the ground
floor; the window there was a little bit open already, to air the room
perhaps.

We would have liked to go close up to the small balcony where she stood,
but we dared not, for fear of the nurse coming. And the garden was very
tiny, we were only two or three yards from the little girl, even outside
on the pavement.

She looked at us first, looked us well over, before she began to speak
again. Then she said--

'Have you been to see the parrot already?'

'Oh yes,' said Peterkin, in his very politest tone, 'oh yes, thank you.'
I did not quite see why he said 'thank you.' I suppose he meant it in
return for her coming downstairs. 'I've been here two, no, three times,
and Giles,' he gave a sort of nod towards me, 'has been here two.'

'Is your name Giles?' she asked me. She had a funny, little, rather
condescending manner of speaking to us, but I didn't mind it somehow.

'Yes,' I replied, 'and his,' and I touched Pete, 'is "Peterkin."'

'They are queer names; don't you think so? At least,' she added quickly,
as if she was afraid she had said something rude, 'they are very
uncommon. "Giles" and "Perkin."'

'Not "Perkin,"' I said, "Peterkin."'

'Oh, I thought it was like a man in my history,' she said, 'Perkin
War--something.'

'No,' said Peterkin, 'it isn't in history, but it's in poetry. About a
battle. I've got it in a book.'

'I should like to see it,' she said. 'There's lots of _my_ name in
history. My name is Margaret. There are queens and princesses called
Margaret.'

Pete opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but shut it up again.
I know what he had been on the point of saying,--'Are you a princess?'
'a shut-up princess?' he would have added very likely, but I suppose he
was sensible enough to see that if she had been 'shut-up,' in the way he
had been fancying to himself, she would scarcely have been able to come
downstairs and talk to us as she was doing. And she was not dressed like
the princesses in his stories, who had always gold crowns on and long
shiny trains. Still, though she had only a pinafore on, I could see that
it was rather a grand one, lots of lace about it, like one of Elf's very
best, and though her hair was short and her face small and pale, there
was something about her--the way she stood and the way she spoke--which
was different from many little girls of her age.

Peterkin took advantage very cleverly of what she had said about his
name.

'I'll bring you my po