"I just love them," said Diana.

"So do I," said Alice.

And Peggy felt quite left out.

"What's her name?" Alice asked.

"Alice."

"That's my name."

"I named her for the 'Wonderland Alice.'"

"Oh, but now she must be my namesake. I'll be her aunt. She can call me 'Aunt Alice.'"

Peggy picked up "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" while Diana and Alice made friends over the doll.

"Doesn't your sister like to play dolls?" asked Diana.

"No," said Alice, "and I don't see why, for she makes up such exciting things when she does play. Yesterday when we played with Clara she had the dolls fly in an aeroplane, and she took them up into the highest branch of the apple tree."

"Oh, do play with us now," Diana begged.

So Peggy good-naturedly put down her book, and Alice, the doll, had never had so many exciting adventures in all her young life. They were so busy playing they did not any of them hear Lady Jane's quiet footsteps as she climbed the rose trellis. Peggy saw her first, a furry, gray ball, poised lightly on the piazza rail. Alice saw her give a spring through the open pane of gla.s.s and land on the hammock. She was giving her joyous tea-kettle purr, and, oh, it was too much to bear, she was actually licking Diana's hand.

"Darling p.u.s.s.y," said Diana. She held her lovingly against her shoulder, and stroked her gray back.

Alice could hardly bear it. "Lady Jane, I am here," she said.

But Lady Jane did not stir. Diana moved her into a more comfortable position, and she curled herself down for a nap.

Alice could bear it no longer. She went over, and, picking her up, she said, "You are going to stay with me."

But Lady Jane scratched Alice's hands in her desire to escape, and gave a flying leap back to the hammock.

Peggy almost decided to take her mother's advice and let Diana keep the cat. She seemed to love her so very much, and to have so much less to make her happy than they had. It must be hard to lie still instead of being able to frisk about wherever one pleased. And yet, Diana looked happy. She didn't see why; she knew she could not be happy if she had to keep still like that.

"I think we ought to be going now," said Peggy, "because we told Clara we'd come early. We might leave Lady Jane to make Diana a little visit."

This seemed a good compromise.

"No," said Alice, with decision, "I want to take her back right off now."

So Peggy helped Alice put the struggling cat into the basket. They shut the cover down tight, paying no attention to Lady Jane's dismal mews.

"I wish you didn't have to go," said Diana, a little sadly. "Do come again soon, and perhaps you'll bring Lady Jane with you."

"We'll come again soon," said Peggy.

"Yes," said Alice; and in her own mind she thought, "We'll never, never bring Lady Jane."

CHAPTER VII

THE CANARY-BIRD

Peggy and Alice had a very happy time the next few days playing with Clara. Their school had a vacation, too, so the children were able to spend long hours together, sometimes at one house and sometimes at the other. They liked better going to see Clara on account of the tree-house; and Clara liked better going to see them. She liked to come early and help to make the beds and do the dishes, for she was never allowed to help about the work at her own house, even now, when they were supposed to be camping out. The field behind the Owens' house, where the garden was to be, was a delightful place to play, and so was the little hill beyond.

The time pa.s.sed only too quickly, and, at the end of the vacation, Clara was whisked back to New York with her father and mother and Miss Rand, this time in an automobile. The children missed her very much at first; and June, when she would be coming back again, seemed a long way off.

But they soon got interested in the children at school. Peggy liked school, and she was very fond of her teacher. On the way to school they pa.s.sed Mrs. Butler's house. Peggy was always eager to stop and listen to the canary and have a little talk with Mrs. Butler, but Alice was always eager to go on for fear they would be late.

Sometimes they saw Mrs. Butler's daughter Flora, starting off for her work. She was in a milliner's store and wore the prettiest hats. Every time Peggy went by the milliner's window, she stopped to look at the hats. She had longed to have a new one for Easter, for her old brown straw looked so shabby. One day, when she was with her mother and Alice, she made them cross the street to look at a hat in the window that she wanted very much. It was a peanut straw with a ribbon of the same color around it, with long ends. The ribbon had a blue edge, just the color of Peggy's blue frocks.

"It does seem as if I'd got to have it," said Peggy. "Why should there be a hat with blue on it, just the color of my dresses, if it wasn't for me?"

"I wish I could get it for you, Peggy," said her mother. "When my ship comes in perhaps I will."

"When will it come in, mother?" Alice asked.

"I have not even got a ship--that's the worst of it. However, as we don't live at the seash.o.r.e a garden is more useful. If we make the garden pay perhaps we can all have new hats."

"But they'll be winter hats if we wait for the garden, and I want the peanut straw," said Peggy.

Flora Butler, who was behind the counter, came to the door and spoke to them.

"How much is the peanut straw hat?" Peggy asked.

"Peggy, I have told you I can't get the hat for you," said her mother.

"It really is a bargain," said Miss Butler.

"It is a very pretty hat," said Mrs. Owen, "but I am spending more than I can afford on my garden."

"How's the canary?" Peggy asked.

"He is all right. He will give you a free concert any time you can stop to hear him."

"It seemed too bad he could not be free like the other birds," Peggy thought.

And then one day, as they were coming back from school, she saw the empty cage in the window, and Mrs. Butler, half distracted, was asking the school-children if any of them had seen her canary-bird. "I don't know what my husband will say when he comes back from the store for his dinner, and he finds it gone," she said. "He sets as much store by that canary as if it was a puppy."

The school-children stood about in an interested group.

"How did it get out?" Peggy asked.