"Peggy dear, it is very hard for me to tell you," she said. "Of course, if we had all been going together it would have been only happy. But that's just the thing. I can't take you with me, my sweet. Baby must go, because nurse must, and Hallie too. But the friend I am going to stay with can't have more of us than the two little ones, and nurse, and me—it is very, very good of her to take so many."
"Couldn't I sleep with you, mamma dear?" said Peggy in a queer little voice, the tone of which went to mamma's heart.
"My pet, Hallie must sleep with me, as it is. My friend's house isn't very big. And there's another reason why I can't take you—I'm not sure if you could understand——"
"Tell it me, please, mamma."
"The lady I am going to had a little girl just like you—I mean just the same age, and rather like you altogether, I think. And the poor little girl died two years ago, Peggy. Since then it is a pain to her mother to see other little girls. When you are bigger and not so like what her little girl was, I daresay she won't mind."
Peggy had been listening, her whole soul in her eyes.
"I understand," she said. "I wouldn't like to go if it would make that lady cry—if it hadn't been for that—oh mamma, I could have squeezed myself up so very tight in the bed! You and Hallie wouldn't have knowed I were there. But I wouldn't like to make her cry. I am so sorry about that little girl. Mamma, how is it that dying is so nice, about going to heaven, you know, and still it is so sorry?"
"There is the parting," said mamma.
"Yes—that must be it. And, mamma, I hope it isn't naughty, but if you were to die I'd be very sorry not to see you again just the same—even if you were to be a very pretty angel, with shiny clothes and all that, I'd want you to be my own old mamma."
"I would be your own old mamma, dear. I am sure you would feel I was the same."