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"You like that view, don't you, dear?" said the lady. "You can see the hills?"
"Yes," said Peggy, "I can see the mountings, but not the white cottage. It's got turned wrong somehow, from here. I can only see _it_ from the nursery window at home," and she gave a very little sigh.
"Some day," said the lady, "some day in the summer when the afternoons are very long, I will drive you right out a long way among the hills, and perhaps we'll find the cottage then. For I hope your mamma will often let you come to see me, my little Peggy."
"Yes," said Peggy, "that would be lovely. I _wonder_ if we'd find the white cottage."
No, they never did! The sweet long summer days came, and many a bright and happy one Peggy spent with her kind friend, but they never found the white cottage on the hill. Peggy knew it so well in her mind, she felt she could not mistake it, but though she saw many white cottages which any one else _might_ have thought was it, she knew better. And each time, though she sighed a little, she hoped again.
But before another summer came round Peggy and her father and mother, and Thor, and Terry, and Hal, and Baldwin, and Baby had all gone away--far away to the south, many hours' journey from the dingy town and the Fernley Road, and the queer old house in the back street where lived the cobbler and old Mother Whelan and Brown Smiley and Light Smiley and all the rest of them. Far away too from the hills and the strange white speck in the distance which Peggy called her cottage.
So it never was more than a dream to her after all, and perhaps--perhaps it was best so? For nothing has ever spoilt the sweetness and the mystery of the childish fancy--she can see it with her mind's eye still--the soft white speck on the far-away, blue hills--she can see it and think of it and make fancies about it even now--now that she has climbed a long, long way up the mountain of life, and will soon be creeping slowly down the other side, where the sun still shines, however, and there are even more beautiful things to hope for than the sweetest dreams of childhood.
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh._
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Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 16, caption of illustration, "accomodate" changed to "accommodate" (to accommodate the whole)
Page 47, word "a" added to text (it a waste of time)
Page 101, the text mentions a "Ferndale Road". There are many references elsewhere to "Fernley Road" so this might be a misprint. It was retained.