"Where has Emma gone?"
"To the pork-butcher's. An' her missis hit 'er with a bootbrush las' Saturday. I'd like to have had that done to me!"
"When I goes to service," Peggy said loftily; "I shall go out to real ladies, who don't keep no shops."
"I'd start with Buckingham Palace," said the factory girl witheringly; "but p'raps that wouldn't be 'igh enough for yer!"
Peggy promptly parted company with her. She turned into a broad street with her little charge, and sauntered past lines of shops, occasionally pointing out some desirable objects to him, but for the most part pursuing her thoughts in silence. At last a smart draper's brought her to a standstill. Peggy often amused herself by pretending she had come out with a full purse to buy an outfit for service. Now she could not resist playing at the same old game.
"Now, Peggy, take your choice. There are prints there, pink and blue, but no dark lilac like Mrs. Creek had. But that's a pretty stripe over in the corner. You'd look fine in that. And oh my! What cheap caps, with real broidery round 'em, and only twopence three farthings each!"
She paused, and looked at the caps longingly.
"If I could try 'em on, just to see how I looked, and if I could pin it on proper! Why shouldn't I buy one? There now! Come on, h'Arthur, and I'll do it, this very minit!"
Into the shop she went with the air of a duchess. If there was anything that Peggy loved, it was shopping. "Tis the only time folks is civil," she would say. "They don't bawl at me, nor yet scold then, and it makes me feel as if I'm a bigger person than them!"
"I wish to see some of them there caps, please," she said, taking a seat at the counter, with her chin well tilted up. "Caps for service I want."