"Going already, Peg!" he said. "Don't you like papa teasing you?"
"I don't mind," said Peggy, graciously; "you're only a big boy, papa. I'm going 'cos nurse wants me to keep Baby quiet while she makes the beds."
But when she got round to the other side of the table to her mother, she lingered a moment.
"Mamma," she whispered, "it's not there this morning—Peggy's fairy house. It's all hided up. Mamma——"
"Well, darling?"
"Are you sure it'll come back again?"
"Quite sure, dear. It's only hidden by the clouds, as I've told you before. You know you've often been afraid it was gone, and it's always come again."
"Yes, to be sure," said Peggy. "What a silly little girl I am, mamma dear."
And she laughed her own little gentle laugh. I can't tell how it was that Peggy's little laugh used sometimes to bring tears to her mother's eyes.
When she got up to the nursery again she found she was very much wanted. Nurse was in the night nursery which opened into the day one, and looked out to the back of the house just as the other looked to the front. And Baby was sitting on the hearth-rug, with Hal beside him, both seeming far from happy.