+any one else _might_ have thought was it, she knew better. And each
+time, though she sighed a little, she hoped again.
+
+But before another summer came round Peggy and her father and mother,
+and Thor, and Terry, and Hal, and Baldwin, and Baby had all gone
+away--far away to the south, many hours' journey from the dingy town
+and the Fernley Road, and the queer old house in the back street where
+lived the cobbler and old Mother Whelan and Brown Smiley and Light
+Smiley and all the rest of them. Far away too from the hills and the
+strange white speck in the distance which Peggy called her cottage.
+
+So it never was more than a dream to her after all, and perhaps--perhaps
+it was best so? For nothing has ever spoilt the sweetness and the
+mystery of the childish fancy--she can see it with her mind's eye
+still--the soft white speck on the far-away, blue hills--she can see it
+and think of it and make fancies about it even now--now that she has
+climbed a long, long way up the mountain of life, and will soon be
+creeping slowly down the other side, where the sun still shines,
+however, and there are even more beautiful things to hope for than the
+sweetest dreams of childhood.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+          _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 16, caption of illustration, "accomodate" changed to "accommodate"
+(to accommodate the whole)
+
+Page 47, word "a" added to text (it a waste of time)
+
+Page 101, the text mentions a "Ferndale Road". There are many references
+elsewhere to "Fernley Road" so this might be a misprint. It was
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Miss Peggy, by Mrs. Molesworth
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE MISS PEGGY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 36015.txt or 36015.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/1/36015/
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.