“But that is no treat for Alice. You can do that any night. What she wants is somebody who likes to play dolls just as much as she does. It is Alice’s birthday we are celebrating, not yours. When your birthday comes, you can have Diana all to yourself, if you like, for the night.”
“But I’d always rather have Alice, too—always, always,” said Peggy.
“But if you were fond of dolls, and Alice had been saying impolite things about them, you might find it pleasanter to have Diana all to yourself. I suspect you have been saying some not very kind things about Alice’s family.”
“I said Belle looked as if she had smallpox,” Peggy owned, “and so she does. I said Sally Waters’s feet were so small she could put them in her mouth.”
“Do you think those remarks were very kind?”
Peggy looked thoughtful. “Perhaps not exactly kind,” she said.
“Now, Peggy, I am going to let you sleep with me to-night,” said Mrs. Owen.
“Truly mother,” said Peggy, with a radiant face.
“And now we will think out just how we can make Alice and Diana have a good time to-morrow,” Mrs. Owen went on. “Suppose, while I am making cookies and biscuit for the flesh-and-blood members of the family, you make small ones for the dolls? I am sure that will delight the little mothers. To tell the truth, Peggy, I didn’t like dolls a bit better than you do when I was a little girl. I liked playing around with my brother William and your father a great deal better.”
Peggy felt a little happier when Diana said, in a disappointed tone, “Isn’t Peggy going to sleep with us?”