But, just at first, it must be confessed that Wooden had rather less attention; and if she had not been so sensible she might have felt jealous. I don’t think she did, or she would have told Peggy so afterwards. She probably knew exactly how things were, and that, when Lady Grace had been made to feel quite at home, her turn would come again.
Well, one night when Peggy went to bed, she took Lady Grace and Teddy with her, and left Wooden on the top of a chest of drawers with all her clothes on. And then Wooden might have felt a little sad, because it was the first time that such a thing had ever happened to her; and she might have begun to wonder whether, after all, Peggy loved her quite as much as she had done before.
But fortunately for this story, which might not otherwise have been written, as you will presently see, soon after Peggy had been tucked up and left to go to sleep, she remembered that she had not undressed Wooden. So she called her nurse, who was in the next room with the door a little open, and asked her to give Wooden to her.
The nurse would not let her have two dolls in bed with her. Teddy didn’t matter because he was so soft. So Peggy asked her to put Lady Grace in the dolls’ cot, and give her Wooden instead. She felt dreadfully sorry that she had forgotten about Wooden, and wanted to make it up to her. Lady Grace would have to get used to sleeping in the cot some time or other, and Peggy thought she might just as well begin now.
So Peggy went to sleep hugging Wooden in her arms; and Teddy lay on his back on the pillow on the other side of her, with one paw stuck up in the air and the rest of him under the bedclothes.
By-and-by the nurse came in to look at her, and then went to bed in the next room. Then her father and mother came in and kissed her, but she did not wake up. Then the house became quiet and dark, and everybody in it was fast asleep.
And then things began to happen.
II
PEGGY’S SURPRISING ADVENTURE BEGINS
Peggy was awakened by the noise of a motor outside. It sometimes happened that her father had to go out at night, and she heard the car start off. But she generally went to sleep again as soon as ever the noise had died away.