"Never mind, Fanny," said Peggy. "I don't mind much being alone, and I daresay Miss Earnshaw will come. I should like to go a nice walk to-day," she could not help adding, with a longing glance out at the sunny sky.
"To be sure you would," said Fanny, "and it stands to reason as you won't be well if you don't get no fresh air. I hope to goodness the girl will come, but I doubt it—her mother's ill maybe, and she's no one to send. Well, dear, you'll try and amuse yourself, and I'll get on downstairs as fast as I can."
Peggy went back to the window and stood there for a minute or two, feeling rather sad. It did seem hard that things should go so very "contrarily" sometimes.
"Just when it's such a fine day," she thought, "Miss Earnshaw doesn't come. And on Saturday when we couldn't have goned a walk she did come. Only on Saturday it did rain very badly in the afternoon and she didn't stay, so that wasn't a pity."
Then her thoughts went wandering off to what the dressmaker had told her of having to go a long way out into the country on Saturday afternoon, and of how wet and muddy the lanes would be. Peggy sighed; she couldn't believe country lanes could ever be anything but delightful.
"Oh how very pretty they must be to-day," she said to herself, "with all the little flowers coming peeping out, and the birds singing, and the cocks and hens, and the cows, and—and——" she was becoming a little confused. Indeed she wasn't quite sure what a "lane" really meant—she knew it was some kind of a way to walk along, but she had heard the word "path" too,—were "lane" and "path" quite the same? she wondered. And while she was wondering and gazing out of the window, she was startled all of a sudden by a soft, faint tap at the door. So soft and faint that if it had been at the window instead of at the door it might have been taken for the flap of a sparrow's wing as it flew past. Peggy stood quite still and listened; she heard nothing more, and was beginning to think it must have been her fancy, when again it came, and this time rather more loudly. "Tap, tap." Yes, "certingly," thought Peggy, "there's somebody there."
She felt a little, a very little frightened.
Should she go to the door and peep out, or should she call "Come in"? she asked herself. And one or two of the "ogre" stories that Thorold and Terry were so fond of in their "Grimm's Tales," would keep coming into her head—stories of little princesses shut up alone, or of giants prowling about to find a nice tender child for supper. Peggy shivered. But after all what was the use of standing there fancying things? It was broad, sunny daylight—not at all the time for ogres or such-like to be abroad. Peggy began to laugh at her own silliness.
"Very likely," she thought, "it's Miss Earnshaw playing me a trick to 'apprise me, 'cos she's so late this morning."
This idea quite took away her fear.