Peggy in Toyland

ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
Author of “Exton Manor,” “Sir Harry,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY HELEN M. BARTON
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1920
Copyright, 1920, By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
KATHLEEN ANN
I DEDICATE THIS STORY WHICH WAS BEGUN FOR HER MOTHER KATHLEEN NOEL
PEGGY IN TOYLAND
PEGGY IN TOYLAND
Peggy was just eight years old. She had very long rather straight hair, blue eyes, a dear little pudgy nose, and a small mouth. She lived with her father and mother in a nice house in the country with a big garden round it. It was about five miles from the sea, and she was sometimes taken there in the motor-car, to paddle and to play on the sands.
The place she used to go to had only one house near it. This was a large bungalow belonging to some friends of Peggy’s father and mother. It was built right on the beach, but there was a little lawn beside it, and on the edge of the lawn were two wooden figures that had been once figure-heads of ships. They were both ladies, and it was difficult to tell whether they were old or young, because one of them had had her nose broken off, and the other had lost every bit of paint off her face. But there was something agreeable in the appearance of both of them, and Peggy used to think she would have liked to know them when they were leading a more active life, perched up in the very front of the ships to which they belonged, and travelling over the sea to all sorts of strange places. But they still looked over the sea, which was better than being broken up and burnt, with the rest of the ships; and of course they always looked in one direction, straight across the water to the big Island on the other side of it.