"Did you ever walk all the way there when you was a little girl?" Peggy went on.
"Oh yes, of course," Miss Earnshaw replied, without the least idea of what she was answering.
"Really!" said Peggy, "how nice!" Then seeing that the dressmaker was absorbed in her work: "Miss Earnshaw," she said, "I'm going for the pipes now. It isn't raining quite so fast, and I'll not be long."
"Very well, my dear," Miss Earnshaw replied, and Peggy went off to fetch her pennies from the drawer in the other nursery where she kept them. She had a new idea in her head, an idea which Miss Earnshaw's careless words had helped to put there, little as she knew it.
"If I see the Smileys," thought Peggy, "I'll tell them what she said."
She glanced out of the window, dear me, how lucky! There stood Brown Smiley looking out at the door, as if she were hesitating before making a plunge into the dripping wet street. It did seem at the back as if it were raining faster than in front. Peggy opened the cupboard and took out her little cloak which was hanging there.
"I won't put on my hat," she thought, "'cos nurse says the rain spoils the feavers. I'll get a numbrella downstairs, and then I can't get wet, and here's my pennies all right in my pocket. I do hope Brown Smiley will wait till I get down."
She made all the haste she could, and found, as she expected, an umbrella in the stand downstairs. It was not very easy to open, but she succeeded at last, then came, however, another difficulty, she could not get herself and the umbrella through the back door together.
"Dear me," thought Peggy, "I wonder how people does with their numbrellas. They must open them in the house, else they'd get wet standing outside while they're doing it. I never looked to see how nurse does, but then we almost never go out when it's rainy. I 'appose it's one of the hard things big peoples has to learn. Oh, dear! won't it come through?"
No, she couldn't manage it, at least not with herself under it. At last a brilliant idea struck Peggy; anything was better than closing the tiresome thing now she had got it opened—she would send it first and follow after herself. So the umbrella was passed through, and went slipping down the two or three steps that led into the yard, where it lay gaping up reproachfully at Peggy, who felt inclined to call out "Never mind, poor thing, I'm coming d'reckly."