with
a funny sort of twinkle in her eyes--

'There will be a great deal to tell the parrot. And I don't expect that
he will feel quite happy in his mind about you, little Margaret, till he
has seen you again. He will miss you sadly, I am afraid.'

And at this, Margaret brightened up.

'Yes,' she said, 'I _must_ come to see dear Poll. But I may talk to him
from your side of the balcony, mayn't I, Mrs. Wylie?'

'Certainly,' said the kind old lady, 'and you must introduce your new
friends to him. Mrs. Lesley's little girls, I mean.'

Margaret liked the idea of this, I could see. She is not at all shy, and
she still is very fond of planning, or managing things, and people too,
for that matter, though of course she is much more sensible now, and not
so impatient and self-willed as she used to be. Still, on the whole, she
gets on better with Peterkin than with any of us, though she is fond of
us, I know, and so are we of her. But Peterkin is just a sort of slave
to her, and does everything she asks, and I expect it will always be
like that.

What a different journey it was that day to the miserable one the day
before! To _me_, at least; for though I wasn't feeling particularly
happy, as I will explain, in some ways, the horrible responsibility
about the others had gone. _They_ were as jolly as could be, but then I
knew they hadn't felt half as bad as I had done. They sat in a corner,
whispering, and I overheard that they were making plans for all sorts of
things they would do while Margaret stayed with us. And Pete was telling
her all about Blanche and Elf, especially about Elf, and about the lots
of fairy story-books he had got, and how they three would act some of
them together, till Margaret got quite pink with pleasure.

I saw mamma looking at me now and then, as if she was wondering what I
was thinking about. I _was_ thinking a good deal. There were some things
I couldn't yet quite understand about it all--why there should have been
a sort of mystery, and why Mrs. Wylie had pinched up her lips when we
had asked her about Margaret the day we went to tea with her. And
besides this, I was feeling, in a kind of a way, rather ashamed of being
taken home like a baby, even though mamma--and all of them, I must
say--had been so very good, not to make a regular row and fuss, after
the fright we had given them, or had _nearly_ given them.

But I didn't say anything more to mamma just then. For one thing, I saw
that she wa