Sarah started up, Peggy feebly clinging to her.
"Oh dear, dear," said Sarah, "I shouldn"t have gone to sleep, and it"s got that cold!" She was shivering herself, but Peggy seemed much the worse of the two. She was white and pinched looking, and as if she were half stupefied.
"I"m so cold," she said, "and so hungry. I thought I was in bed at home.
I do so want to go home. I"m sure it"s very late, Light Smiley; do take me home."
"I"m sure, missy, it"s what I want to do," said poor Sarah. "I"m afeared it"s a-going to rain, and whatever "ull we do then? You wouldn"t wait "ere a minute, would you, while I run to see if there"s a road near?"
"No, no," said Peggy, "I won"t stay alone. I"m very, very frightened, Light Smiley, and I think I"m going to die."
"Oh Lor", missy, don"t you say that," said Sarah, in terror. "If you can"t walk I"ll carry you."
"I"ll try to walk," said Peggy, picking up some spirit when she saw Sarah"s white face.
And then the two set off again, dazed and miserable, very different from the bright little pair that had started up Fernley Road that morning.
Things, however, having got to the worst, began to mend, or at least were beginning to mend for them, though Peggy and Sarah did not just yet know it. Not far from the edge of the field where they were, a little bridle-path led into a lane, and a few yards down this lane brought them out upon Fernley Road again at last.
"I see the mountings," cried Peggy, "oh, Light Smiley, Peggy sees the mountings. P"raps we won"t die, oh p"raps we"ll get home safe again."
But though she had been trying to be brave, now that she began to hope again, it was too much for her poor little nerves--Peggy burst into loud sobbing.
"Oh, dear missy, try not to cry," said Sarah. "There--there--where"s your hankercher?" and she dived into Peggy"s pocket in search of it. And as she pulled it out, out tumbled at the same time the two little scarlet shoes, falling on the ground.
"Oh Light Smiley, my red shoes. They"ll be all spoilt and dirtied," said Peggy, as well as she could, for Sarah was dabbing the handkerchief all over her face.
Sarah stooped to pick them up; both children were too much engaged to notice the sound of wheels coming quickly along the quiet road. But the sight of a speck of dirt on one of the shoes set Peggy off crying again, and she cried for once pretty loudly. The wheels came nearer, and then stopped, and this made Sarah look round. A pony-carriage driven by a lady had drawn up just beside them. The groom, sitting behind, jumped down, though looking as if he did not know what he was to do.
"What is the matter, little girls?" said the lady.
"It"s, please"m--we"ve lost our road--it"s all along o" me, mum--but I didn"t mean no "arm, only missy"s that wore out"m, and----" but before Sarah could get farther, she was stopped by a sort of cry from both the lady and Peggy at once.
"Oh, oh," called out Peggy, "it"s the shoes-lady--oh, pelease, pelease, take me home," and she seemed ready to dart into the lady"s arms.
"I do believe," _she_ said, "I do believe it"s the little girl I saw at the bootmaker"s, and--yes, of course it is--there are the shoes themselves! My dear child, whatever are you doing to be so far from home--at least I suppose you live in the town?--and what have you got the dolly"s shoes with you for?"
"I brought them for them to see the mountings and the white cottage,"
sobbed Peggy; "but I"m so cold and hungry, pelease take me home, oh, pelease, do."
The lady seemed rather troubled. Even if she had not remembered Peggy, she would have seen in a moment that she was a little lady, though Peggy looked miserable enough with her torn clothes, and scratched and tear-stained face.
"Poor child," she said, "tell me your name, and where you live."
"I"m Peggy, but I don"t "amember my nother name, "cos I"m tired and it"s very long," she said.
The lady looked at Sarah. Sarah shook her head.
"No, mum, I don"t know it neither, but I knows the name of the street.
"Tis Bernard Street"m--off Fernley Road, and their back winders looks over to us. We"re Simpkinses"m, and missy"s mar knows as we"re "speckable, and mother she never thought when she told me to take back the humberellar, as I"d lead missy sich a dance. I"ll never do for the nussery, no never. I"m not steady enough," and here Light Smiley gave signs of crying herself.
It was not easy for the lady to make out the story, but by degrees, with patience she did so. But while talking she had lifted Peggy into the carriage beside her, and wrapped her up in a shawl that lay on the seat, Peggy nestling in, quite contentedly.
"Now," said the lady, "you get in too, Sarah Simpkins, and I"ll drive you both home. I was on my way home out into the country, but I can"t leave you here on the road. This is Fernley Road, but it"s quite four miles from the town."
In scrambled Sarah, divided between fear of her own and Peggy"s relations" scoldings when they got home, and the delight and honour of driving in a carriage! The groom would have liked to look grumpy, I am quite sure, but he dared not. Peggy, for her part, crept closer and closer to the lady, and ended by falling asleep again, so that it was a good thing Light Smiley was sitting on the other side, to keep her from falling out.
The four miles seemed very short to Sarah, and as they got into the outskirts of the town her face grew longer and longer.
"I"m more"n half a mind to run away, I "ave," she said to herself, quite unaware she was speaking aloud. "It"ll be more"n I can stand, mother and Rebecca and all on "em down on me, for I didn"t mean no "arm. I"d best run away."
The lady turned to her, hitherto she had not taken much notice of Sarah, but now she felt sorry for the little girl.
"What are you saying, my dear?" she said gently, though all the same her voice made Sarah jump. "Are you afraid of going home? You have not done anything naughty, exactly, as far as I understand. It was only thoughtless. I will go with you to your home if you like, and explain to your mother how it was."
"Oh thank you, mum," said Sarah, eagerly, her spirits rising again at once; "you see, mum, I do so want to be in the nussery onst I"m big enough, and I was so afeared mother"d never think of it again. I only wanted to please little missy, for she seemed so lonely like, her mar and all bein" away and no one for to take her a walk. She"s a sweet little missy, she is, but she"s only a baby, so to say; she do have such funny fancies. "Twas all to see the cottage on the "ills she wanted to come up Fernley Road so badly."
"The cottage--what cottage?" asked the lady.
Sarah tried to explain, and gradually the lady got to understand what little Peggy had meant about bringing the red shoes "to see the mountings and the cottage."
"She"s always a-talking of the country, and father lived there when he was a boy, and missy had got it in her "ead that he lived in a white cottage, like the one she fancies about," Sarah went on.
"I would like to take her out into the real country, poor little pet,"
said the lady, looking tenderly at the sweet tiny face of the sleeping child. She loved all children, but little girls of Peggy"s age were especially dear to her, for many years before she had had a younger sister who had died, and the thought of her had come into her mind the first time she had seen Peggy at the door of the shoe shop. "If I can see any of her friends I will ask them to let her spend a day with me,"
she went on, speaking more to herself than to Sarah.
As they turned into Bernard Street a cab dashed past them coming very fast from the opposite direction. It drew up in front of the house which Sarah was just that moment pointing out to the lady as Peggy"s home, and a gentleman, followed by a young woman, sprang out. The door was opened almost as soon as they rang, and then the three, the other servant who had answered the bell, the young woman and the gentleman, all stood together on the steps talking so anxiously and eagerly that for a moment or two they did not notice the pony-carriage, and though the groom knew the whole story by this time and had jumped down at once, he was far too proper to do anything till he had his lady"s orders.
"Ask the gentleman to speak to me," said the lady, "and you jump out, little Sarah. I think he must be Peggy"s father."
He had turned round by this time and came hurrying forward. The moment the lady saw him she knew she had guessed right. He was so like Peggy--fair and gray-eyed, and with the same gentle expression, and very young looking to be the father not only of Peggy, but of _big_ little boys like Thor and Terry. His face looked pale and anxious, but the moment he caught sight of the little sleeping figure leaning against the lady it all lighted up and a red flush came into his cheeks.
"Oh--thank G.o.d," he exclaimed, "my little Peggy! You have found her! How good of you! But--she is not hurt?--she is all right?"
"Yes--yes--only cold and hungry and tired," said the lady eagerly, for Peggy did look rather miserable still. "Will you lift her out?" and as he did so, she got out herself, and turned to Sarah. "May I bring this other child in for a moment," she said, "and then I can explain it all?"
Sarah followed gladly, but a sudden thought struck her, "Please"m," she said, bravely, though the tears came to her eyes as she spoke, "p"raps I"d best run "ome; mother"ll be frightened about me."
"But I promised you should not be scolded," said the lady; "stay," and she turned to f.a.n.n.y, "she lives close to, she says."
"At the back--over the cobbler"s," said Sarah, readily.
"Can you let her mother know she"s all right, then? And say I am coming to speak to her in a moment," said the lady, and f.a.n.n.y went off. She had been so terrified about Peggy, and so afraid that she would be blamed for carelessness, that she dared not wait, though she was dying with curiosity to know the whole story and what one of the Simpkins children could have had to do with it.
Peggy awoke by the time her father had got her into the dining-room, where cook had made a good fire and laid out Peggy"s dinner and tea in one to be all ready, for the poor woman had been hoping every instant for the last few hours that the little girl would be brought home again.
It had been difficult to find Peggy"s father, as he was not at his office, and f.a.n.n.y had been there two or three times to fetch him.
"Oh dear papa," were Peggy"s first words, "I"m so glad to be home. I"ll never go up Fernley Road again; but I did so want to see the cottage and the mountings plainer. And it wasn"t Light Smiley"s fault. She was very good to me, and I was very cross."