"Dear little shoes," she said. "Peggy was neely forgetting you," and she took them up and kissed them. "Next time I go to see the Smileys," she thought, "I'll take the red shoes with me to show them. They will be pleased."
Then she got out her work and sat down to do it, placing her chair where she could see the hills from, the little shoes in her lap, feeling quite happy and contented. It seemed but a little while till Fanny came up to lay the cloth for Peggy's dinner. She had been working extra hard that morning, so as to be ready for the afternoon, and perhaps her head was a little confused. And so when Peggy began telling her her adventures she did not listen attentively, and answered "yes" and "no" without really knowing what she was saying.
"And so when I couldn't find you, Fanny, I just runned over with the 'nother shoe myself. And the poor little boy what was playing with the—the not the 'nother one, you know, did so cry, but I think he soon left off. And some day I'm going to ask mamma to let me 'avite them all to tea, for them to see the hills, and——" but here Peggy stopped, "the hills, you know, out of the window."
"Yes, dear; very nice," said Fanny. "You've been a good little girl to amuse yourself so quietly all the morning and give no trouble. I do wonder if the washerwoman knows to come for the nursery things, or if I must send," she went on, speaking, though aloud, to herself.
So Peggy felt perfectly happy about all she had done, not indeed that she had had the slightest misgiving.
The afternoon passed very pleasantly. It was quite a treat to Peggy to go a walk in a grown-up sort of way with Fanny, trotting by her side and talking comfortably, instead of having to take Hal's hand and lugging him along to keep well in front of the perambulator. They went up the Ferndale Road—a good way, farther than Peggy had ever been—so far indeed that she could scarcely understand how it was the hills did not seem much nearer than from the nursery window, but when she asked Fanny, Fanny said it was often so with hills—"nothing is more undependable." Peggy did not quite understand her, but put it away in her head to think about afterwards.
And when they came home it was nearly tea-time. Peggy felt quite comfortably tired when she had taken off her things and began to help Fanny to get tea ready for the boys, and when they arrived, all three very hungry and rather low-spirited at the thought of mamma and nurse being away, it was very nice for them to find the nursery quite as tidy as usual—indeed, perhaps, rather tidier—and Peggy, with a bright face, waiting with great pride to pour out tea for them.
"I think you're a very good housekeeper, Peg," said Terence, who was always the first to say something pleasant.
"Not so bad," agreed Thorold, patronisingly.
Baldwin sat still, looking before him solemnly, and considering his words, as was his way before he said anything.