You girls give me your things and I 'll hang them up . Guess yez are most froze . Well , sit up to the stove and git het up . '' Peg bustled away to gather up a dubious assortment of chairs , with backs and rungs missing , and in a few minutes we were in a circle around her roaring stove , getting dried and thawed out . In our wildest flights of fancy we had never pictured ourselves as guests at the witch 's hearth-stone . Yet here we were ; and the witch herself was actually brewing a jorum of ginger tea for Cecily , who continued to shiver long after the rest of us were roasted to the marrow . Poor Sis drank that scalding draught , being in too great awe of Peg to do aught else . `` 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 XXXXX the summer , blinked satirically at us from the centre of Peg 's bed .
about around as before in of that though to with