"But when he's older he'll be a boy, mamma," said Peggy; "he'll be like Thor and Terry, who don't care for things like that, or Baldwin, who thinks stories stupid. Oh, mamma, I wish I had a sister. That's what I want," she added, with conviction.
Mamma smiled.
"Poor Peggy," she said. "I'm afraid it can't be helped. You can never have a sister near your own age, and I'm afraid a baby sister, even if you had one, would be no good."
"Oh no, we've had enough babies," said Peggy, decidedly. "But, mamma, mightn't there be some little girl who'd play with me like a sister? If there is a fairy living in that cottage, mamma, how I do wish she would find a little girl for me!"
Mamma looked a very little bit troubled.
"Peggy dear," she said, "you mustn't let your fancies run away with you too far. I told you they would do you no harm if you kept plain in your head that they were fancies, but you mustn't forget that. You know there couldn't really be a fairy living in that little white cottage."
"No," Peggy agreed, "I know that, mamma, because fairies really live in fairyland."
She looked up gravely into her mother's face as she said so. Mamma could not help laughing.
"Fairies really," she said, "live in Peggy's funny little head, and in many other funny little heads, I have no doubt. But nowhere——"
