This told him where she had been; for, although he remembered nothing about it, he knew he had once possessed a small sister, who lived with him less than two months.
He had, as a rule, very definite notions of death and the grave; but he never thought of her as dead and buried, partly because his mother would never allow him to go with her to the cemetery, and partly because of a picture in a certain book of his, called _Child's Play_.
It represented a little girl wading across a pool among water-lilies.
She wore a white nightdress, kilted above her knees, and a dark cloak, which dragged behind in the water.

She let it trail, while she held up a hand to cover one of her eyes.

Above her were trees and an owl, and a star shining under the topmost branch; and on the opposite page this verse: "I have a little sister, They call her Peep-peep, She wades through the waters, Deep, deep, deep; She climbs up the mountains, High, high, high; This poor little creature She has but one eye." For years Taffy believed that this was his little sister, one-eyed, and always wandering; and that his mother went out in the dusk to persuade her to return; but she never would.
When he woke next morning his mother was in the room; and while he washed and dressed she folded his bed-clothes and carried them down to a waggon which stood by the door, with horses already harnessed.
It drove away soon after.

He found breakfast laid on the window-seat.

A neighbour had lent the crockery, and Taffy was greatly taken with the pattern on the cups and saucers.