"To what?" asked Peggy. "Of course there's cook, and Fanny, and my brothers, and my papa when he comes home."
Brown Smiley looked relieved. She was only a very little girl, not more than three years older than Peggy herself, though she seemed so much more, and she had really thought that the little visitor meant to say she was quite, quite by herself.
"Oh!" she said, "that's not being real alone."
"But it is," persisted Peggy. "It is very alone, I can tell you. I've nobody to play with, and nothing to do 'cept to look out of the window at you playing, and at the nother window at——"
"The winder to the front," said Lizzie, eagerly. "It must be splendid at your front, miss. Father told me onst you could see the 'ills—ever so far right away in Brackenshire. Some day if I could but get along a bit better I'd like fine to go round to your front, miss. I've never seed a 'ill."
Lizzie was quite out of breath with excitement. Peggy answered eagerly,
"Oh I do wish you could come to our day nursery window. When it's fine you can see the mountings—that's old, no, big hills, you know. And—on one of them you can see a white cottage; it does so shine in the sun."
"Bless me," said Lizzie, and both the Smileys, for Sarah had come back by now, stood listening with open mouths.
"Father's from Brackenshire," said Light Smiley, whose real name was Sarah. She spoke rather timidly, for she was well kept in her place by her four elder sisters. For a wonder they did not snub her.
"Yes, he be," added Matilda, "and he's told us it's bee-yutiful over there. He lived in a cottage, he did, when he were a little lad."