Of course, I ran downstairs to see her out, and Pete followed more slowly, just behind her. She had a very nice, rather stately way about her, though she was so small and thin, and it never suited Pete to hurry in those days, either up or down stairs; his legs were so short.
We were very eager for Saturday to come, and we talked a lot about it. I had a kind of idea that Mrs. Wylie had said something about the little girl to mamma, though mamma said nothing at all to us, except that we must behave very nicely and carefully at Rock Terrace, and not forget that, though she was so kind, Mrs. Wylie was an old lady, and old ladies were sometimes fussy.
We promised we would be all right, and Peterkin said to me that he didn't believe Mrs. Wylie was at all 'fussy.'
'She is too fairyish,' he said, 'to be like that.'
That was a very 'Peterkin' speech, but I did not snub him for it, as I sometimes did. I was really so interested in all about the parrot and the invisible little girl that I was almost ready to join him in making up fanciful stories—that there was an ogre who wouldn't let her out, or that any one who tried to see her would be turned into a frog, or things like that out of the old fairy-tales.
'But Mrs. Wylie has seen her,' said Peterkin, 'and she hasn't turned into a frog!'
That was a rather tiresome 'way' of his—if I agreed about fairies and began making up, myself, he would get quite common-sensical, and almost make fun of my ones.
'How do you know that she doesn't turn into a frog half the day?' I said. 'That's often the way in enchantments.'
And then we both went off laughing at the idea of a frog jumping down from Mrs. Wylie's drawing-room sofa, and saying, 'How do you do, my dears?' instead of the neat little old lady.
So our squabble didn't come to anything that time.