Peggy looked up in surprise.
"Cats and dogs, Miss Earnshaw?" she repeated.
"Oh, bless you, my dear, it's only a way of speaking," said the dressmaker, a little impatiently, for she was not very much accustomed to children. "It just means raining very hard."
Peggy went to the window to look out for herself. Yes indeed it was raining very hard. The little girl could not help sighing a little as she gazed at the thick even gray of the clouds, hiding like a curtain every trace of the distant hills she was so fond of.
"I won't put out the little red shoes to-day," she said to herself, "there's nothing for them to see."
Then other thoughts crept into her mind.
"I wonder if it's raining at the white cottage too," she said to herself. And aloud she asked a question.
"Miss Earnshaw, pelease, does it ever rain in the country?" she said.
"Rain in the country! I should rather think it did. Worse than in town, you might say—that's to say, where there's less shelter, you'll get wetter and dirtier in the country, only of course it's not the same kind of really black sooty rain. But as for mud in country lanes! I shall see something of it this afternoon, I expect."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Peggy. "I thought it never rained in the country. I thought it was always quite pretty and lovely," and she sighed deeply. "I wonder what people who live in little cottages in the country do all day when it rains," she said.