Peterkin sat up still straighter and looked at me, evidently waiting for my opinion about it all. I was really very interested, but I wanted first to hear all he had in his head, so I did not at once answer.
'Isn't it very queer?' he said at last.
'What do you think about it?' I asked.
He drew a little nearer me and spoke in a lower voice, though there was no possibility of any one ever hearing what he said.
'P'raps,' he began, 'it isn't only a parrot, or p'raps some fairy makes it say these things. The little girl might be shut up, you see, like the princess in the tower, by some bad fairy, and there might be a good one who wanted to help her to get out. I wonder if they ever do invite fairies to christenings now, and forget some of them,' he went on, knitting his brows, 'or not ask them, because they are bad fairies? I can't remember about Elf's christening feast; can you, Gilley?'
'I can remember hers, and yours too, for that matter,' I replied. 'You forget how much older I am. But of course it's not like that now. There are no fairies to invite, as I've often told you, Pete. At least,' for, in spite of my love of teasing, I never liked to see the look of distress that came over his chubby face when any one talked that sort of common sense to him, 'at least, people have got out of the way of seeing them or getting into fairy-land.'
'But we might find it again,' said Peterkin, brightening up.
And I didn't like to disappoint him by saying I could not see much chance of it.
Then another idea struck me.
'How about Mrs. Wylie?' I said. 'Didn't she explain it at all? You told her what you had heard, didn't you? Yes, of course, she heard some of it herself, when we were all three standing at the door of her house.'