"Oh no," said Peggy; "my slippers were a weeny bit wet, so I've changed them. My frock wouldn't have been dirtied, only I felled in the wet, Miss Earnshaw, but Brown--one of the little girls, you know, that lives in the house where the shop is--picked me up, and there's no harm done, is there? And I've got the pipes, and won't my brothers be peleased,"

she chirruped on in her soft, cheery way.

Miss Earnshaw could not blame her, though she determined to be more on the look-out for the future. And soon after came twelve o'clock, and then the young dressmaker was obliged to go, bidding Peggy "Good-bye till Monday morning."

The boys came home wet and hungry, and grumbling a good deal at the rainy half-holiday. Peggy had hidden the six pipes in her little bed, but after dinner she made the three boys shut their eyes while she fetched them out and laid them in a row on the table. Then, "You may look now," she said; "it's my apprise," and she stood at one side to enjoy the sight of their pleasure.

"Hurrah," cried Terry, "pipes for soap-bubbles! Isn't it jolly? Isn't Peggy a brick?"

"Dear Peggy," said Baldwin, holding up his plump face for a kiss.

"Poor old Peg-top," said Thor, patronisingly. "They seem very good pipes; and as there's six of them, you and I can break one a-piece if we like, Terry, without its mattering."

Peggy looked rather anxious at this.

"Don't try to break them, Thor, pelease," she said; "for if you beginned breaking it might go on, and then it would be all spoilt like the last time, for there's no fun in soap-bubbling by turns."

"No, that's quite true," said Terry. "You remember the last time how stupid it was. But of course we won't break any, 'specially as they're yours, Peggy. We'll try and keep them good for another time."

"Did you spend all your pennies for them?" asked Baldwin, sympathisingly.

"Not quite all," said Peggy. "I choosed them myself," she went on, importantly. "There was a lot in a box."

"Why, where did you get them? You didn't go yourself to old Whelan's, surely?" asked Thor, sharply.

"Yes, I runned across the road," said Peggy. "You always get them there, Thor."

"But it's quite different. I can tell you mamma won't be very pleased when she comes home to hear you've been so disobedient."

Poor Peggy's face, so bright and happy, clouded over, and she seemed on the point of bursting into tears.

"I weren't disobedient," she began. "Miss Earnshaw said, 'Very well, dear,' and so I thought----"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They were soon all four very happy at the pretty play.

The prettiness of it was what Peggy most enjoyed the most; the boys, boy-like, thought little but of who could blow the biggest bubbles, which, as everybody knows, are seldom as rich in colour as smaller ones."

P. 149]

"Of course," interrupted Terry; "Peggy's never disobedient, Thor. We'll ask mamma when she comes home; but she won't be vexed with you, darling. You won't need to go again before then."

"No," said Peggy, comforted, "I don't want to go again, Terry dear. It doesn't smell very nice in the shop. But the _children's_ house is very clean, Terry. I'm sure mamma would let us go _there_."

"Those Simpkinses over old Whelan's," said Terry. "Oh yes, I know mother goes there herself sometimes, though as for that she goes to old Whelan's too. But we're wasting time; let's ask f.a.n.n.y for a tin basin and lots of soap."

They were soon all four very happy at the pretty play. The prettiness of it was what Peggy enjoyed the most; the boys, boy-like, thought little but of who could blow the biggest bubbles, which, as everybody knows, are seldom as rich in colour as smaller ones.

"I like the rainbowiest ones best," said Peggy. "I don't care for those 'normous ones Thor makes. Do you, Baldwin?"

Baldwin stopped to consider.

"I suppose very big things aren't never so pretty as littler things," he said at last, when a sort of grunt from Terry interrupted him. Terry could not speak, his cheeks were all puffed out round the pipe, and he dared not stop blowing. He could only grunt and nod his head sharply to catch their attention to the wonderful triumph in soap-bubbles floating before his nose. There was a big one, as big as any of Thorold's, and up on the top of it a lovely every-coloured wee one, the most brilliant the children had ever seen--a real rainbow ball.

They all clapped their hands, at least Peggy and Baldwin did so. Thorold shouted, "Hurrah for Terry's new invention. It's like a monkey riding on an elephant." But Peggy did not think that was a pretty idea.

"It's more like one of the very little stars sitting on the sun's knee,"

was her comparison, which Baldwin corrected to the moon--the sun was too yellow, he said, to be like a no-colour bubble.

Then they all set to work to try to make double-bubbles, and Thor actually managed to make three, one on the top of the other. And Terry made a very big one run ever so far along the carpet without breaking, bobbing and dancing along as he blew it ever so gently.

And as a finish-up they all four put their pipes into the basin and blew together, making what they called "bubble-pudding," till the pudding seemed to get angry and gurgled and wobbled itself up so high that it ended by toppling over, and coming to an untimely end as a little spot of soapy water on the table.

"Pride must have a fall, you see," said Thor.

"It's like the story of the frog that tried to be as big as an ox," said Terence, at which they all laughed as a very good joke.

Altogether Peggy's pipes turned out a great success, and the rainy afternoon pa.s.sed very happily.

The Sunday that came after that Sat.u.r.day was showery, sunny, and rainy by turns, like a child who having had a great fit of crying and sobbing can't get over it all at once, and keeps breaking into little bursts of tears again, long after the sorrow is all over. But by Monday morning the world--Peggy's world, that is to say--seemed to have quite recovered its spirits. The sun came out smiling with pleasure, and even the town birds, who know so little about trees, and gra.s.s, and flowers, and all those delightful things, hopped about and chirruped as nicely as could be. The boys set off to school in good spirits, and while f.a.n.n.y was taking down the breakfast-things Peggy got out the little red shoes, and set them on the window-sill, where they had not been for several days.

"There, dear little red shoes," she said, softly, "you may look out again at the pretty sun and the sky, and the fairy cottage up on the mounting. You can see it quite plain to-day, dear little shoes. The clouds is all gone away, and it's shinin' out all white and beautiful, and I daresay the mamma's standin' at the door with the baby--or p'raps," Peggy was never very partial to the baby, "it's asleep in its cradle. Yes, I think that's it. And the hens and c.o.c.ks and chickens is all pecking about, and the cows moo'in. Oh, _how_ I do wish we could go and see them all, don't you, dear little shoes?"

She stood gazing up at the tiny white speck, to other eyes almost invisible, as if by much gazing it would grow nearer and clearer to her; there was a smile on her little face, sweet visions floated before Peggy's mind of a day, "some day," when mamma should take her out "to the country," to see for herself the lovely and delightful sights that same dear mamma had described.

Suddenly f.a.n.n.y's voice brought her back to present things. f.a.n.n.y was looking rather troubled.

"Miss Peggy, love," she said, "cook and I can't think what's making Miss Earnshaw so late this morning. She's always so sharp to her time. I don't like leaving you alone, but I don't know what else to do. Monday's the orkardest day, for we're always so busy downstairs, and your papa was just saying this morning that I was to tell Miss Earnshaw to take you a nice long walk towards the country, seeing as it's so fine a day.

It will be right down tiresome, it will, if she don't come."

"Never mind, f.a.n.n.y," 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 f.a.n.n.y, "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 Sat.u.r.day when we _couldn't_ have goned a walk she did come. Only on Sat.u.r.day 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 c.o.c.ks 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.