Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Mamma began to laugh.

"You little goose," she said. But Peggy didn't see anything to laugh at in what she had said, and her face remained quite sober.

"I don't understand you, mamma dear," she said. "Well, listen then; didn't Hal buy a pair of new boots for himself to-day?" mamma began.

"No, mamma dear. Nurse buyed them for he," Peggy replied.

"Or rather I bought them, for it was my money nurse paid for them with, if you are so very precise, Miss Peggy. But never mind about that. All I want you to understand is the difference between 'big' and 'old.' Hal's boots are much bigger than these tiny things, but they are not on that account older."

Peggy began to laugh.

"No, mamma dear. P'raps Hallie's boots is younger than my sweet little red shoes, for they has been a great long while in the shop window, and Baldwin and Terry sawed them when they was little."

"Not younger,' Peggy dear; 'newer,' you mean. Boots aren't alive. You only speak of live things as 'young.'

[ocr errors]

Peggy sighed.

"It is rather difficult to understand, mamma dear."

"It will all come by degrees," said mamma. "When I was a little girl I know I thought for a long time that the moon was the mamma of the stars, because she looked so much bigger.”

I

"I think that's very nice, mamma, though, of course, I understand it's only a fancy fancy. haven't seen the moon for a long time, mamma. May I ask nurse to wake me up the next time the moon comes?"

"You needn't wait till dark to see the moon," said mamma. She can often be seen by daylight, though, of course, she doesn't look so pretty then, as in the dark sky which shows her off better. But, of course, the sky here is so often dull with the smoke of the town that we can't see her as clearly in the daytime as where the air is purer.”

[ocr errors]

Like in the country, mamma," said Peggy. "It's always clear in the country, isn't it?"

"Not quite always," said mamma, smiling. "But, Peggy dear, speaking of the country

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

'Oh yes!" Peggy interrupted, "I want to tell you, mamma, what a silly thing Hallie would say

about going to the country;" and she told her mother all that Hal had said about his boots, and indeed what nurse had said too; "and nursie was just a weeay, teeny bit cross to me, mamma dear," said Peggy, plaintively. She wouldn't say she'd mistooked about it."

[ocr errors]

Mamma looked rather grave, and instead of saying at once that of course nurse had only meant that Hal's boots should last till the summer, she took Peggy on her knee and kissed her-kissed her in rather a "funny" way, thought Peggy, so that she looked up and said—

"Mamma dear, why do you kiss me like that?" Instead of answering, mamma kissed her again, which almost made Peggy laugh.

But mamma was not laughing.

"My own little Peggy," she said, "I have something to tell you which I am afraid will make you unhappy. It is making me very unhappy, I know."

"Poor dear little mamma," said Peggy, and as she spoke she put up her little hand and stroked her mother's face. "Don't be unhappy if it isn't anything very bad. dear."

Tell Peggy about it, mamma

CHAPTER VI

FELLOW-FEELINGS AND SLIPPERS

"If I'd as much money as I could tell
I never would cry 'old clothes to sell '!"
London Cries.

MAMMA hesitated a moment. Then she began.

"You know, Peggy, my pet," she said, "for a good while now I haven't been as strong and well as I used to be

[ocr errors]

"Stop, mamma, stop," said Peggy, with a sort of cry, and as she spoke she threw up her hands and pressed them hard against her ears; "I know what you're going to say, but I can't bear it, no, I can't. Oh mamma, you're not to say you're going to die."

For all answer mamma caught Peggy into her arms and kissed her again and again. For a minute. or two it seemed as if she could not speak, but at last she got her voice. And then, rather to Peggy's

G

surprise, she saw that although there were tears in mamma's eyes, and even one or two trickling down her face, she was smiling too.

"My darling Peggy," she said, “did I frighten you? I am so, so sorry. Oh no, darling, it is nothing like that. Please God I shall live to see my Peggy as old as I am now, and older, I hope. No, no, dear, it is nothing so very sad I was going to tell you. It is only that the doctor says the best way for me to get quite well and strong again is to go away for a while to have change of air as it is called, in some nice country place."

"In the country," said Peggy, her eyes brightening with pleasure. "Oh, how nice! will it perhaps be that country where my cottage is? Oh, dear mamma, how lovely! And when are we to go? May we begin packing to-day? And how could you think it would make me unhappy- she went on, suddenly remembering what her mother had said at first.

[ocr errors]

Mamma's face did not brighten up at all.

"Peggy dear, it is very hard for me to tell you," she said. "Of course, if we had all been going together it would have been only happy. But that's just the thing. I can't take you with me, my sweet. Baby must go, because nurse must, and Hallie too.

« AnteriorContinuar »