Joyce could not comfort her, neither could Helen. She cried herself to sleep that night, and the perfidy of Ellen was a daily, hourly nightmare to her.
"What's the good o' yer goin' on like this, Peggy?" she addressed herself passionately one lovely June day. "Better be like Albert Edward, and say nothin' to troubles that come to yer! He eats his food and sleeps, and don't make much o' disappointments. And nobody cares for your broken 'eart. The sun comes out just as fine, and the flowers keep on a-growin', and the summer don't turn to winter to soot your feelin's. You've been served shameful cruel, that you have, but just set yer mind to it that you has to walk along by yourself till you be growed-up. 'Tis wonderful what you can do if you sets your mind to it!"
And by dint of "setting her mind to it," Peggy did show a Spartan-like cheeriness, but her happy smile seemed to have turned into a hard grin, and Joyce could not stand it.
"Do, for goodness' sake, Peggy, keep from making such hideous faces!" she exclaimed.
And Peggy hung her head at once.
"Please 'm, I were only tryin' to be cheerful," she said. "I ain't a-goin' to cry no more."
"I'm glad to hear it. Ellen isn't worth the fuss; but you need not try to wear a perpetual smile. It isn't natural."
"No 'm, it ain't," said Peggy, with a sigh of relief. "It be my outside a-tryin' to smile, when my innards be still a-weepin'. But I'll do better soon 'm—I reely will!"
Failing to have Ellen's company, she turned her attention to old Job Somers, and whenever she could get an afternoon out, she spent it in his cottage tidying him up.
"And, please 'm," she informed Helen, "we do a bit of sighin' together, which be very comfortin'. For he have had a heap o' trouble, poor old man, near as much as Bible Job did have—and we reads about him together, and what he don't feel, I does, so every chapter seem to fit us."