“I’m ready whenever you are,” said a voice behind her.
Peggy turned round quickly, and then nearly jumped out of her skin with astonishment.
For behind her, on the other side of the table, stood a Giant!
Peggy knew in a moment that he was a real Giant, because he was the living image of the one on page 375 of the Blue Fairy Book, but instead of looking cross like that one does, he had a nice wide smile, and the kindest round twinkly blue eyes Peggy had ever seen. He was dressed all in brown, with bright scarlet stockings, his hair was thick and long, and so was his beard, and the nursery was so much too low for him that he had to bend nearly double, his great shoulders sending a cloud of plaster off the ceiling every time he moved. In one huge hand he held a cup of very black-looking tea, and in the other a bit of birthday cake with sugar on it and almond paste and little silver beads.
“You are a tall kind!” gasped Peggy, staring up at him. “I—I don’t think Nannie will be at all pleased!” and she glanced fearfully through the half-open door into the night-nursery.
“I know, that’s why I spoke,” said the Giant, sitting down on the floor and stretching himself—one foot went right out of the window in the process, and the other up the chimney, but he looked much more comfortable. The cup of tea and the cake he put carefully down by his side. “You rubbed the ring and wished, you know. How do you like your dress?”
Peggy looked down at herself and discovered she was wearing a striped white and yellow silk gown falling in heavy folds to the ground, and very high-waisted. On her arm was hanging, by its ribbon, a large white poke-bonnet, wreathed entirely around with a curling yellow feather.
“What are these things?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Why, you wished to be grown up, didn’t you?” said the Giant. “And you are. Or, at least, that’s the best I can do for you. But I’m a bit out of practice I know,” and he gazed with a rather disheartened air at the bonnet.
“I don’t know what Nannie will say,” said Peggy uneasily. (She hadn’t the heart to tell the Giant that he hadn’t made her in the least the kind of grown-up she wanted to be.) “She never likes me dressing up!”