"Simon says they can't. My mother was just like you. I've dreamed of her lots of times."
"Does she look like me—in your dreams, Peter?"
"Last time I thought she was you. We were out in the woods picking flowers, an' Mona was there. Then she faded away. She always fades away, just sort of melts until you can't see her—my mother, I mean." Suddenly he asked, "Did you ever see Mona's mother?"
"Yes, Peter."
"Was she pretty?"
"All mothers are pretty, Peter."
Peter pondered for a moment. "I guess mebby they are," he said, and then added a little dubiously, "except now and then. I'll bet Aleck Curry's mother isn't pretty!"
"To Aleck—she is beautiful," whispered Josette, and drew herself gently away from him. "You must undress and go to bed now, Peter. Good night!"
For a while after she was gone he sat on the edge of his bed wondering what she had meant in saying that thing about Aleck Curry and his mother. A beast like Aleck couldn't have a pretty mother. But her words troubled him even after he was undressed and in bed. If by any chance Aleck did have a pretty mother—why—it wasn't right for Mona and him to hate Aleck as they did, that was all!
He didn't sleep much between then and morning, and when he came out of his room, just as the first cold light of the winter sun was falling in the clearing, happier faces greeted him. Mona was better. In the reaction of joy that had swept over the household there was once more laughter in the kitchen. Josette went up the stair singing. And when at last she called down for Peter he found Mona bolstered up in her bed, and Josette was brushing her hair, which streamed about her in long, beautiful cascades of silken softness. Mona's eyes and face were different this morning. She was more like the Mona he had known, only thinner and whiter, and she smiled at him when he came through the door.