Aunt Euphemia was rather pleased. “Do you want to stay with me then, dear?” she asked.
“No; it’s my sea beasts. Oh, oh, oh!” sobbed Peggy. “Do you think father will take the tub of sea beasts back in the train with us?”
No wonder Aunt Euphemia was hurt. It was nasty of Peggy to say that she only wanted to stay because of the sea beasts.
“Of course, he will do nothing of the kind,” said Aunt Euphemia. “All the beasts must be put back into the sea to-night.”
She walked away and left Peggy to cry alone. But after she had cried for some time, Peggy remembered that father was different from Aunt Euphemia, and perhaps would not distress her by making her part from the dear sea beasts. So she dried her eyes, and thought perhaps it was as well that he was coming.
The drive to the station was quite dull. Nothing happened, for Peggy wasn’t allowed to sit on the box-seat with the driver as she wanted to, but had to sit beside her aunt in the carriage. At the station, too, there was very little to notice—only some sheep in a truck, looking very unhappy. Peggy gathered some blades of grass, and held them to the sheep, and they nibbled them up. Then the train came puffing in, and the next minute she saw her father jump out of a carriage, and come along the platform to where she was. Peggy was so delighted to see him that she ran right at him, and caught hold of his knees so that she nearly made him fall. Then she took his hand, and began telling him everything at once, in such a hurry that it was impossible for him to understand anything she said.
“Not so fast, Peggy. Wait till we are in the carriage,” he said, laughing.
It seemed a very long time till they were all packed in, and then Peggy had to climb on to her father’s knee and put her arm round his neck. “Now may I begin?” she asked.
“Yes, sweetest; tell me all about everything now,” her father said. And Peggy began her story, of course, at the wrong end.
“I’ve got a tub full of such dear sea beasts, father,” she said. “There are two flounders, and a lot of whelks, and a hermit crab, and two anemones fixed on a stone, and a big one stuck on to the foot of the tub, and I watch them all day; and, please, how am I to take them home?”