We said we thought not, but she pulled a real silver box out of her pocket and showed us; they were just flat, round chocolates. We had two each. Then we asked her her name, and she began, and when she began she went on, and on, and on, till I thought she was never going to stop. H. O. said she had fifty names, but Dicky is very good at figures, and he says there were only eighteen. The first were Pauline, Alexandra, Alice, and Mary was one, and Victoria, for we all heard that, and it ended up with Hildegarde Cunigonde something or other, Princess of something else.
When she’d done, H. O. said, ‘That’s jolly good! Say it again!’ and she did, but even then we couldn’t remember it. We told her our names, but she thought they were too short, so when it was Noel’s turn he said he was Prince Noel Camaralzaman Ivan Constantine Charlemagne James John Edward Biggs Maximilian Bastable Prince of Lewisham, but when she asked him to say it again of course he could only get the first two names right, because he’d made it up as he went on.
So the Princess said, ‘You are quite old enough to know your own name.’ She was very grave and serious.
She told us that she was the fifth cousin of Queen Victoria. We asked who the other cousins were, but she did not seem to understand. She went on and said she was seven times removed. She couldn’t tell us what that meant either, but Oswald thinks it means that the Queen’s cousins are so fond of her that they will keep coming bothering, so the Queen’s servants have orders to remove them. This little girl must have been very fond of the Queen to try so often to see her, and to have been seven times removed. We could see that it is considered something to be proud of; but we thought it was hard on the Queen that her cousins wouldn’t let her alone.
Presently the little girl asked us where our maids and governesses were.
We told her we hadn’t any just now. And she said—
‘How pleasant! And did you come here alone?’
‘Yes,’ said Dora; ‘we came across the Heath.’
‘You are very fortunate,’ said the little girl. She sat very upright on the grass, with her fat little hands in her lap. ‘I should like to go on the Heath. There are donkeys there, with white saddle covers. I should like to ride them, but my governess will not permit.’
‘I’m glad we haven’t a governess,’ H. O. said. ‘We ride the donkeys whenever we have any pennies, and once I gave the man another penny to make it gallop.’