Part 15 (1/2)

”Cats and dogs, Miss Earnshaw?” she repeated.

”Oh, bless you, my dear, it's only a way of speaking,” said the dressmaker, a little impatiently, for she was not very much accustomed to children. ”It just means raining _very_ hard.”

Peggy went to the window to look out for herself. Yes indeed it was raining very hard. The little girl could not help sighing a little as she gazed at the thick even gray of the clouds, hiding like a curtain every trace of the distant hills she was so fond of.

”I won't put out the little red shoes to-day,” she said to herself, ”there's nothing for them to see.”

Then other thoughts crept into her mind.

”I wonder if it's raining at the white cottage too,” she said to herself. And aloud she asked a question.

”Miss Earnshaw, pelease, does it ever rain in the country?” she said.

”Rain in the country! I should rather think it did. Worse than in town, you might say--that's to say, where there's less shelter, you'll get wetter and dirtier in the country, only of course it's not the same kind of really black sooty rain. But as for mud in country lanes! I shall see something of it this afternoon, I expect.”

”Oh, I'm so sorry,” said Peggy. ”I thought it never rained in the country. I thought it was always quite pretty and lovely,” and she sighed deeply. ”I wonder what people who live in little cottages in the country do all day when it rains,” she said.

”Why, my dear, much the same as other folk, I should say. They have their rooms to clean, and their dinner to cook, and their children to look after. Still I daresay it'd be a bit drearier in the country of a right-down wet day like this, even than in town. I've never lived there myself, except for a week at a time at most, but mother was all her young days in the country.”

”Everybody's fathers and mothers lived there,” said Peggy, rather petulantly. ”Why don't peoples let their children live there now?”

Miss Earnshaw laughed a little. Peggy did not like her to laugh in that way, and she gave herself a little wriggle, though poor Miss Earnshaw certainly did not mean to vex her.

”There are plenty of children in the country too, Miss Peggy,” she said.

”Mother's youngest sister has twelve.”

”Twelve,” repeated Peggy, ”_how_ nice! at least if there's lots of sisters among them, and no very little babies. Do they live over in that country?” she went on, pointing in the direction of the invisible hills, ”that country called Brack---- You know the name.”

”Brackens.h.i.+re,” said Miss Earnshaw, ”no, my mother comes from much farther off. A very pretty place it must be by what she says. Not but what Brackens.h.i.+re's a pretty country too. I've been there several times with the Sunday school for a treat.”

”And did you see the hills and the white cottages?” asked Peggy breathlessly.

”Oh yes, the hills are beautiful, and there's lots of cottages of all kinds. They look pretty among the trees, even though they're only poor little places, most of them.”

”The white ones is the prettiest,” said Peggy, as if she knew all about it.

”Yes, I daresay,” said Miss Earnshaw, without paying much attention; she had got to rather a difficult part of the sleeve she was making.

”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.