Downstairs she went, calling Fanny from time to time as she journeyed. But no Fanny replied; she was down in the kitchen, and to the kitchen Peggy knew mamma would not like her to go. She stood at last in the passage wondering what to do, when, glancing round, she noticed that the back-door opening into the yard was temptingly open. Peggy peeped out—there was no one there, but, still more tempting, the door leading into the small back street—the door just opposite the Smiley mansion—stood open, wide open too, and even from where she was the little girl could catch sight of the group on the other side of the narrow street.
She trotted across the yard, and stood for a minute, the shoe in her hand, gazing at the six children. The sound of their voices reached her.
"Halfred is quite took up with his shoe," said Brown Smiley. "I told mother she moight as well give it he—a hodd shoe's no good to nobody."
"'Tis a pity there wasn't the two of 'em," said Crippley, in a thin, rather squeaky voice. "They'd a done bee-yutiful for——"
"For Tip—yes, that's what I were thinking," cried an eager little voice. "Here's the other shoe; I've just founded it."
And little Peggy, with her neat hair and clean pinafore, stood in the middle of the children holding out Hal's slipper, and smiling at them, like an old friend.
For a moment or two they were all too astonished to speak; they could scarcely have stared more had they caught sight of a pair of wings on her shoulders, by means of which she had flown down from the sky.
Then Light Smiley nudged Crippley, and murmured something which Peggy could not clearly hear, about "th' young lady hopposite."
"Thank you, miss," then said Crippley, not quite knowing what to say. "Here, Halfred, you'll have to find summat else to make a carridge of; give us the shoe—there's a good boy."