“I say, where am I?” Hugh asked again. He must have sounded pathetic, in spite of himself.
“You’re here,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Hugh,” he said. “But, I say, where’s here? I’ve never seen that house before. My father’s got the biggest house round here, Langton Weaver. My father’s Lord of the Manor, and when he’s dead I’m Lord of the Manor.”
“Oo!” she said, staring.
Hugh said he felt frightfully let down. Any other kid would have exalted the merits of her own house, but she just swallowed everything and stared at you. Hugh said he felt as though he had been boasting.
“Our house doesn’t look so jolly clean as this,” he said. “Rather live here, any day.”
And he suddenly realised he was speaking the truth. That was the amazing part of it, Hugh said: suddenly to feel that he would much rather live here than in his father’s house. With this kid. And from that moment, somehow, he forgot every particle of his surprise at being in that garden.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Not got a name,” the kid said. “No name.” All legs and eyes, that’s what she was.
“But you must have a name!” Hugh cried. “Everyone’s got names, even dogs and cats. We’ve got seven dogs and they’re all called after every day in the week except one because you can’t call a dog Sunday, father says.”