on a level with a certain spot on the glass she was able to place his correctly, "just over that little bubble in the window you can see it. Its top goes up above the bubble and then down and then up again, and it never moves like the clouds – does you see now, Hallie dear?"
"Zes, zes," said Hal, "but it's a wenny little 'ill, Peggy."
"No, dear," his sister explained. "It only looks little 'cos it's so far away. You is too little to understand, dear, but it's true that it's a big hill, neely a mounting, Hal. Mamma told me."
"Oh," said Hal, profoundly impressed and quite convinced.
"Mountings is old hills, or big hills," Peggy continued, herself slightly confused. "I don't know if they is the papas and mammas of the little ones, but I think it's something like that, for onst in church I heard the clergymunt read that the little hills jumped for joy, so they must be the children. I'll ask mamma, and then I'll tell you. I'm not quite sure if he meaned the same kind, for these hills never jumps – that's how mamma told me to know they wasn't clouds."
"Zes," said Hal, "but go on about the secret, Peggy. Hal doesn't care about the 'ills."
"But the secret's on the hills," replied Peggy. "Look more, Hal – does you see a teeny, teeny white spot on the bluey hill? Higher up than the bubble, but not at the top quite?"
Hal's eyes were good and his faith was great.
"Zes, zes," he cried. "I does see it – kite plain, Peggy."
"Well, Hallie," Peggy continued, "that's my secret."
"Is it the fairy cottage, and is the little girl zere now?" Hal asked, breathlessly.
Peggy hesitated.
"It is a white cottage," she said. "Mamma told me. She looked at it through a seeing pipe."
"What's a seeing pipe?" Hal interrupted.
"I can't tell you just now. Ask mamma to show you hers some day. It's too difficult to understand, but it makes you see things plain. And mamma found out it was reelly a cottage, a white cottage, all alone up on the hill – isn't it sweet of it to be there all alone, Hallie? And she said I might think it was a fairy cottage and keep it for my own secret, only I've telled you, Hal, and you mustn't tell nobody."
"And is it all like Baby's best sash, and are there cakes and f'owers and cows?" asked Hal.
"I don't know. I made up the story, you know, Hal, to please you. I've made lots – mamma said I might. But I've never see'd the cottage, you know. I daresay it's beautiful, white and gold like the story, that's why I said it. It does so shine when the sun's on it – look, look, Hal!"
For as she spoke the sunshine had broken out again more brilliantly; and the bright, thin sparkle which often dazzles one between the showers in unsettled weather, lighted up that quarter of the sky where the children were gazing, and, to their fancy at least, the white spot caught and reflected the rays.
"Oh zes, I see," Hal repeated. "But, Peggy, I'd like to go zere and to see it. Can't we go, Peggy? It would be so nice, nicer than making up stories. And do you think – oh do you think, Peggy, that p'raps there's pigs zere, real pigs?"
He clasped his hands entreatingly as he spoke. Peggy must say there were pigs. Poor Peggy – it was rather a comedown after her fairy visions. But she was too kind to say anything to vex Hal.
"I thought you said pigs was silly," she objected, gently.
"Playing pigs to make Baby laugh is silly," said Hal, "and pigs going to market and stayin' at 'ome and roast beefin', is d'edful silly. But not real pigs."
"Oh well, then, you may think pigs if you like," said Peggy. "I don't think I will, but that doesn't matter. You may have them in the cottage if you like, only you mustn't tell Thor and Terry and Baldwin about it."
"I won't tell, on'y you might have them too," said Hal discontentedly. "You're not kind, Peggy."
"Don't let's talk about the cottage any more, then," said Peggy, though her own eyes were fixed on the far-off white spot as she spoke. "I think p'raps, Hallie, you're rather too little to care about it."
"I'm not," said Hal, "and I do care. But I do like pigs, real pigs. I sawed zem in the country."
"You can't remember," said Peggy. "It's two whole years since we was in the real country, Hallie, and you're only three and a half. I know it's two years. I heard mamma say so to papa, so you wasn't two then."
"But I did see zem and I do 'amember, 'cos of pictures," said Hal.
"Oh yes, dear, there is pictures of pigs in your scrap-book, I know," Peggy agreed. "You get it now and we'll look for them."
Off trotted Hal, returning in a minute with his book, and for a quarter of an hour or so his patient little sister managed to keep him happy and amused. At the end of that time, however, he began to be cross and discontented again. Peggy did not know what to make of him this morning, he was not often so difficult to please. She was very glad when nurse came in to say it was now his time for his morning sleep, and though Hal grumbled and scolded and said he was not sleepy she carried him off, and Peggy was left in peace.
She was not at a loss to employ herself. At half-past eleven she usually went down to mamma for an hour's lessons, and it must be nearly that time now. She got her books together and sat looking over the one verse she had to learn, her thoughts roving nevertheless in the direction they loved best – away over the chimneys and the smoke; away, away, up, up to the fairy cottage on the distant hill.
CHAPTER III
"THE CHILDREN AT THE BACK"
"It seems to me if I'd money enough, My heart would be made of different stuff; I would think about those whose lot is rough."
These children's home was not in a very pretty place. In front, as I have told you, it looked out on to a rather ugly street, and there were streets and streets beyond that again – streets of straight, stiff, grim-looking houses, some large and some small, but all commonplace and dull. And in and out between these bigger streets were narrower and still uglier ones, scarcely indeed to be called streets, so dark and poky were they, so dark and poky were the poor houses they contained.
The street immediately behind the children's house, that on to which its back windows looked out, was one of these poorer ones, though not by any means one of the most miserable. And ugly though it was, Peggy was very fond of gazing out of the night nursery window on to this street, especially on days when it was "no use," as she called it to herself, looking out at the front; that meant, as I daresay you can guess, days on which it was too dull and cloudy to see the distant hills, and above all the white spot, which had taken such hold on her fancy. For she had found out some very interesting things in that dingy street. Straight across from the night nursery window was a very queer miserable sort of a shop, kept by an old Irishwoman whose name was Mrs. Whelan. It is rather absurd to call it a shop, though it was a place where things were bought and sold, for the room in which these buyings and sellings went on was Mrs. Whelan's kitchen, and bedroom, and sitting-room, and wash-house, as well as her shop! It was on the first floor, and you got up to it by a rickety staircase – more like a ladder indeed than a staircase, and underneath it on the ground-floor lived a cobbler, with whom Mrs. Whelan used to quarrel at least once a day, though as he was a
