`` That 'll soon fix your shivers , '' said our hostess kindly . `` And now I 'll get yez all some tea . '' `` Oh , please do n't trouble , '' said the Story Girl hastily . '' ` Tai n't any trouble , '' said Peg briskly ; then , with one of the sudden changes to fierceness which made her such a terrifying personage , `` Do yez think my vittels ai n't clean ? '' `` Oh , no , no , '' cried Felicity quickly , before the Story Girl could speak , `` none of us would ever think THAT . Sara only meant she did n't want you to go to any bother on our account . '' `` It ai n't any bother , '' said Peg , mollified . `` I 'm spry as a cricket this winter , though I have the realagy sometimes . Many a good bite I 've had in your ma 's kitchen . I owe yez a meal . '' No more protests were made . We sat in awed silence , gazing with timid curiosity about the room , the stained , plastered walls of which were well-nigh covered with a motley assortment of pictures , chromos , and advertisements , pasted on without much regard for order or character . We had heard much of Peg 's pets and now we saw them . Six cats occupied various cosy corners ; one of them , the black goblin which had so terrified us in the summer , blinked satirically at us from the centre of Peg 's bed . Another , a dilapidated , striped beastie , with both ears and one eye gone , glared at us from the sofa in the corner . A dog , with only three legs , lay behind the stove ; a crow sat on a roost above our heads , in company with a matronly old hen ; and on the clock shelf were a stuffed monkey and a grinning skull . We had heard that a sailor had given Peg the monkey . But where had she got the skull ? And whose was it ? I could not help puzzling over these gruesome questions .
Presently tea was ready and we gathered around the festal board -- a board literally as well as figuratively , for XXXXX 's table was the work of her own unskilled hands .
Peg Sara Tai beastie chromos goblin realagy shivers vittels yez