Chapter IV: The White Stones

“Martin will put on your hat and jacket, Peggy, and you will come out for a nice drive with me at three o’clock,” said Aunt Euphemia at lunch. This seemed a pleasant thing to do, but Peggy did not look pleased. She sat quite still and made no answer.

“Don’t you wish to come?” asked Aunt Euphemia at last.

“No,” said truthful Peggy. The fact was, she had found such a delightful new game that she wanted to go on playing it all the rest of her life.

“What would you do if you stayed at home?” asked Aunt Euphemia.

Peggy would not say. It spoils a game so much to explain it to other people.

“I’d just like to stay and play in the garden,” she said.

Aunt Euphemia was not at all pleased. She thought it was because Peggy did not love her that she refused to go out with her.

“Very well,” she said; “of course, I do not wish to take a little girl with me who does not care for me.”

Peggy felt sorry, but she couldn’t explain; it would have spoilt everything, you know. She stood on the steps and watched Aunt Euphemia drive away, and then she clapped her hands, and danced off into the garden. A flight of old stone steps led down from one part of the garden to another; beside the steps there was a rockery, and Peggy had found among the stones a lot of lumps of soft white chalk.

She could make her fingers as white as snow by gently rubbing the chalk over them, but the nicest thing to do with it was to pound it down into a lovely soft powder with another stone. Peggy sat on the lowest step of the stone stair and pounded the chalk on the step above her. It was delightful to do. Among the powder she found here and there a little white stone. She called them pearls, and decided to make a collection of them, so that she might string them into a necklace. It was not every lump of chalk that had a white stone in it, however, as she soon found out. But this only made it more exciting. The time slipped away so fast at this game that Peggy couldn’t believe that it really was the tea-bell she heard. “Why, auntie must have come home,” she thought, “and I must go in for tea now; but I can come out and hunt for pearls again after tea.” She gathered up her little white stones in her hand, and went slowly into the house counting them over in her palm.

“Peggy!” cried Aunt Euphemia.

Peggy had walked into the drawing-room, still counting the treasures.

“Yes, auntie,” she replied. “Oh, do look at my pearls!”

“I’ll look first at your dress, Peggy. What have you been doing to it? I never saw a child like you for getting into mischief. Ring the bell, and come here and tell me how you have destroyed your frock.”

Peggy looked down. The front of her blue serge frock was covered all over with chalk. She seemed to have rubbed it into the stuff in the strangest way. She was as white as a miller.

“O auntie, I’m sorry! It’s the chalk,” Peggy cried.

“What chalk? Where did you get chalk, and how did you smear it over yourself in this way?” asked Aunt Euphemia.

“I was finding pearls—such lovely pearls. I am going to make a necklace of them; see!” said Peggy, holding them out to her aunt to be admired.

“Just bits of stone. What nonsense! Throw them out of the window,” said Aunt Euphemia. She was much displeased.

Peggy was very obedient. It did not occur to her to refuse to throw the pearls away. She walked across to the open window, and flung them out with scarcely any hesitation; but, oh dear, what it cost her! Such a sore lump came into her throat, and she kept swallowing it down so hard. Then Martin came in, looking very cross, and carrying a large cloth-brush, and she was taken to the front door and brushed, and brushed, to get the chalk away.

“You’ll please not to play _that_ game again,” said Martin crossly. “It’s a queer thing you can’t be alone half an hour without getting into mischief.”

Peggy made no answer. Her throat was too sore with trying not to cry. For nothing else seemed as if it would give her any pleasure again if she wasn’t allowed to pound chalk and find pearls.